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US and EU release details for tariffs on cars, pharmaceuticals

August 21, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The United States and European Union on Thursday released new details of their trade agreement, including tariff levels for consumer staples like pharmaceuticals and autos.

Prior to the agreement last month, the European Union faced the prospect of a 30% tariff rate. Instead, products from one of the largest U.S. trade partners will be slapped with a 15% tariff.

In exchange, the EU will remove tariffs on U.S. goods and European companies will aim to buy hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. products.

“This Framework Agreement will put our trade and investment relationship – one of the largest in the world – on a solid footing and will reinvigorate our economies’ reindustrialization,” the U.S. and EU said in a joint statement on Thursday.

The fresh information about product-specific levies and additional European commitments holds implications for consumers and businesses across a wide swathe of the U.S. economy.

The European Union purchased about $370 billion worth of U.S. products in 2024, while the U.S. bought about $605 billion worth of European goods, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, a government agency. The U.S. conducts a greater amount of annual trade with the EU than any individual country.

Here’s what to know about the U.S.-EU framework agreement released on Thursday:

First off, the accord officially establishes a 15% tariff rate for pharmaceuticals from the EU, a top source of U.S. drug imports. Generic pharmaceuticals will be exempt from the new agreement, meaning such drugs will face a roughly 2.5% tariff rate in place prior to the Trump administration.

The move ruled out the possibility of a higher tariff rate for pharmaceuticals, for which Trump had previously threatened levies as high as 250%. The new tariffs will take effect on Sept. 1, the joint framework said.

Still, price hikes will likely hit pharmaceuticals, Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, previously told ABC News. Pharmaceuticals account for roughly a quarter of U.S. imports from the EU as measured by total value, Miller said.

Semiconductors will also face a 15% U.S. tariff under the terms of the agreement, putting the levy well below a 300% rate previously threatened by Trump. Alcohol products, which went unmentioned in the new framework, also appear set for a 15% tariff rate.

The new agreement also includes a mechanism that would reduce the auto tariffs faced by European carmakers. Under the plan, the U.S. will reduce the tariffs on vehicles and auto parts from 27.5% to 15%, as long as the EU puts forward legislation that will slash its industrial tariffs.

The provision made up a key priority for Brussels. More than one in five European car exports is bound for the U.S., the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said in March. The lowered auto tariff could help ease upward pressure on car prices in the U.S.

In exchange for the tariff relief, the EU said it would remove tariffs on U.S. imports and urge companies to buy hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. goods.

The EU will eliminate tariffs on all U.S. industrial products and provide preferential market access to U.S. producers of seafood and agricultural goods, the joint U.S.-EU statement said.

European companies “intend to procure” $750 billion worth of U.S.-made energy-related goods over three years. Also, the EU “intends to purchase at least” $40 billion worth of U.S.-made artificial intelligence chips for its computing centers, the statement said.

European firms intend to invest an extra $600 billion “across strategic sectors” in the U.S over the three years, the statement said.

The new framework may not be the final say on trade between the two sides. According to the joint statement, the accord amounts to a “first step in a process that can be expanded over time.”

Missing hiker found after going days without food, water in Northern California

August 21, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(PLACER COUNTY, Calif.) — A missing hiker was found safe after getting lost for days in steep terrain in Northern California, according to officials.

Placer County Sheriff’s Office crews searched for the hiker, whose name was not released, for days after he went missing on Monday in the Euchre Bar area, near the North Fork American River.

The man was first reported missing when he sent a text to 911 saying that he was lost and without food or water, according to the sheriff’s office.

Dispatchers were unable to reestablish contact with the man after he texted 911, but authorities said they were able to obtain approximate coordinates of his location.

Deputies found the hiker’s vehicle at the trailhead. Aerial resources including a helicopter and drones were deployed but were unable to get to the hiker through the dense tree canopy, authorities said.

A full search and rescue mission was launched, according to the sheriff’s office, including specialized mountain rescue team members.

More than 50 search and rescue members, including nine K9 teams, were deployed over the next two days. Falcon 30 and additional drone teams assisted with aerial searches during the day, while deputies remained staged at the trailhead overnight.

Dive teams also began sourcing the riverbanks on Wednesday. The hiker was found at around 11 a.m. local time by the dive team along the shore of the river.

“The hiker was tired, hungry, and thirsty – but otherwise okay,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

“We want to send a huge thank you to all the volunteer Search and Rescue team members, including several from allied agencies. They dedicated countless hours over several days to search in extremely challenging terrain. Their commitment and expertise were instrumental in bringing this case to a positive outcome,” the sheriff’s office said.

LA and other parts of the West set to broil in extreme heat wave

August 21, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LOS ANGELES) — A heat wave hitting the West, sending temperatures soaring past the century mark, is expected to persist into the weekend, with the most intense and prolonged heat expected in the Desert Southwest.

Extreme heat warnings are in effect for wide swaths of the Desert Southwest, extending into Southern California, where the temperature in Palm Springs is forecast to reach 105 on Thursday.

The temperature in Phoenix is expected to climb to 113 degrees on Thursday afternoon, threatening a daily record of 114, and making Arizona’s capital city one of the hottest cities in the Southwest.

The hot spell is expected to continue in Phoenix and Tucson, as triple-digit weather extends through the weekend.

Residents of Las Vegas will also be sweltering during the heat wave. The temperature in Vegas is expected to hit 111 on Thursday and on Friday.

California’s San Joaquin Valley will be baking in 100-degree weather from Bakersfield and Fresno to Sacramento, where the temperature is expected to reach up to 107 on Thursday.

Los Angeles is forecast to reach 96 degrees on Thursday and Friday, and drop only to 95 on Saturday, challenging daily record highs.

The extreme heat in Southern California is also fueling elevated fire weather concerns. Red flag warnings are in place through Saturday for parts of northern Los Angeles County and Ventura County, where extreme heat combined with low humidity and breezy conditions could cause the rapid spread of any fires that ignite. Isolated thunderstorms will also be possible on Friday through the weekend, with any lightning strikes being capable of starting new fires.

Click here for tips to stay safe in the heat.

Texas, California legislatures gear up for major redistricting face off

August 21, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Texas Republicans are triumphant Thursday morning after a success in their efforts to redraw the state’s congressional maps – but California Democrats are set to make their move, in a redistricting battle that has become a proxy war between President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

After a long day of debate on Wednesday, the Texas House of Representatives passed a bill with new congressional maps that could flip five congressional districts red by making them more favorable for Republicans.

Democrats, who had fled the state to deny a quorum in the legislature for weeks, now say they are ready to take on the maps in court.

“Big WIN for the Great State of Texas!!! Everything Passed, on our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself. Texas never lets us down,” Trump, who pushed Texas to redraw maps, wrote on his social media platform late Wednesday.

The state Senate is set to consider the maps bill on Thursday, and the bill is likely on a glide path to the desk of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

“While Democrats shirked their duty, in futility, and ran away to other states, Republicans stayed the course, stayed at work and stayed true to Texas. I will sign this bill once it passes the Senate and gets to my desk,” Abbott wrote on Wednesday.

In California, both bodies of the state legislature meet on Thursday and are set to take on and potentially pass legislation that would put new maps on the ballot in a November special election.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been pushing the initiative and says new maps in California would only take effect if other states redraw lines, wrote on X late Wednesday, “Congratulations to @GregAbbott_TX — you will now go down in history as one of Donald Trump’s most loyal lapdogs. Shredding our nation’s founding principles. What a legacy.”

And in another post, he simply wrote, “It’s on, Texas.”

Former President Barack Obama weighed in on the situation Tuesday evening, backing Newsom.

“Given that Texas is taking direction from a partisan White House that is effectively saying: gerrymander for partisan purposes so we can maintain the House despite our unpopular policies, redistrict right in the middle of a decade between censuses – which is not how the system was designed; I have tremendous respect for how Governor Newsom has approached this,” Obama said at a fundraiser in Martha’s Vinyard.

“Because what he has said is, I would prefer not to do it. If we were to redraw our maps, we could obviously gain more Democratic seats. That is not my preference, but we cannot unilaterally allow one of the two major parties to rig the game. And California is one of the states that has the capacity to offset a large state like Texas,” he added.

Trump, on his own platform, criticized Newsom early Thursday, claiming the governor was “way down in the polls.”

“He is viewed as the man who is destroying the once Great State of California,” the president posted.

Republican legislators in California have said the endeavor to get new maps on the ballot is overly costly and subverts the will of the voters in California, who they say support independent redistricting.

Appeals court throws out Trump’s $454 million civil fraud judgment

August 21, 2025 by WDNY Radio

Appeals court throws out Trump’s 4 million civil fraud judgment

Appeals court throws out Trump’s $454 million civil fraud judgment — U.S. President Donald Trump. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — A New York appeals court has thrown out a half billion dollar civil fraud judgment against President Donald Trump, his family and his company.

A judge ruled last year that they repeatedly inflated Trump’s net worth to secure better loan terms over a decade of business dealings.

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

4 giraffe species officially recognized in major conservation shift

August 21, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — Giraffes, long considered a single species, have now been recognized as four genetically distinct species in a major decision by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that scientists say could reshape conservation efforts across Africa.

The announcement comes after more than a decade of research by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) and Germany’s Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre where scientists found that the genetic differences between the four species — Masai, northern, reticulated, and southern — are as significant as those between brown bears and polar bears.

“This recognition is more than academic,” said Dr. Julian Fennessy, GCF’s Director of Conservation. “Each giraffe species faces different threats, and now we can tailor conservation strategies to meet their specific needs.”

The most at-risk is the northern giraffe, with fewer than 6,000 individuals left in the wild, while the reticulated giraffe, mostly found in northern Kenya, is estimated at around 16,000 — though that is more than a 50% decrease from the 36,000 individuals estimated to have lived 35 years ago.

The Masai giraffe, a common sight in Tanzania’s national parks, has a population of approximately 45,400. Only the southern giraffe, whose numbers count approximately 49,850 individuals, is considered relatively stable by GCF.

According to GCF’s 2025 status report, giraffes have disappeared from almost 90% of the regions once considered prime habitats, including several West African countries where they are now extinct.

“This announcement will surprise many — how could we have overlooked something so fundamental?” said Fennessy. “But it underscores the importance of combining fieldwork with genetics to drive real-world conservation outcomes.”

The current classification had remained unchanged since 1758, when all giraffes were placed under a single species. That view persisted until 2016 when researchers first published genetic data suggesting deeper divisions.

The studies involved DNA samples from thousands of giraffes collected across 21 African countries, along with a recently published morphological study of giraffe skulls. The findings led the IUCN’s Giraffe and Okapi Specialist Group to formally recognize four species this week.

“To describe four new large mammal species after more than 250 years of taxonomy is extraordinary,” said Prof. Axel Janke. “Especially for animals as iconic as giraffe, which roam Africa in plain sight.”

The new classification could lead to a change in global conservation policies and each species will now be independently assessed for the IUCN Red List, opening the door to targeted protections under agreements like the U.S. Endangered Species Act, which is currently considering a listing for giraffes.

The move also allows countries to potentially direct conservation funding more precisely.

The GCF says the next step is to implement species-specific strategies, including habitat protection, anti-poaching patrols and community conservation, instead of treating giraffes as a uniform population.

“What a tragedy it would be to lose a species we only just learned existed,” said Stephanie Fennessy, GCF’s Executive Director.

‘Horror’ in Gaza is ‘incomprehensible,’ says US doctor who treated patients there

August 21, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Dr. Aqsa Durrani, an American physician who has been providing humanitarian work around the world for over 15 years, said amid the harrowing scenes of death and destruction in Gaza, one story especially sticks with her.

Found injured and alone after an Israeli airstrike, a 4-year-old girl was taken to a trauma field hospital in central Gaza, she told ABC News.

“She was completely in shock. She was not talking and [a colleague] decided, ‘I have to take this little girl home and I have try to see if I can help her find her family,'” said Durrani, a pediatric ICU doctor and an epidemiologist who worked with Doctors Without Borders in Gaza earlier this year.

Durrani, who said her colleagues are working in conditions that are “incomprehensible,” recently gained major attention for an interview on the digital platform “Humans of New York.”

“He has kids around her age. He tried to feed her, he tried have his kids play with her,” Durrani told ABC News. “She was completely non-emotive — for days. And for those days, he tried to find her family.”

He looked in the area where the airstrike hit — a location where displaced people were sheltering — but he wasn’t able to find her family there, according to Durrani.

“Finally, he said that he found a man who said that he had a niece that age and that they were staying in that area, so he brought him to her,” Durrani said.

“He said that when she saw him, she yelled out ‘ammo,’ which means uncle in Arabic, and she ran to him and hugged him. And it was the first time [my colleague] had heard her speak,” Durrani said.

But this was only one child and it took days to find her family because they had been displaced multiple times, Durrani told ABC News.

“I said, ‘It’s so beautiful that you took her and you were able to reunite her with her uncle.’ And he said, ‘I have to do that. I have do that because I have to believe that someone will do that for me when this happens to me, or someone will do that for my children,'” Durrani said.

“I think the story exemplifies every aspect of the horror that everyone is experiencing,” Durrani said.

Durrani was based in central Gaza — working at a trauma field hospital there — from Feb. 24 to April 24, witnessing the end of Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Hamas and the weekslong blockade on all humanitarian aid.

Field hospitals — which are tents and semi-permanent structures — were meant to offload existing hospitals. At the field hospital where Durrani worked, they were only able to provide care to injured or burn patients, she said.

“We could not possibly provide other services with the circumstances that we were in,” Durrani said. “We really had to keep it to lifesaving trauma service.”

“Now, most of the patients that they’re receiving are injured at these supposed aid-distribution sites. They are receiving now more patients with gunshot wounds, including children with gunshot wounds. Each day continues to get worse and we have just been witnessing this genocidal violence now for months and months and it’s beyond anything that even our most experienced humanitarian colleagues can imagine,” Durrani said.

The Israel Defense Forces have previously said shooting incidents at aid sites were under review, but has also said in few instances that it fired “warning shots” toward people who were allegedly “advancing while posing a threat to the troops.”

At least 2,018 have died trying to get humanitarian aid in Gaza and another 15,000 have been injured since May 28, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

Durrani said her colleagues, despite experiencing constant horror were “committed to doing everything in the best way possible and despite their own personal trauma” and continue to come in every day.

“We’ve had physicians who receive their own family members in the ER during during mass casualty incidents. They’re enduring these horrors and also working to provide care in those circumstances,” she said.

“What I cannot stress enough is that they — even in those circumstances, and even despite relentless trauma — were providing beautiful, compassionate, evidence-based care,” Durrani said.

Durrani recalled one day when they “called a child psychiatrist, who was one of the only child psychiatrists in the whole Gaza Strip, he was so apologetic that he could not come to see the children that day and told us that it was because he was actually himself displaced that day, and that he had lost some of his family members.”

The majority of their patients were women and children “even though our hospital was for everyone,” she said.

“We would round on all of the injured patients with the surgeons and go patient by patient. And often there were airstrikes nearby, and the Palestinian doctors and nurses would just speak louder over the bombs. And just continue providing compassionate care to the patients as we continued down the line,” Durrani said.

Food was becoming more scarce toward the end of Durrani’s time in Gaza, she said.

“Much of our days were actually spent trying to work with other organizations to see if we could find any food to give anyone. At the end, I was only able to provide patients with one meal per day, and mothers and children were sharing one portion of one meal,” she said.

“I even had one mother say, ‘Is there anything you can give my child to distract him from the hunger?’ And this was a child who had been burned by a fire that resulted from an airstrike,” she said.

Durrani said she believes the conditions in Gaza are a “deliberate choice” made by Israeli leadership, and called on the U.S. government to withdraw its support for what she called “complete indiscriminate” violence.

The Israeli government has denied that it is limiting the amount of aid entering Gaza and has claimed Hamas steals aid meant for civilians. Hamas has denied those claims.

Israel’s cabinet has approved plans to expand its military campaign in Gaza, drawing widespread criticism from the United Nations and key allies including Germany. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Aug. 8 the escalation “will result in more killing, more unbearable suffering, [and] senseless destruction.”

More than 100 aid groups have warned of “mass starvation” in Gaza, describing a dire food shortage due to the Israeli government’s siege.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer pushed back, saying “there is no famine” in Gaza. He blamed Hamas and called the food crisis in Gaza “a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas.”

A USAID analysis appeared to undercut Israeli assertions about the extent to which Hamas has allegedly stolen humanitarian aid. A presentation reviewed by ABC News, examining more than 150 reported incidents involving the theft or loss of U.S.-funded humanitarian aid in Gaza, showed that the group failed to find any evidence that Hamas engaged in widespread diversion of aid to cause the amount of hunger seen in the strip.

Durrani said providing medical aid in the Gaza Strip was an experience unlike any other.

“It’s dystopian, but it elicits a very visceral response. It’s just completely unfathomable that it’s actually, real, everything around you. I entered through the Karam Shalom crossing and we drove through Rafah and Rafah was at that point, even in late February, almost completely destroyed. It just looked like a dystopian reality,” Durrani said.

SpaceX’s Starship faces 10th test after previous flights end in explosions

August 21, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — SpaceX’s Starship is about to face its 10th test flight following explosions on previous launches.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has promised that the world’s most powerful rocket and spacecraft will one day take humans to Mars and beyond. But leading up to its 10th launch, scheduled for Sunday at 7:30 p.m. ET, Starship has yet to achieve all its mission goals. And the last three flight tests, plus a static engine test in June, ended in explosions.

“We now have serious questions whether the architecture of Starship is in fact feasible or not,” said Olivier de Weck, the Apollo Program professor of Astronautics and Engineering Systems at MIT and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets. “I’m much, much less concerned about the Super Heavy booster. But the upper stage, the Starship itself, I’m starting to have some serious doubts about whether they’ll be able to make it work. Certainly, with the payload that they have in mind.”

Starship’s 10th flight test will lift off from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The company has yet to successfully launch and land the stainless-steel spacecraft, which is being engineered to be fully reusable and would be able to carry up to 100 people to deep space destinations.

Can Musk achieve his vision?
During a presentation in May, Musk shared his vision for how Starship will eventually make humans multiplanetary, something he said is necessary to ensure the survival of humanity.

“Progress is measured by the timeline to establishing a self-sustaining civilization on Mars. That’s how we’re gauging our progress here at Starbase,” Musk said. “Rapidly reusable reliable rockets is the key.”

De Weck agrees that aiming for a human presence on Mars is a worthwhile endeavor, but he thinks it will take decades to land astronauts on the Mars surface and return them to Earth. He said while Starship’s Super Heavy booster, the first stage that lifts the spacecraft into orbit, has been “pretty successful,” he questions the design of the Starship itself, and its ability to carry humans into space safely.

De Weck said the company is facing challenges with convergence, an engineering concept where the goal is for all the vehicle’s systems to function correctly together.

“Convergence means that with every test, every launch you do, the prior problems that you saw on the prior launch have been addressed,” explained de Weck. “The problem that SpaceX has right now with Starship is every launch that they do, yes, they address the battles, so to speak, from the prior launch, but now the fix that they made causes new problems that didn’t show up on the prior launch.”

De Weck described the process as playing “Whac-A-Mole,” where each fix causes new problems that weren’t an issue in earlier configurations. This has been a challenge for the company in previous test flights.

Musk has acknowledged the challenges of his endeavor, writing on X that “There is a reason no fully reusable rocket has been built – it’s an insanely hard problem. Moreover, it must be rapidly & completely reusable (like an airplane). This is the only way to make life multiplanetary.”

Problems with previous test flights
In mid-June, a Starship exploded on the launch pad during a pre-flight engine test.

SpaceX determined that “the vehicle was in the process of loading cryogenic propellant for a six-engine static fire when a sudden energetic event resulted in the complete loss of Starship and damage to the immediate area surrounding the stand.” An analysis by the company found that the likely cause was the failure of a pressurized tank that stores gaseous nitrogen for the ship’s environmental control system, which triggered the explosion.

That explosion occurred less than a month after test flight nine ended prematurely when the “Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly” due to several mechanical failures minutes into the flight, according to SpaceX.

The company also lost the first stage heavy booster during the test after it appeared to explode while splashing down in the Gulf. SpaceX blames “higher than predicted forces on the booster structure” for the loss.

Test flight eight in March ended after what SpaceX described as a “hardware failure” with one of the upper-stage Raptor engines, leading to fuel igniting where it shouldn’t have. The company believes the vehicle then automatically self-destructed. Debris was spotted across South Florida and the Atlantic, prompting temporary ground stops at nearby airports.

A similar failure occurred in January 2025 during Startship’s seventh flight test when stronger-than-expected vibrations caused a propellant leak, explosion and the loss of the spacecraft.

In a post-incident report, SpaceX said it has made “hardware and operational changes” to improve the reliability of Starship and the Super Heavy booster during the next mission.

“Each launch is about learning more and more about what’s needed to make life multiplanetary and to improve Starship to the point where it can be taking ultimately hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people to Mars,” Musk said during his address in May.

Can ‘agile engineering’ solve Starship’s challenges?
SpaceX has achieved significant technical milestones with each flight test, however. The company returned the Super Heavy booster to Earth on two occasions, catching it with giant robotic “chopsticks” attached to the launch tower and reused one of them from a previous launch. Flight test nine also demonstrated the vehicle’s suborbital trajectory by reaching suborbital space before mechanical failures ended the mission. And with each subsequent mission, SpaceX makes upgrades and changes to the booster and spacecraft based on the learnings.

Despite the setbacks, the company’s test schedule has remained aggressive, with launches often just months apart. That pace is central to SpaceX’s iterative engineering process, which de Weck describes as “rapid prototyping or agile engineering.”

“We’ll find problems, we’ll test it rapidly, and we’ll fix it as we go. And we gradually approach a perfect product. That does not work as well for safety-critical systems and where the cost of failure is high,” de Weck said.

For flight ten, de Weck says the most important thing to watch is what happens after booster separation during the midstage of the mission.

“I want to see a proper ignition of those engines, the Raptor engines on the upper stage, and then a coasting phase, a cruise phase without any explosions, premature engine shutdowns, and just a relatively clean reentry,” he said.

Even with another mid-phase failure, however, de Weck doesn’t believe that SpaceX would end the program or go back to the drawing board for a new design.

“I think they’re going to keep going at least until 15, 16, 17 flights. I don’t see them abandoning anything before 20 flights,” de Weck said.

As for Musk, his vision is a day when SpaceX is manufacturing two to three Starships a day and sending Starships to the Moon and Mars on a daily, if not hourly basis.

“We could be out there among the stars making science fiction no longer fiction,” said Musk.

20-day search effort called off for man who went missing while hiking in Wyoming

August 21, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Search efforts for a Minnesota man who was last heard from in July have been suspended after 20 days as authorities say that his “most optimistic survival odds have run out.”

Grant Gardner had planned on a three-day hike “through the Misty Moon Lake area, eventually summiting Cloud Peak,” according to a statement from Big Horn County Sheriff’s Office in Wyoming. He was last heard from when he contacted his wife on July 29 saying he had made it to the summit, but “since that time there has not been any contact with Gardner,” officials said.

On Wednesday, after a 20-day search, authorities announced that they have suspended search and rescue operations for Gardner in consultation with his family members.

“During the past 20 days, Big Horn County and Wyoming SAR personnel have been searching diligently for Mr. Grant Gardner of Minnesota,” Big Horn County Sheriff Ken Blackburn said in his statement. “In consultation with family members, I have made the heartbreaking and difficult decision to suspend active search and rescue operations for Mr. Gardner. Our teams have exhausted all resources and personnel over the last 20 days. With weather conditions and other factors updated in our search models, we have to face the reality that the most optimistic survival odds have run out.”

Officials discovered Gardner’s vehicle earlier this month in the parking lot of the West Ten Sleep trailhead — where he began his journey — and also learned via the hiking log at the trailhead that he had entered the area “as he had indicated in his hiking plan,” officials said.

Phone records also revealed that he had reached the summit at Cloud Peak — which is around 13,000 feet — at approximately 7 p.m., which was concerning to officials due to the “lack of visible trails through cliffs, timber line, boulder fields and other hazards that had to be navigated after dark before reaching clear trails and safe terrain,” officials said.

“Our teams will rest, then begin search and recovery efforts as time and evidence allow. Many citizen volunteers and outdoors people are continuing to search for clues in an effort to bring peace to this family,” Blackburn said. “On behalf of the family, they want to personally thank each and every one of you who have offered time, resources, and prayers on their behalf. While grieving, they are humbled, and grateful beyond words.”

Officials said they have extensively searched for Gardner using helicopters, planes, foot teams and canines, but “conditions are extremely challenging,” with at least two rescuers suffering from “medical conditions” and needing treatment.

Bighorn National Forest is over 1 million acres, with 191,000 acres dedicated to the Cloud Peak Wilderness area, which is where Gardner is believed to have been traveling, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

“Many team members feel like they have lost a battle by not finding Grant at this time, however, it was not for a lack of effort on anyone’s part,” Blackburn said. “We hope clues will surface that will help bring a final closure to this tragedy in due time.”

Texas House passes new GOP-friendly congressional maps

August 21, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — After a long day of debate, the Texas House of Representatives passed a Republican-favored congressional map Wednesday evening that could flip five districts red by merging Democratic seats in the Houston, Austin, and Dallas-Fort Worth areas to form new Republican-leaning seats and by making two Rio Grande Valley districts currently held by Democrats more competitive.

Districts currently held by Democratic Reps. Al Green, Marc Veasey, Julie Johnson, Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett are potentially targeted.

The vote came weeks after state Democrats decried the unorthodox mid-decade redistricting as blatant gerrymandering to increase the number of GOP congressional seats.

The new map does not appear to significantly weaken any GOP-held seats but experts have said it would rely on the durability of Hispanic support for Republicans in 2024 to carry into next year’s midterms. The maps have gone through some small adjustments since being first introduced in July.

It is likely that the redistricting plan, which was pushed by President Donald Trump, will pass. The map could pass the state Senate as soon as the end of the week and would then go to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature.

In a press conference after the vote, House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Gene Wu acknowledged that Democrats had lost this round.

“This part of the fight is over, but it is merely the first chapter,” Wu said, adding later that a lawsuit against the new maps will be coming together soon but not until after Abbott signs the legislation.

House Democrats attempted to stall deliberations for hours during Wednesday’s floor session before the final vote with various long shot amendment proposals. Wu proposed an amendment to table consideration of the maps until the Jeffrey Epstein files are released by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, but Wu’s amendment was dismissed as not germane to the matter at hand. Members also voted down an amendment from Rep. Chris Turner to kill the bill and several others attempted to get amendments to either table or scuttle the maps, all to no avail.

Before the final vote, Democrats decried Republicans’ efforts as undemocratic and said they were were working solely at the behest of Trump.

“You may not understand gerrymandering, you may not understand redistricting, but I hope you understand lying, cheating and stealing, because this is what people do, people like Donald Trump, people like the Republican Party of Texas, when they can’t win, they cheat,” Wu said.

Democratic Rep. Joe Moody said, “These maps are deepening the struggle for communities of color that will only worsen because one small man in D.C. demanded it. This is where division becomes dictatorship, the government against the people. Some people here are doing so much winning that they can’t see what we’re all losing.”

Democratic Rep. Harold Dutton told Republicans, “I don’t think you’ll ever win. I think you’ll win perhaps a battle, but the war, the war, you will always remember that the war will be won by right and justice.”

During the hours-long comments from Democrats who accused Republicans of pushing forward with the maps without their input as they pitched various amendments, GOP Rep. Todd Hunter, who authored the bill, snapped back — particularly after Rep. Gervin Hawkins made similar insinuations — that the House was unable to get any work done because Democrats fled the state.

“You own the walkout, you said you did that, but don’t come into this body and say we didn’t include you. You left for 18 days, and that’s wrong,” Hunter said.

The special session was delayed after Democrats left the state to avoid a quorum, despite threats of arrest from Abbott and other Republican leaders.

Some Democrats returned to the statehouse on Monday and allowed the legislature to reach a quorum. All 88 House Republicans voted for the bill and 52 of the 62 Democrats in the House voted against it.

A handful of Texas House Democrats refused law enforcement escorts to ensure they wouldn’t leave the state again. They stayed overnight in the Texas House in solidarity with state Rep. Nicole Collier, who had refused to sign a “permission slip” allowing her to leave the state Capitol with a law enforcement escort.

“Look I’m not gonna lie. I want to cry, but I’m too angry,” Collier said after the House vote. “I want to cry, but I’m too furious.”

She added, “My feet hurt, my back aches, but I think about the people who have no home, have no bed to sleep in, who have no job to work at. I think about the people who don’t earn livable wages. I think about the people who don’t have health care. I can fix my back, but what are we gonna do for them? … The fact that I’m still mad, angry and furious means that I still want to fight.”

The Texas state Capitol also dealt with a social media threat Tuesday night that led to the evacuation of grounds and the building, but Democratic lawmakers who were already in the building remained inside.

Following the vote, Abbott said he was planning to add proposed legislation to the special session that in the future would punish legislators who deny a quorum.

“We need to ensure that rogue lawmakers cannot hijack the important business of Texans during a legislative session by fleeing the state,” Abbot said in a statement.

Republicans continued to take victory laps over the bill passing the Texas House — and even before it passed, were sounding a defiant note.

“You will not silence the majority in the state of Texas. You can throw your tantrum, you can leave, you can run, and you can ignore the will of the rest of the voters,” Republican state Rep. Katrina Pierson said before the bill passed its final vote in the House. “But it’s honestly time to pick a new narrative. The racist rhetoric is old.”

Abbott, who had placed redistricting on the agenda for both of the special legislative sessions he called, wrote in a statement congratulating Republican House members that Democrats had “shirked their duty, in futility.”

“I congratulate Speaker Burrows and the Republican members of the Texas House of Representatives for passing congressional districts that better reflect the actual votes of Texans,” Abbott wrote. “While Democrats shirked their duty, in futility, and ran away to other states, Republicans stayed the course, stayed at work and stayed true to Texas. I will sign this bill once it passes the Senate and gets to my desk.”

California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been pushing a plan to draw new congressional maps in California in response to Texas or to other Republican-led states redrawing theirs, wrote in a post on X, “Congratulations to @GregAbbott_TX — you will now go down in history as one of Donald Trump’s most loyal lapdogs. Shredding our nation’s founding principles. What a legacy.”

In another post, he wrote simply, “It’s on, Texas.”

California’s legislature is set to take up and vote on redistricting legislation on Thursday.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, in her own post, wrote, “Game on.” Hochul has expressed support for redrawing New York’s congressional maps, but state legislators have said the earliest maps could be in effect is likely 2028.

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