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Israel strikes Syrian military headquarters, IDF says

July 16, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — The Israel Defense Forces said it struck “the entrance” of Syria‘s military headquarters in Damascus on Wednesday.

Syria’s Ministry of Health told the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency that at least one person was killed and 18 others were injured Wednesday in the Israeli airstrikes on the capital, Damascus.

The high-profile strike came amid a wave of sectarian violence in the southern Syrian city of Sweida, where the Druze population has clashed with local Bedouin Sunni tribes and the recently installed Syrian government, headed by Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa who toppled former President Bashar Al-Assad in December.

The Druze are an offshoot of a branch of Shiite Islam. Around 1 million Druze are spread across Syria, Israel and Lebanon. The majority live in Syria, concentrated in the south of the country.

“The IDF continues to monitor developments and the regime’s actions against Druze civilians in southern Syria,” the IDF said in a statement. “In accordance with directives from the political echelon, the IDF is striking in the area and remains prepared for various scenarios.”

In a post to X, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said: “The warnings in Damascus have ended — now painful blows will come.”

“The IDF will continue to operate forcefully in Sweida to destroy the forces that attacked the Druze until their complete withdrawal,” Katz added.

More than 250 people have been killed in Sweida province as of Wednesday morning since the violence erupted on Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitoring group. Those deaths included 21 people who were killed in “field executions” by local groups in Sweida, the organization said.

Syrian government forces were deployed to the Sweida region — home to the largest population of the Druze religious minority in Syria — on Monday in an effort to restore order but ultimately clashed with the Druze militias themselves. On Tuesday, Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra announced a ceasefire agreement in Sweida, saying government forces would “respond only to the sources of fire and deal with any targeting by outlaw groups.” But clashes continued.

As that sectarian violence has grown, the Israeli military has taken action against the Syrian government, the IDF said.

Over the past day, the IDF has struck and continues to strike tanks, rocket launchers, weapons, and pickup trucks loaded with heavy machine guns on their way to the As Suwayda area in southern Syria,” the IDF said in a statement Wednesday, using another common spelling for Sweida.

The IDF said it has “decided to reinforce its forces in the area of the Syrian border” and “will continue to operate, both in defense and offense, to ensure the security of Israeli civilians.”

The office of Syria’s interim president said in a statement Wednesday that it “has followed with great concern the unfortunate violations that have recently occurred in some areas of Sweida Governorate.”

“These acts, which fall within the category of criminal and illegal behavior, are unacceptable under any circumstances and completely contradict the principles upon which the Syrian state is based,” the presidency added. “We, in the Syrian government, strongly condemn these shameful acts and affirm our full commitment to investigating all related incidents and holding accountable all those proven to be involved.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also urged Israeli Druze groups not to cross into Syria to join the fighting.

“We are working to save our Druze brothers and to eliminate the regime’s gangs,” he said in a statement posted to X on Wednesday.

Addressing those crossing the border or attempting to, Netanyahu added: “You are citizens of Israel. Do not cross the border. You are risking your lives; you could be murdered, you could be kidnapped, and you are harming the efforts of the IDF. Therefore, I ask you — return to your homes, let the IDF act.”

Trump administration sues CPB board members in latest attempt to force their ouster

July 16, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Just as the Senate began debate on the rescissions package that would strip the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of two years’ worth of its funding, the Trump administration filed a new lawsuit against the three CPB board members whom the president has attempted to fire but have refused to leave.

Tuesday’s filing, in US District Court in Washington, is the latest volley in a monthslong legal fight between the administration and the entity that funds the nation’s public radio and television stations. It seeks to affirm President Donald Trump’s power to remove members of the CPB board — a power the corporation and its board members insist he doesn’t have.

“As recent Supreme Court orders have recognized, the President cannot meaningfully exercise his executive power under Article II of the Constitution without the power to select — and, when necessary, remove — those who hold federal office,” the administration’s filing says. “Personnel is policy, after all.”

CPB and its board members argue that while the president has the power to appoint the organization’s board members, there is no provision in the law that allows Trump to fire them.

Last month, a district court judge declined to grant a preliminary injunction on behalf of the three CPB board members whom the White House sought to fire in April, saying they had not proved the need for early judicial intervention in the case. But Judge Randolph Moss also noted that the board had the ability to change its own bylaws, which it did in May, to only permit the ouster of sitting board members — “by any person or authority, including the President of the United States,” with the concurrence of two-thirds of the board.

The new case has also been assigned to Judge Moss — the same judge who has been overseeing the CBP board members’ lawsuit.

Tuesday’s suit by the government seeks a judge’s order declaring that the three CPB board members in question — Laura Ross, Diane Kaplan and Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman — “do not lawfully serve” as members. Former President Joe Biden appointed the board members.

The administration is also asking the court to void any actions taken by the three board members, and to order the refund of any salary they might have been paid since the White House directed their dismissals in late April.

Large dinosaur mating ‘dance arena’ discovered in Colorado

July 16, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(DINOSAUR RIDGE, Colo.) — Researchers have discovered evidence of one of the largest dinosaur mating “dance arenas” in present-day Colorado.

Previous studies have identified a couple of “dinosaur lek” areas — where male dinosaurs likely congregated to perform courtship displays for females, primarily for the purpose of finding a mate — at Dinosaur Ridge, 20 miles west of Denver.

However, using high-resolution drone photography and photogrammetry to make 3D models of the sandstone at Dinosaur Ridge, a team reexamined the area to see if there were more markings on the surface.

What they found were dozens of lek traces tightly clustered together, suggesting the area was once a site to perform mating rituals, similar to some modern-day birds.

“So, these trace fossils, we interpret them to be evidence of dinosaur courtship activities, just from kind of process of elimination,” Caldwell Buntin, co-author of the study and a lecturer at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, told ABC News.

Buntin said the team ruled out that these “scrapes” were caused by dinosaurs digging for food and water, from marking their territories or from colonial nesting, which is when animals build their nests close together in groups.

“Basically, these were a lot of organisms that were coming together, performing some kind of activity that would include building some kind of nest to display to a female, and then maybe doing some kind of a dance or scraping activity, which generates a lot of the scrapes around the nest display structure,” Buntin said.

The scrapes belong to theropod dinosaurs, characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb, which were alive during the Cretaceous period, between 145 million and 66 million years ago.

It’s not clear which species made the scrapes, but they were likely three to four feet high at the hip and were between 2.5 and 5 meters (8 to 16 feet) long, from the size of an emu to the size of an ostrich, according to Buntin.

There’s a “spectrum of different scrapes,” according to Buntin. Some are simple, shallow toe claw marks, indicating one or two scrapes from the left and right legs. There are also longer scrapes overprinting one another, resembling a wagon rut.

Additionally, there are semicircular bowl-shaped marks “associated with a step backward” with a second set of scrapes “indicating a counterclockwise or a clockwise turn.” Lastly, there are deep bowl-shaped marks with some shallow toe claw marks, Buntin said.

In terms of behavior, Buntin said these dinosaurs most resemble that of banded plovers, which are small shorebirds.

“Basically, they will dig out a nest display, basically a fake nest, to be able to show a female that, ‘Hey, I’m a strong male. I can dig this. I can make a good, strong place for you to lay your eggs,'” Buntin said. “And then when a female comes to visit, they’ll perform a dance which consists of kind of bowing, bobbing, raising their wings out, creating some scratches around the sides of that display nest.”

The authors emphasized that the site is public, meaning anybody can visit and see the scrapes for themselves compared to other scrap sites, which are on federally protected land.

“It does really make it a very, very unique site, because not only does it have this amazing like type behavior displayed, but it also is so accessible for lots of people to be able to see it and understand better about the behavior of these wonderful animals that we can see now,” Neffra Matthews, study co-author and former employee of the Bureau of Land Management, told ABC News.

Heat advisory in effect for New York City and across Northeast: Latest

July 16, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A heat advisory is in place across the Northeast, from Maryland to Maine, where residents are bracing for temperatures 5 to 15 degrees above average.

The heat index — what the temperature feels like with humidity — could reach 103 degrees in Philadelphia on Wednesday and Thursday.

New York City and Boston could feel like 100 degrees with humidity on Wednesday and Thursday.

Further north, the heat index may climb into the upper 90s in Burlington, Vermont, and Syracuse, New York, on Wednesday.

The dangerous heat is also invading the South and West.

The heat index could hit a scorching 105 to 109 degrees on Wednesday in New Orleans; Memphis, Tennessee; and Little Rock, Arkansas.

In the West, a heat advisory is in place from Northern California to northern Washington with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees above average. Portland, Oregon, could near 100 degrees on Wednesday and Seattle could reach the 90s.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fires two top deputies at Department of Health and Human Services

July 16, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired two top deputies at the Department of Health and Human Services, ABC News has learned.

Heather Flick Melanson, Kennedy’s chief of staff, and Hannah Anderson, deputy chief of staff of policy, are departing, according to a department spokesperson and another person familiar with the decisions.

Neither Flick nor Anderson immediately responded to an ABC News request for comment.

No reason was given for the ousters. The person familiar with the situation told ABC that Kennedy “has every right to make personnel decisions.”

“Secretary Kennedy has made a leadership change within the Immediate Office of the Secretary,” according to a statement provided by an HHS spokesperson to ABC News. “Effective immediately, Matt Buckham will serve as Acting Chief of Staff.”

“Mr. Buckham currently serves as the Kennedy’s White House liaison at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he oversees the recruitment and onboarding of political appointees across the agency. He brings valuable experience in personnel strategy and organizational management to this new role,” the statement continued.

“Secretary Kennedy thanks the outgoing leadership for their service and looks forward to working closely with Mr. Buckham as the Department continues advancing its mission to Make America Healthy Again,” the statement concluded.

Child abuse charge recommended in drowning of influencer Emilie Kiser’s son: Police

July 16, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(MARICOPA COUNTY, AZ) — Police have recommended charges in the drowning of influencer Emilie Kiser’s 3-year-old son, Trigg Kiser, who was found unresponsive in his family’s backyard pool in May.

“After a thorough review of the evidence, we have submitted the case to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for further review and any potential prosecutorial decisions,” the Chandler, Arizona, Police Department said in a statement Thursday.

A felony charge of child abuse was recommended by the police department. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has final say in whether charges are actually brought against anyone.

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

Federal judge to hear arguments on Abrego Garcia’s detention pending trial

July 16, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Tennessee is set to hear from federal prosecutors on Wednesday regarding their request that Kilmar Abrego Garcia be detained pending trial.

Last month, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ordered Abrego Garcia not to be detained pending trial and set conditions for his release. However, after the federal government requested a stay of the order, a district judge scheduled an evidentiary hearing to allow the government to argue their request for his detention.

Robert E. McGuire, the Acting United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, said in a filing that he could call on a Department of Homeland Security official to testify at the hearing about his review of body and camera footage from a 2022 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia by the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

In a separate filing on Tuesday, McGuire argued Abrego Garcia should be detained pending trial because “there is no combination of bail conditions that can reasonably assure either the safety of the community or the defendant’s appearance in future court proceedings.”

McGuire said that the evidence he presented during a detention hearing last month “was overwhelming, corroborated, and otherwise uncontradicted by anything else in the record.” He also argued the court cannot “be reasonably assured” Abrego Garcia will refrain from committing additional crimes and appear for court proceedings given the likelihood of deportation that he faces.

The government in both the criminal case and the Maryland case has said that Abrego Garcia will likely be deported to a third country if released from criminal custody.

An official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified last week in Maryland that Mexico and South Sudan were among a handful of countries where the U.S. has deported noncitizens who have asked not to be returned to their countries of origin out of fear of torture or persecution.

Abrego Garcia’s legal team in the Maryland case requested the court to order that he not be removed from the U.S. without at least 72 hours notice should he be released on bond from detention in Tennessee.

Axiom private space mission could be glimpse of the future as ISS retirement looms

July 16, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Private spaceflight is transforming from joy rides for billionaires into a gateway for nations to establish their space presence, one expert says, as the latest Axiom Space mission returned to Earth on Tuesday.

The mission marked a historic moment for India, Poland and Hungary, who sent astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time in decades. Rather than waiting for traditional space programs, these nations booked private flights through Axiom Space, which aims to build the world’s first commercial space station, and SpaceX, which provided the spacecraft the astronauts traveled on.

“This is huge,” said ABC News contributor and astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi. “These nations didn’t go through NASA or wait for Russia. They booked the private flight and brought their own experiments. That is a global power flex.”

The mission serves as more than just a demonstration of private space capabilities, Oluseyi said. With NASA planning to decommission the ISS by the end of 2030, Axiom Space, headquartered in Houston, is positioning itself to become “the new landlord of low Earth orbit,” according to Oluseyi. The company has already secured agreements with multiple countries for its own planned space station.

However, the increasing privatization of space access raises questions about America’s future role in space exploration. While another private company, SpaceX, currently provides the only means for launching astronauts from U.S. soil, Oluseyi emphasized the importance of maintaining both public and private investment in space.

“We perform best when there is a combination of both public and private investment,” Oluseyi said, noting current federal budget pullbacks in space and science funding. “Strategically, America needs both public and private to maintain leadership… This is a time not to pull back, but to invest ever more aggressively.”

As space becomes more accessible to new participants, Oluseyi said continued investment and innovation are crucial for maintaining U.S. leadership in space exploration — even as private spaceflight takes off.

“You can’t stop that cat out of the bag, but you can maintain leadership, you can be the one to innovate and take us to the next level,” he said.

Churches, now allowed to endorse candidates, could transform campaign finances

July 16, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is praising an Internal Revenue Service’s court filing, which effectively clears the way for churches to endorse political candidates — a reversal of decades of legal precedent.

Yet half a dozen religious leaders told ABC News they didn’t foresee a large increase in political endorsements from their peers, despite last week’s IRS court filing. The filing said it would not revoke nonprofit status from two Texas churches, Sand Springs Church and First Baptist Church Waskom, for doing so.

The filing formalizes for the first time a lack of enforcement of the 1954 Johnson Amendment, which prohibits nonprofits from endorsing or opposing political candidates if they want to remain tax exempt. Both political parties have tested the line in trying to harness the power of the pulpit, with many Republicans wooing evangelical leaders while Democrats often try to curry favor with Black churches.

“God is once again welcomed back into our public square,” Trump said of the filing during a White House Faith Office summit on Monday.

The president has opposed the Johnson Amendment since his first term. He said he asked religious leaders for their endorsements while running in 2015, but came up against the barrier of the Johnson amendment.

“I said, ‘you have more power than anybody, but you’re not allowed to use your power.’ I said, ‘we’re going to get rid of that because people want to hear what you have to say more than anybody else,'” Trump said Monday. “You were even afraid to talk about it. But they’re not afraid any longer, and I think they appreciate it.”

Tax experts predict the filing could transform how money flows around elections, making houses of worship a way to avoid both taxes and transparency for campaign finances.

Ellen Aprill, a professor emerita of tax law at Loyola Marymount University Law School, said the filing could open the door to political campaigns channeling money through churches to take advantage of their tax-exempt status and lower application and reporting requirements.

Unlike other 501c3 organizations, churches are not required to file 990 forms disclosing financial information, leadership and activities. They also qualify automatically for tax exemption — while other nonprofits have to apply.

“One of my concerns, and others of us in this area, is this will encourage the creation of fraudulent churches who want to be able to get tax deductible money to engage in opposing or supporting candidates … so they don’t have to disclose any other campaign intervention activities,” Aprill said.

Many evangelical Christians viewed the filing as a win for free-speech rights.

Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, praised the filing and said he “personally thanked President Trump” for the outcome.

“This would have never happened without the strong leadership of our great President Donald Trump!” Jeffress wrote in an X post. “Government has NO BUSINESS regulating what is said in pulpits!”

Jeffress was on Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board during his first campaign and had expressed support for the president in the leadup to the 2024 election, which he said led the IRS to investigate his church. Jeffress’ church is distinct from First Baptist Church Waskom, the plaintiff in the case against the IRS.

Cary Gordon, senior pastor and president at Cornerstone Church in Sioux City, Iowa, said he thought “anyone with half a brain” could see that “the Johnson Amendment was unconstitutional.”

A longtime opponent of the amendment, Gordon has said since 2010 that he hopes the IRS would sue him for his political speech so that he could fight the agency in court. That year, Gordon led an effort organizing religious leaders across Iowa to oppose retention for three Iowa Supreme Court Justices who supported same-sex marriage. The IRS has not sued Gordon.

Gordon said although he thinks “hardly any pastors in the country will ever” endorse a candidate, the filing could allow religious leaders to address politics more directly.

“The issue is not, ‘oh no, they’re going to endorse someone.’ It’s really about free speech and being able to communicate on any issue someone might perceive as political in a sermon, which must be done because all of our problems are moral, all of our problems are theological,” he said.

Brad Sherman, a former Iowa state representative who founded Solid Rock Christian Church in Coralville, Iowa, and is now running for governor, said he thought the filing was “long overdue,” but he didn’t anticipate a surge in endorsements.

“There are other reasons why pastors and Christian leaders do not endorse candidates,” Sherman said, adding that some leaders may be wary of pushback from their congregations.

Regarding whether the filing would lead him to consider seeking endorsements from religious leaders during his own campaign, he said, “I haven’t really thought much about it yet, but yes, it may influence that to some degree.”

Reactions from leaders of Black churches were more mixed.

Rev. Thomas Bowen, who served in the Biden White House as a faith liaison and preaches in Black churches both in Ohio and D.C., said he was concerned the filing could risk turning churches into “campaign surrogates.”

“For me, the new ruling opens the doors to money that’s just not transparent, money that can be used for political influence,” Bowen said. “The fear that our sacred spaces will be at risk of becoming these stages for unchecked influence causes me to tell folk to tread carefully … Moral authority is sacred and it must never be sold for access.”

Unlike Bowen, Pastor Jamal Bryant said he approved of the filing. Bryant heads a congregation with more than 10,000 members at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Georgia, which hosted Democratic nominee Kamala Harris when she visited the state during the 2024 presidential elections.

Bryant said he would “absolutely” consider explicitly endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, including in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.

“There’s a whole lot on the line,” he said. “All of America is going to be leaning in with intentionality for the midterm election on who best will speak for the masses.”

Tropical rainstorm to drench Gulf Coast as renewed flood threat hits Northeast and Midwest

July 16, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A tropical threat on the Gulf Coast has a 40% chance for development into a tropical depression in the next 48 hours, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The system, which could currently be considered a “tropical rainstorm” or “tropical disturbance,” is likely to bring heavy rain to the central Gulf Coast for days — especially to the state of Louisiana.

The disturbance is expected to move along the coast, but the closer it stays to shore, the less chance it will have to grow into a tropical depression or storm since these weather patterns need time over water to develop, though a change to a more southerly track would give it a chance to gain steam.

A flood watch will go into effect at 1 p.m. this afternoon for portions of Louisiana and Mississippi and is expected to last at least through Friday night, with the eastern part of the watch in effect until at least Saturday evening.

This tropical disturbance is expected to produce long duration heavy rainfall and, if it develops into a tropical storm, it would be designated by the name Dexter.

Rainfall totals are generally expected to be between 2 and 6 inches, but the National Weather Service is highlighting some localized areas expected to receive as many as 15 inches in the region.

Elsewhere, heavy showers and thunderstorms are expected today for Ohio, West Virginia all of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey with rainfall rates of potentially more than 2 inches per hour on Wednesday and Thursday.

Storms are expected to begin around 2 p.m. in Ohio and then move east in a very scattered fashion through the afternoon, evening and overnight.

A flood watch is already in place for central and northern New Jersey where 1 to 2 inches of rain could fall in a 1-to-3-hour period, likely in the evening or overnight hours for this location.

A severe risk for damaging wind and tornadoes, along with flash flooding, is in place for portions of Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday, including Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay and Peoria.

A flood watch is already in place for Green Bay where they are expecting 2 to 3 inches of rain over a short time span, with locally higher amounts possible, and storms may reach Chicago, Milwaukee and Green Bay around 4 p.m. local time.

Heavy thunderstorms are also possible late tonight from Kansas to northern Missouri, with rainfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour possible.

Meanwhile, 70 million Americans are under heat advisories coast-to-coast, with dangerously hot conditions expected today for people in the Northwest, South and Northeast.

For the Northwest, a heat advisory is in place from northern California to northern Washington as Portland, Oregon, could reach near 100 degrees and Seattle, Washington, could hit the low to mid 90s — temperatures that are 10 to 15 degrees above average.

A heat advisory is in effect for parts of the South from Louisiana to Illinois, with a heat index up to 105 to 109 possible, including New Orleans, Memphis, Little Rock and Shreveport — temperatures that are 5 to 10 degrees above average.

The United States is now heading into the hottest part of the year, climatologically, and this weekend looks seasonally hot across the nation, with above average heat possible next week, especially for the Midwest, South and East, meaning temperatures in the upper 90s and lower 100s, with humidity making things worst for these regions.

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