News – Page 3021 – 105.7 WDNY

Bipartisan infrastructure negotiators scramble for deal as key funding option dropped

July 16, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The group of 10 bipartisan infrastructure bill negotiators was already having trouble coming up with ways to pay for nearly $600 billion in planned new spending, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer setting a Wednesday deadline for a key test vote on their bill turned up the heat and pressure significantly.

“That’s pretty aggressive. That means we have a lot of work to do,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, a key GOP negotiator, announcing that she and her colleagues would be working through the weekend to try to finish up the details of their $1.2 trillion plan.

ABC News has learned that one of the key components that negotiators had been relying on to finance the package — a boost in IRS tax enforcement to go after unpaid taxes — is out, leaving negotiators scrambling to come up with a replacement for a proposal that was expected to generate around $100 billion in estimated revenue to help offset the $579 billion in new spending in the legislation.

“I think we’re all trying to think about other ways to get there,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., emerging from a nearly four-hour marathon negotiating session behind closed doors Thursday night. About halfway through that meeting, senior White House officials joined the bipartisan group, including senior counselor Steve Recchetti and Biden’s Legislative Affairs Director Louisa Terrell — a sign of just how important the measure is to the president’s agenda.

According to an aide to a negotiator who requested anonymity to discuss the state of play, wary Republicans wanted to put so many guardrails on the IRS in exchange for getting the money to increase enforcement that “it was untenable.”

Conservative groups have railed against the proposal to empower an agency that they claim once targeted their ranks based on political leanings starting in 2010, as they sought tax-exempt status. The IRS in a 2017 settlement apologized for failing to provide controls and guidance to its employees, though a 2014 House GOP investigation found no connection to or coordination with the Obama administration.

And getting an official amount for that finance option from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which prices out legislation for lawmakers, was also not possible because the government already assumes it will get all of the annual taxes it is owed.

This further exacerbated the problem for negotiators, who admitted that they were only ever going to get an estimate — perhaps in the neighborhood of $70 billion to $100 billion, according to sources close to the matter. That would not be enough for some Republicans, including in leadership, who demanded a hard “score” or price tag to show the spending was fully offset.

Negotiators said they plan to work through weekend, but they are under the gun to publish final legislative text as soon as possible so that they can prevail in the vote on Wednesday.

And some GOP sponsors of the bipartisan plan — including its lead author, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio — made clear Thursday that they will not vote to proceed if it is not yet complete.

Others have tried to argue that the vote on Wednesday, a procedural move to start debate on a shell of the bill which will require the support of 60 senators, is simply the start of a week-long process before final passage. Anyone wanting to support the bill could simply vote “aye” on Wednesday, start debate and substitute in the final text when it is ready.

“My goal this weekend is to make sure that we can all get there, that we’ve got not only the agreement but we’ve got text that people can look at so that we’re not in a situation where we [say], ‘I don’t know what I’m voting on, I just hope that it’s good,'” said Murkowski, referring to Wednesday as “just the beginning.”

The deadine set by Schumer is undoubtedly a high-stakes gamble as he tries to get infrastructure legislation well on its way before the August recess, including a related $3.5 trillion budget resolution that contains the remainder of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure priorities. Schumer also demanded that his caucus reach a final agreement by Wednesday on that product, so that it can move soon after the bipartisan legislation.

Under special, fast-track budget rules, Democrats plan to pass their $3.5 trillion blueprint legislation without a single Republican vote but only if the caucus remains united behind the sweeping outline that includes everything from Medicare coverage expansion to universal child care, climate change and immigration reform.

Still, even though the budget resolution — which Schumer and House Democrats have demanded must be linked to the bipartisan infrastructure deal — is merely a blueprint to be fleshed out later by multiple committees, some Democratic senators are insisting on more details in advance of any vote in the coming weeks.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., told Roll Call that he wants to see the details behind his colleagues’ plan to wring revenue out of the pharmaceutical industry to help pay for about $600 billion of their massive plan.

Democrats have for years sought to have Medicare negotiate drug prices to bring them on par with prices paid by other countries. Menendez told Roll Call: “The only industry that gets directly, I’ll call taxed, mostly is the pharmaceutical industry. You have to show me that you’re reducing the cost of prescription drugs to the consumers.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said he would be looking for adequate funding to modernize the dilapidated northeast corridor rail, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said she would be “fighting to make sure universal child care and enough money to attack the climate crisis head on” are in the bill.

“And that we make sure that billionaires and giant corporations pay a fair share,” she said, a reference to key sources of revenue Democrats plan to use to finance the $3.5 trillion in new spending over the next 10 years.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a key moderate negotiating the bipartisan plan who has also signaled that he won’t derail this bigger budget measure, told reporters that he is very concerned about inflation and protecting his coal state from Washington climate mandates.

“I’m concerned about inflation. I want to see more of the details of what’s going on,” Manchin said, noting that he had not had one conversation with the broader budget deal’s lead author, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

“I’m concerned also about maintaining the energy independence the United States of America has. And with that, you cannot be moving towards eliminating the fossil. You should be innovating and using more technology. And we should be leading the rest of the world with the technology that you can use all the above energy sources, and I told (Schumer) that I was concerned about some of the language I’d seen that moves us away from fossil,” Manchin said.

It is that kind of concern from Manchin that also raises eyebrows among progressives in the House where Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds a slim majority and has pledged to hold onto any Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill until the $3.5 trillion budget blueprint — also called a “reconciliation” bill after the procedure used to fast-track it — is approved.

“The bipartisan infrastructure bill is much smaller, and it does not meet the same needs that the overall proposal for what frankly the Biden administration has outlined is necessary,” influential progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a virtual town hall Thursday night, calling the group of 10 plan “way too small.”

“We do not need a bipartisan deal in order to pass this bill,” she claimed, pushing back on the argument from the White House and Democratic moderates about the importance of trying to working with Republicans. “It’s great that Republicans are wanting to join some Democrats, that’s wonderful. But this country and people across this country elected Democratic majorities … Republicans are not in charge of dictating what policies we pass and what policies we don’t pass.”

“We will tank the bipartisan infrastructure bill unless we also pass the reconciliation bill,” she threatened.

Gun injuries cost more than $1 billion a year to treat in hospitals: Report

July 16, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Gun-inflicted injuries result in more than $1 billion in hospital costs each year and programs like Medicaid end up picking up most of the tab, according to a new report.

The report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office was requested by House and Senate Democrats and sheds a light on the financial devastation gun violence wreaks.

The report found there are about 30,000 hospital stays and 50,000 emergency room visits annually to treat firearm injuries, following an analysis of most recent hospital data available from 2016 and 2017.

Public coverage programs such as Medicaid accounted for more than 60% of the costs of care, the report found.

The report comes as President Joe Biden highlighted skyrocketing gun violence and crime rates and this week touted the ability of cities and states to repurpose COVID-19 relief funding to address the crisis.

Overall, the report found that firearm injuries led to “significant” financial hospital costs.

“While firearm injuries constitute a small proportion of overall hospital costs — less than 1% over the 2-year period we studied — per patient, these injuries are relatively expensive to treat compared with other types of injuries or conditions,” the report stated, citing the average cost of initial treatment for firearm injury patients, whether emergency deaprtment-only or inpatient care, as “more than twice the average cost of treating other patients in the hospital.”

Up to 16% of firearm injury survivors were readmitted at least once to the hospital after initial treatment, and those visits cost an additional $8,000 to $11,000 per patient, the report found.

Gun injury survivors also face hurdles to accessing care after hospital discharge such as insurance coverage, socioeconomic status and provider biases — all of which can affect access to health care more generally, the report said. Some firearm injury survivors may need lifelong care after hospital discharge, the report also stated.

A majority of firearm victims landed in lower-income brackets and the burden of those treatments largely fell on public safety-net programs, according to the report. Over the two-year period studied, more than half of firearm injury patients for both initial emergency department-only and inpatient care visits lived in zip codes with an annual median household income below $44,000.

Firearm injuries also disproportionately impacted the Black community. Although information on race and ethnicity was not available for ED-only visits, patients identified as Black accounted for over half of inpatient stays and costs, the report noted.

“Many firearm injury survivors are from communities of color and are low income. Because of this, they may be more likely than the general population to face access barriers due to systemic inequities that disproportionately affect those groups,” the report said.

Because of “racial bias in the health care system,” providers may not prescribe the “same level” of services to patients from communities of color as they do to white patients; moreover, patients’ mistrust in the health care system which can “stem from negative prior experiences” and a “lack of racial and ethnic diversity of providers within the health care system, among other things,” may hinder patients’ access to care,” the report stated.

Texas Republicans pressure state’s House Democrats to come back to Austin

July 16, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — As Texas House Democrats close the first week of their quorum break in Washington, D.C., to stall Republican-backed voting bills, their colleagues across the aisle are escalating efforts to compel them to return to the Lone Star State.

On Thursday, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan announced he would charter a plane on Saturday to fly the absent Democrats from the nation’s capital back to Austin.

“I am demanding all of our colleagues in D.C. to contact my staff immediately in order to secure their seat on the plane and return to Austin in order to do the state’s business. The State of Texas is waiting,” Phelan said in a statement.

In response, the Texas Democrats said they have no intention of taking up Phelan on the request.

“The Speaker should save his money. We won’t be needing a plane anytime soon, as our work to save democracy from the Trump Republicans is just getting started,” they said in a joint statement, adding, “We’re not going anywhere and suggest instead the speaker end this charade of a session, which is nothing more than a month long campaign commercial for Gov. Abbott’s re-election. The speaker should adjourn the House Sine Die.”

Beyond making the open request, the Texas House Speaker cannot further compel the Democrats to return to Texas. The state’s law enforcement officials similarly do not have jurisdiction across state lines to force the lawmakers back.

A group of Democrats left Texas on Monday to break quorum and wait out the end of their ongoing special legislative session in an effort to block the advancement of dual Republican-backed bills that would revise the state’s voting and election laws. Voting rights advocates say, if enacted, those bills would make it harder for Texans to have ballot access. By breaking quorum, the legislators also stalled the advancement of a slate of other bills the state’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott deemed as priorities for the legislature, of which his party holds as a majority.

While it remains unclear what comes next for the Democrats in the nation’s capital, Abbott says the end of the current special legislative session will not wipe the slate clean of his priority items.

“Whenever the current special session ends, I will immediately call another special session, and I will continue calling additional special sessions so we can address issues,” Abbott said in an interview with CBS Dallas-Ft. Worth on Thursday.

In an attempt to terminate the possibility of another round of walkouts, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who heads the Texas Senate, wrote to Abbott on Thursday asking him to add an item to the next session that would change quorum rules to be based on a simple majority attendance.

“Texans expect their legislature to work and not be held hostage by a few legislators who are exploiting the quorum requirement. The majority of other state legislatures require a simple majority plus one,” Patrick wrote in the letter.

The current rules stipulate that two-thirds of elected members in each chamber must be present to conduct business. Abbott has not yet indicated if he plans to make the addition.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo to be questioned in sexual harassment investigation: Reports

July 16, 2021 by WDNY Radio

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will be questioned on Saturday by investigators with the New York State Attorney General’s office related to the probe into sexual harassment allegations made against him, according to reports.

The independent probe into these accusations, ranging from alleged unwanted hugs to alleged inappropriate comments, has stretched into its fourth month.

The three-term Democrat, up for re-election next year, will be grilled in Albany by two outside lawyers, Joon H. Kim and Anne L. Clark, hired to lead the probe overseen by Attorney General Letitia James, The New York Times first reported.

Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to Cuomo, told ABC News: “We have said repeatedly that the governor doesn’t want to comment on this review until he has cooperated, but the continued leaks are more evidence of the transparent political motivation of the attorney general’s review.”

The attorney general’s office had no comment on the matter when reached by ABC News.

The eventual findings of the investigation will be released in a public report.

A number of women, including former Cuomo aides, have accused the governor of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior. Accusations first emerged in December when a former aide, Lindsey Boylan, alleged harassment in a series of tweets.

The governor has shared several public apologies in press conferences for “making people feel uncomfortable” but has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly said he would “fully cooperate” with the investigation.

Two men indicted for allegedly plotting to blow up Democratic headquarters in Sacramento, California

July 16, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Thursday night unsealed an indictment against two California men who allegedly conspired to blow up Democratic headquarters in Sacramento, California.

Ian Rogers and Jarrod Copeland were allegedly inspired by the unfounded belief that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, the court documents say.

When investigators searched Rogers’ house in January, he allegedly had five pipe bombs, which court documents say were live. They also allegedly seized between 45 and 50 firearms, including at least three fully automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

In text messages obtained by investigators and included in the federal indictment, Rogers and Copeland allegedly laid out their plan to bomb the building.

“I want to blow up a Democrat building bad,” Rogers wrote, according to the indictment.

They then discussed their target and Rogers said he was “thinking sac office first target,” to which Copeland agreed.

“I agree. Plan attack,” Copeland said, according to the court documents.

As the exchange concluded, Rogers allegedly wrote: “Let’s see what happens after the 20th we go to war.”

Shortly after Rogers was arrested in January, court documents say that Copeland contacted a militia group that Rogers allegedly belonged to, and the group instructed Copeland to destroy his phone.

Rogers and Copeland were previously charged federally via criminal complaint for allegedly possessing explosive devices and wanting to go after Democrats, but the complaint did not mention a planned attack on the Sacramento Democratic headquarters.

According to the complaint, investigators found a Three Percenters sticker on Rogers’ truck. The FBI has said the Three Percenters is a “radical militia group” with ties to the Capitol siege. Investigators also said they found a “White Privilege Card.”

A lawyer for Rogers declined to comment, and Copeland’s lawyer could also not be reached.

“Sad it’s come to this but I’m not going down without a fight,” Rogers allegedly texted, adding, “These commies need to be told what’s up.”

The special agent who authored the complaint wrote that he believes the messages show an intent to cause violence to prevent now-President Joe Biden from assuming office.

Rogers also discussed plans to attack Twitter and Facebook for banning Trump and possibly California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

He faces additional weapons and explosives charges in Napa County.

“I hope 45 goes to war if he doesn’t I will,” Rogers allegedly wrote.

FAA mandates inspections of Boeing 737 switches that could pose safety risk

July 16, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is instructing airlines to inspect their Boeing 737 fleet for faulty altitude pressure switches that could potentially pose a safety risk.

The switches are part of a system designed to warn flight crew of cabin depressurization. Planes are equipped with two cabin altitude pressure switches so there is a backup if one fails. But the crew and maintenance personnel are not alerted of switch failures.

If both switches fail and the plane is over 10,000 feet in the air, the FAA says there is a danger of the cabin altitude warning system not activating. In that case “oxygen levels could become dangerously low.”

“A latent failure of both pressure switches could result in the loss of cabin altitude warning, which could delay flight crew recognition of a lack of cabin pressurization, and result in incapacitation of the flight crew due to hypoxia (a lack of oxygen in the body), and consequent loss of control of the airplane,” the agency said.

The FAA order affects around 2,500 planes in the U.S. including the Boeing 737 Max and 737 NextGen. The directive does not remove any planes from service and is unrelated to the 737 Max flight control system issues that contributed to two recent fatal crashes.

Airlines have roughly 90 days, or every 2,000 flight hours, to complete inspections and replace switches as needed. The inspections can take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes and around 15 minutes for replacements. Previously, inspections of these switches were required every 6,000 flight hours.

According to the FAA, there have not been any in-flight switch failures. The concern was prompted by a test in September when an operator reported that both switches had failed on three different models of the Boeing 737.

In November, Boeing decided the failures were not a safety issue, the FAA said.

But “subsequent investigation and analysis led the FAA and the airplane manufacturer to determine, in May of 2021, that the failure rate of both switches is much higher than initially estimated, and therefore does pose a safety issue,” the FAA said, adding “addressing these failures requires immediate action.”

In response to the analysis, Boeing issued a reccomendation to ramp up switch insepections on all Boeing 737s.

“Safety is our highest priority, and we fully support the FAA’s direction, which makes mandatory the inspection interval that we issued to the fleet in June,” Boeing said in a statement to ABC News.

South Africa riots: At least 117 killed, over 2,000 arrested amid worst violence in decades

July 16, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(PRETORIA, South Africa) — At least 117 people have been killed in ongoing riots across South Africa despite the efforts of heavily outnumbered authorities to quell violent unrest sparked by the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma.

South Africa’s acting minister in the presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, said in a statement Thursday that the death toll now stands at 91 in Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal and 26 in the economic hub of Gauteng province. An additional six people were found dead on the roof of a mall in Thembisa township in Gauteng province, and the South African Police Service has opened an investigation to determine whether their deaths were related to the riots, according to Ntshavheni.

The South African Police Service said in a statement Tuesday that many fatalities occurred during “stampedes” as scores of people looted food, liquor, clothes and electrical appliances from shops in poor areas. Other deaths were caused by explosions when people tried to break into ATMs as well as shootings, according to police.

At least one police officer was killed in an attack on law enforcement, while seven others were injured responding to the riots, police said.

So far, 2,203 people have been arrested, according to Ntshavheni. But the chaos has continued in some areas and officials are “concerned about the economic impact of the violence, looting and destruction of infrastructure,” she said.

“Over the past few days, the main routes have been blocked by protesters with stones and other dangerous items,” Ntshavheni said in the statement Thursday, noting that such activities impact supply chains and the movement of key goods throughout the country.

“We wish to address those who are still undertaking the road blockage to desist from doing so because it is the poor, vulnerable and marginalized who will suffer as a result of their actions,” she added. “The impact of the looter’s actions will be felt more by the poor and middle class as many people stand a chance of losing their livelihoods.”

The South African Police Service is providing armed escorts for the transportation of critical supplies, such as food, fuel, medicine and oxygen, according to Ntshavheni.

There were also reports of clashes between looters and residents, with some members of the community brandishing firearms or other weapons “in an apparent retaliation against perpetrators of the public violence,” Ntshavheni said.

“We don’t want a situation where members of the public are at logger-heads with the law after such a noble effort,” she added.

Ntshavheni noted that the situation in Gauteng province is now “largely calm,” while KwaZulu-Natal province “remains volatile but much improved towards stability.” She attributed the improved situation to the additional boots on the ground in areas identified as potential “hotspots.”

The South African Police Service said it has recalled officers from leave and rest days, while the South African National Defence Force has deployed thousands soldiers to assist overstretched local law enforcement agencies.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed to “restore calm and order,” describing the unrest as the worst the country has witnessed since the 1990s, before the end of the apartheid regime,

“Over the past few days and nights, there have been acts of public violence of a kind rarely seen in the history of our democracy,” Ramaphosa said in a televised address to the nation on Monday evening. “Let me be clear: We will take action to protect every person in this country against the threat of violence, intimidation, theft and looting. We will not hesitate to arrest and prosecute those who perpetrate these actions and will ensure that they face the full might of our law.”

The lawlessness has disrupted South Africa’s COVID-19 vaccination program, with some clinics forced to close, which Ramaphosa warned will have “lasting effects on our ability to consolidate some of the progress we were already witnessing in our economic recovery.” Vaccine shots are urgently needed in the country, which — along with other nations in Africa — is fighting a new wave of COVID-19 infections. The South African government recently reimposed and extended tight restrictions, including a nightly nationwide curfew, school closures, a ban on gatherings and limits on alcohol sales.

Violence and unrest has gripped parts of South Africa since Zuma turned himself in to police on July 7 to begin his 15-month jail term for contempt of court. South Africa’s highest court handed down the sentence after Zuma failed to appear before an inquiry examining corruption allegations during the nine years that he served as president. Zuma has maintained his innocence, saying he’s the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt, and his supporters took to the streets last week. But the protests appear to have reawakened deep-seated grievances over persistent poverty, unemployment and inequality, some 27 years after apartheid ended.

Following layoffs and an economic downturn from the coronavirus pandemic, South Africa’s unemployment rate stands at a record high of 32.6% and is even higher among the youth, at 46.3%, according to official numbers released in June by the national statistical service. Meanwhile, more than half of the country’s 60 million people were living in poverty last year, according to data collected by the World Bank Group.

“There is no grievance, nor any political cause, that can justify the violence and destruction that we have seen in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng,” Ramaphosa said. “The path of violence, of looting and anarchy, leads only to more violence and devastation. It leads to more poverty, more unemployment, and more loss of innocent life. This is not who we are as a people.”

What ending the federal marijuana prohibition could mean for the industry

July 16, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Purveyors of legal marijuana are cautiously applauding a Democrat-backed Senate bill to end the federal prohibition of pot, saying their businesses have been stymied by banking regulations that force them to deal in cash and make them a target for thieves.

For the first time in history, some Senate Democrats introduced a bill to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level and remove cannabis from the federal list of controlled substances — laws that led to more than 1.5 million arrests in 2019 alone, 32% of which were for nonviolent lower-level marijuana possession offenses, according to the nonprofit Drugpolicyfacts.org.

Federal laws have also created a legal gray area for businesses operating in states where marijuana is legal.

The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act is backed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who called the legislation “monumental.”

But some cannabis industry insiders told ABC News that while the draft legislation includes many things that would greatly benefit dispensaries and growers — like allowing them to get bank financing, accept credit cards and go public on the New York Stock Exchange — they would rather see the federal government leave the issue in the hands of states.

“I hope I’m dead wrong, but the cynic in me says why would a Democratically-controlled Congress want to put a legalization bill in front of a president from their party who has already said he doesn’t want to sign a legalization bill?” Kyle Kazan, the CEO of American cannabis production and distribution company Curaleaf, told ABC News.

Kazan also worries about federal involvement because of the damage done by the war on drugs.

Despite Schumer’s support for the bill, President Joe Biden still opposes federal legalization of marijuana, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday and the measure would need several Republicans to support it to pass.

‘Excited’ but staying ‘realistic’

The legislation, co-sponsored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., would aim to expunge criminal records of most nonviolent marijuana offenses and create banking systems to help cannabis businesses, specifically hundreds of small and minority-owned companies wanting in on the so-called marijuana green rush.

Headset, a provider of data and analytics to the cannabis industry, forecast this week that the U.S. legal cannabis market will surpass $30 billion in sales in 2022.

The legislation, now in its early draft stage, would also allow states to craft their own cannabis laws, as states do with alcohol. A new federal excise tax would also be created similar to alcohol and tobacco.

The proposal would also clear the way for U.S. marijuana companies to use banking services, including holding bank accounts and taking out loans and allow companies to list on U.S. stock exchanges. Currently, cannabis companies do not have access to the banking system because their product is illegal in the eyes of the federal government.

Despite his doubts, Kazan, a former California police officer, said he would love to see the legislation pass, but have the federal government largely leave the details to the states.

“As much as I am cheering for Cory Booker and Chuck Schumer and (Senate Minority Leader) Mitch McConnell to come together on something, I think it would be best if they just said, ‘Let’s get the hell out of the way and let the states do it,'” said Kazan, whose company trades on the Canadian Stock Exchange. “The federal government has only done harm here with the war on drugs and the war on cannabis. You have tens of thousands of people that are serving hard time for nonviolent cannabis and other drug crimes. Just stop doing harm.”

Steve DeAngelo, a co-founder of Harborside Health Inc., a California cannabis company that also trades on the Canadian Stock Exchange, told ABC News that the legislation has been a long time coming.

“I’m excited. But I also want to be realistic about it,” said DeAngelo, who has been dubbed the father of the legal cannabis industry. “But it’s a great day when the Senate majority leader comes out supporting comprehensive legalization of cannabis at the federal level. That is a great day for our movement.”

To date, 18 states have legalized the recreational use of marijuana and 37 states, along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, now allow the medical use of the drug.

A Pew Research Center Poll released in April showed that 91% of U.S. adults say marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use.

DeAngelo cofounded a medical marijuana business in Northern California as a non-profit more than a decade ago and said it’s been an uphill climb ever since due to conflicts with federal regulations listing marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug with narcotics as heroin.

“Most successful businesses in the United States have an ability to go to a bank and get financing for a variety of uses at a reasonable interest rate. Cannabis businesses aren’t able to go to banks and get any type of financing,” DeAngelo told ABC News.

“When we’re trying to … just operate in an efficient way and do things like paying our taxes, those same banking laws can require us to do crazy things like go into tax offices with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in order to pay our back taxes,” he added. “Things aren’t safe or efficient.”

An increasing target for thieves

Having to have large amounts of cash on hand to do business and shelves stocked with high-grade cannabis, dispensaries and grow operations have increasingly become alluring targets for robbers.

In San Francisco last week, a group of robbers stormed a cannabis dispensary in the city’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, overwhelmed a security guard and took his gun before ransacking the business and making off in multiple getaway vehicles with boxes of marijuana, police said. On June 17, an attempted robbery at a pot dispensary in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles led to a shootout in front of the business that left a security guard critically wounded and one of the suspects dead, according to police there.

“It’s been a huge problem. People have died because of this,” DeAngelo said.

He said that allowing cannabis businesses to accept credit cards would help eliminate the need to have large amounts of cash on hand.

“That’s one of the good things that this will do,” he said of the legislation.

McConnell, the powerful Republican from Kentucky, has said he opposes the Senate bill, which will need 60 votes to pass, including 10 Republican votes.

DeAngelo said that if he had a chance to speak with McConnell, he’d say, “cannabis isn’t harmful but cannabis prohibition is.” He noted that during the COVID-19 pandemic many cities in states where recreational cannabis is legal designated pot dispensaries essential businesses along with pharmacies.

“They need to abandon old and outdated ways of thinking about cannabis,” DeAngelo said.

As COVID-19 surges again, what experts say about the millions of unvaccinated

July 16, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As Americans start packing bars and live venues once again in the age of mass COVID-19 vaccination — with many abandoning masks and social distancing measures — a concerning reality check is taking place.

Health officials and front-line workers, particularly in pockets of the country with relatively low vaccination rates, are again warning the public that they are seeing an influx of unvaccinated patients who are becoming severely ill.

“This is the absolute worst that I’ve ever seen it,” Emily McMichael, a nurse at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, told ABC News.

Nationally, more than 17,000 patients are currently receiving care around the country, the highest number in over a month, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The average number of new COVID-19 hospital admissions has also increased dramatically — to nearly 2,800 admissions a day — up by 35.8% in the last week.

And the distribution is fairly widespread: over a dozen states have seen significant increases in the number of patients coming into their hospitals in need of care, including Arkansas, which has seen a 76.4% increase in hospital admissions over the last two weeks, and Florida, with a nearly 90% increase.

Experts say the outlook for the country is mixed — while there won’t likely be a nationwide wave like spring 2020 or last winter, there is the possibility of regional surges in unvaccinated areas. And that spread can pose some dangers to the vaccinated population, specifically those who are vulnerable and in the possible creation of new variants that can mitigate or evade vaccines.

‘Nasty’ delta variant

Although there are still significantly fewer patients receiving care than the peak in January, when 125,000 patients were hospitalized, experts warn the uptick is concerning, particularly as the delta variant continues to spread rapidly across the U.S.

The highly infectious COVID-19 strain, which the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci called “nasty,” is now estimated to account for more than 57% of new cases nationwide. At the end of May, the variant was estimated to account for just over 3% of new cases.

Although it is still unknown whether the delta variant is more deadly than other variants, experts say it is more dangerous, given how quickly it spreads between people, thus, causing a greater number of infections, and therefore more illnesses and deaths overall.

This rapid spread has caused cases to increase in nearly every state in the country, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, with the national case average doubling in the last three weeks.

However, given the variation in vaccination levels from state to state and even community to community, its effects have varied widely.

“The impact of the more transmissible delta variant will not be felt in a uniform way across the country. Major pockets of unvaccinated people will continue to be the main hosts that will allow this virus to circulate,” said John Brownstein, Ph.D., the chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.

“While vaccines will likely prevent a major national wave, tens of millions of Americans with no prior immunity still remain susceptible to the delta variant,” he added.

Communities with fewer vaccinations see significantly higher case rates

A new ABC analysis has found that over the past week, states that have fully vaccinated less than 50% of their total population have reported a weekly average coronavirus case rate that is three times higher than in states that have fully vaccinated more than half of their residents.

States that have fully vaccinated more than half of their residents reported an average of 15.1 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people over the last week, compared to an average of 45.1 cases per 100,000 people in states that have vaccinated less than half of their residents.

The 14 states with the highest case rates all have fully vaccinated less than half their total population, and 10 out of the 11 states with the lowest case rates have fully vaccinated more than half of their total population, with the exception being South Dakota.

“In unvaccinated communities where you have increased mobility and reduced mask use and social distancing, we will continue to witness surges and unfortunately unnecessary hospitalizations and deaths,” Brownstein said.

With nearly 90% of Americans 65 years and older vaccinated with at least one dose, young Americans appear to be driving this recent increase. According to CDC data, 18- to 24-year-olds currently have the nation’s highest new case rate, with only 41.6% of the age group fully vaccinated.

The widespread national impact

For now, experts say they do not foresee a nationwide surge.

“It’s likely that COVID-19 is now moving into a phase where it’s a regional problem and not a systemic problem for the country, because of the differential in vaccinations. Fully vaccinated areas are going to see a very blunted impact of delta,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security, concurred, telling ABC News that “a surge in Missouri probably doesn’t mean much for states with high vaccination rates in terms of hospitalizations.”

However, large regional surges in areas of low vaccination could spark major problems for states with fewer health care resources, making the focus on hospital capacity urgent, the experts said.

But surges in under-vaccinated areas can pose a broader nationwide risk for those who are fully vaccinated but remain vulnerable.

“Uncontrolled transmission and population mobility means additional breakthrough infections in vulnerable populations, regardless of whether they happen to be in a state that has good vaccination coverage,” Brownstein said.

This is why some local health departments are again considering reinstating restrictions, in the hope of containing infections. On Tuesday, the Chicago Department of Public Health announced that unvaccinated travelers from Arkansas and Missouri, which have both recently experienced significant COVID-19 resurgences, will have to either quarantine for 10 days or present a negative COVID-19 test result.

In Los Angeles County, the nation’s largest, officials on Thursday reinstated a mandatory indoor mask mandate — regardless of vaccination status.

Brownstein also stressed the critical importance of containing the virus, because “unmitigated transmission further increases the probability that a variant with vaccine-evading properties might emerge.”

Although Rasmussen believes that it is unlikely that we will see the emergence of a variant that will fully evade vaccines, it is possible a new variant could reduce effectiveness enough to be problematic. In such a case, she said, boosters would become necessary.

Ultimately, said Adalja, “I think it has to be made very clear to people that the delta variant is a disease of the unvaccinated. The breakthrough infections that are occurring in vaccinated people are very, very rare, and not usually clinically significant.”

Catastrophic flooding across western Europe leaves over 100 dead, scores missing

July 16, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

(LONDON) — More than 100 people have been confirmed dead while many more remain unaccounted for amid catastrophic flooding across western Europe, officials said.

Record rainfall in recent days from a slow-moving weather system has triggered flash floods in the region, particularly parts of western Germany and eastern Belgium. Swollen rivers and reservoirs have burst their banks, turning streets into raging torrents of brown floodwater that swallowed cars, homes, businesses and even entire villages.

The death toll in Germany was 93 as of Friday morning, with 50 of the fatalities reported in Rhineland-Palatinate state and 43 in neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia, the country’s most populous state, according to German news agency DPA. But authorities have warned that the figure is likely to increase.

Around 1,300 people were still listed as missing in the devastated Ahrweiler district of Rhineland-Palatinate state as of Thursday night, according to a statement from the local district administration.

An estimated 165,000 customers of Westnetz, the biggest power distribution grid company in Germany, were without electricity on Thursday, according to a statement from utility giant E.ON, which owns Westnetz.

In Belgium, the death toll rose to 15 on Friday morning, a spokesperson for the Belgian interior ministry told ABC News. Four people, including a 15-year-old, were also unaccounted for.

More than 20,000 customers were without power in Belgium’s Wallonia region on Friday morning, according to local media.

Search and rescue operations were ongoing in both Germany and Belgium.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people were evacuated during rescue missions in more than a dozen cities in the Wallonia region of southern Belgium on Thursday night, according to a spokesperson for the country’s interior ministry.

Speaking alongside U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed shock over the scope of devastation from the flooding.

“I grieve for those who have lost their lives in this disaster,” Merkel said during a joint press conference at the White House in Washington, D.C. “I fear the full extent of this tragedy will only be seen in the coming days.”

Armin Laschet, the premier of North Rhine-Westphalia and Germany’s leading candidate to replace Merkel in the September election, blamed the severe weather on global warming.

“We will be faced with such events over and over, and that means we need to speed up climate protection measures, on European, federal and global levels, because climate change isn’t confined to one state,” Laschet told reporters on Thursday during a visit to hard-hit areas.

+ More