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Senate passes housing legislative package in overwhelming bipartisan fashion

June 23, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Congress is one step closer to passing its most far-reaching housing reform legislation in decades.

The Senate voted 85-5 on the final passage of the 21st Century Road to Housing Act on Monday.

With midterm elections months away, Congress is taking noteworthy and rare bipartisan action to tackle one element of affordability, a talking point in races across the country this year.

The bill comes as a recent Zillow analysis found the cost of buying a starter home is $1 million or more in a record 242 cities across the country.

The legislation aims to address the nation’s housing shortage by increasing the supply of homes and overall homeownership. This is achieved through loosening regulations to encourage housing construction and limiting Wall Street investors’ ability to buy homes that could go to families instead.

A 2024 study from the government-sponsored housing enterprise Freddie Mac estimated that U.S. faces a shortfall of 3.7 million units contributing to its housing crisis.

The bill also provides grants to turn vacant buildings into affordable housing.

By increasing the supply of homes for sale, the legislation is intended to lower home costs for Americans.

With the Senate passing the bill 85-5, the legislation now moves to the House of Representatives, where it is also expected to pass with overwhelming bipartisanship as early as Tuesday night when they return from their recess break.

Once through Congress, the bill will head to the desk of President Donald Trump to become law.

“Today’s vote proves that it is possible to find bipartisan common ground on legislation that actually helps the American people, and importantly, it proves that bipartisan legislation doesn’t have to be the weakest, most milquetoast agreement that doesn’t offend anyone or do too much to help anyone,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said on the Senate floor ahead of Monday’s vote.

“I don’t say this a lot, but today I’m proud to be a member of the United States Senate,” Warren said.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, discussed how the bill can give Americans more options on Monday.

“When you put more housing supply on the market, more people have a chance to become first-time homebuyers,” he said. “Today, the average first-time homebuyer is 40 years old. That is just too old.”

Republican Sens. Ron Johnson (Wisc.), Mike Lee (Utah), Rand Paul (Ky.), Rick Scott (Fla.) and Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) voted against the legislation. Over the weekend, Sen. Rick Scott explained his objection to the legislation, arguing that the federal government cannot successfully impact housing regulation.

“Well, I don’t see how it’s going to drive down the cost of housing. What’s going to drive down the U.S. cost of housing, two things, if you balance a budget, interest rates are going to come down, one of the biggest with lousing,” Scott said on Fox News’ Saturday in America. “Number two, most of regulation with respect to housing is not the federal level. It’s at the local level, what cities and counties are doing. The federal government cannot drive the cost of housing down.”

ICE fining immigration attorney for alleged false asylum claims, a first for the agency

June 23, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday announced is seeking to fine an immigration attorney who allegedly filed false asylum claims — the first time the agency has filed such a claim.

Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, announced five notices of intent to fine attorney Vinod Doddamani, who they say filed 32 immigration cases in which he filed 64 fraudulent documents.

Doddamani faces a $250,000 fine for what DHS says is a pattern of filing allegedly false asylum claims. He allegedly filed the “identical or nearly identical in language and substance, containing the same or nearly the same factual narrative and supporting details regarding the alleged persecution,” according to DHS.

The action against Doddamani comes after DHS’s top lawyer last month directed ICE to go after lawyers who filed fraudulent asylum claims in immigration court. DHS has never sough to punish lawyers who have allegedly file fraudulent claims before.

Filing a false immigration claim violates anti-fraud statues, according to DHS General Counsel James Percival, and those who file them should be held accountable, according to a memo from Percival and reviewed by ABC News.

“Fraudulent asylum claims threaten the safety of Americans by overwhelming our burdened immigration system and delaying the removal of dangerous criminal aliens,” said Percival. “By holding [Doddamani] accountable, we are sending a message to other immigration attorneys who engage in fraud across the country: your days of abusing and defrauding our immigration system are over.”

ABC News has reached out to Doddamani’s attorney for comment.

LA warehouse fire continues to burn as officials warn residents of air quality issues

June 23, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(LOS ANGELES) — Firefighters continue to battle a massive blaze at a Los Angeles warehouse that has been burning for nearly a week, which has spread heavy smoke for miles.

As of Tuesday morning, the fire at the Boyle Heights Storage Facility, which stores frozen food, is still ongoing, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Due to the facility’s architecture and cold storage shelving, crews have to battle the blaze from the outside as they cannot ventilate the insulated roof, Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore told reporters Monday.

“The entire roof has been compromised, and it is sitting on top of those 65-foot towers,” he said. “Imagine going to Costco, or any other large convenience store, [like] Home Depot, any of those that have the large racks. Imagine the ceiling sitting down on top of those racks. It’s extremely dangerous, and I don’t foresee ever putting our firefighters in that type of danger.”

The fire at the facility, which Moore said contains about 85 million pounds of frozen food, began June 17, and a shelter-in-place order was temporarily in place.

Lineage Logistics, which operates the warehouse, said in a statement Monday that the fire began “while testing was being conducted by contractors of the third-party owner of the solar array located on the facility’s roof.”

Lineage said that no hazardous materials are stored in the facility and that it pumped out the ammonia inside and transported it.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Saturday, and additional resources were sent to assist, including specialized aircraft with high-capacity water cannons.

While the fire has not spread to other buildings, residents and businesses near the area have been feeling the effects from miles away.

Heavy smoke from the blaze raised the Air Quality Index to unhealthy levels in East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, and the San Gabriel Valley since last Wednesday, officials said.

In Boyle Heights, the air quality was at “very unhealthy” levels Sunday evening with an AQI of 298, prompting warnings for people to stay indoors, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

AQI values at or below 100 are generally thought of as satisfactory, according to federal air regulators.

By Monday morning, many of the affected neighborhoods saw lower levels, with Boyle Heights recording an AQI of 79, but they were still high enough to affect some residents with respiratory issues, according to officials.

Although a shelter-in-place order was not issued, LA Mayor Karen Bass and other city officials offered over 1,000 air purifiers and face masks to residents who needed them.

Lines for those purifiers stretched outside locations on Monday.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s Particle Pollution Advisory remained until Tuesday afternoon.

-ABC News’ Jenna Harrison and Matthew Claiborne contributed to this report.

1st-of-its-kind mission will attempt to save aging space telescope using robot spacecraft

June 23, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — Satellites don’t always stay in orbit. As they get closer to Earth, atmospheric drag can pull them lower and lower until they burn up, with solar activity speeding up the process.

NASA’s Swift Space Observatory is facing that fate — its orbit is decaying, and if left alone, it will be destroyed in a matter of months.

But in a first-of-its-kind mission, Katalyst Space, a startup, is teaming up with NASA to try and rescue Swift using the company’s newly developed robotic spacecraft, LINK.

“This is a historic mission, you know, some would call it the first of its kind, a robotic spacecraft that can go and capture an unprepared satellite,” said Robert Lamontagne, vice president of strategic partnerships at Katalyst Space.

Swift’s original orbit was around 370 miles above the Earth’s surface. But over the years, it’s fallen to less than 250 miles, according to NASA. Now it’s a race against the clock to keep Swift from falling even further and burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.

To save the satellite before time runs out, the Arizona-based company built its 935-pound rescue spacecraft in just 250 days. LINK was designed to physically interact with Swift despite the observatory not being designed for this kind of operation.

“Over the last nine months, we have gone from a clean sheet to a spacecraft that is currently integrated on a rocket, on an airplane ready to go to college for launch,” added Kieran Wilson, the principal investigator for LINK at Katalyst Space. “This is an absolutely unprecedented development timeline for this program.”

If all goes as planned, LINK will be launched into space on Saturday aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, which will be launched from a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar carrier aircraft taking off from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific.

Once in orbit, it will take about three weeks for LINK to rendezvous with and capture the 22-year-old observatory. Over two to three months, the spacecraft will use its thrusters to raise Swift into a more stable orbit. The two will then separate as LINK lowers itself back into Earth’s atmosphere, where it will burn up, keeping it from adding to the rest of the space debris in our orbit.

The hope is that the maneuver will add 10 years to the mission and allow NASA to resume its scientific operations. The space agency had to stop most of the observatory’s scientific operations to reduce drag and slow its descent from orbit.

“No one thought it was going to be possible,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA’s division director for astrophysics. “No one thought we would get as far as we’ve already gotten today.”

The clock is ticking for the $30 million mission to be completed. According to NASA, Swift is currently falling at roughly eight kilometers per month, and the space agency estimates it will drop below 300 kilometers sometime around October.

According to Wilson, at that point, the satellite will be “too low” for the rescue mission to be executed.

A potential blueprint for saving satellites

Earth’s orbit is littered with lots of aging satellites. If the mission is successful, NASA and Katalyst hope it could help establish a blueprint for future satellite rescues so fewer spacecraft are abandoned. Katalyst envisions having a fleet of spacecraft that can repair, refuel and upgrade satellites in need of help.

“Katalyst is here really to kind of mark the end of that throwaway model and the start of a new model where we think the spacecraft operators should no longer be constrained by the silly decisions that were made before launch,” Lamontagne said.

There’s no guarantee the rescue will be successful. Swift wasn’t designed to be grabbed by another spacecraft, and its age could make it vulnerable to damage during the capture.

“We still have to get spacecraft on orbit. We have to operate the spacecraft there successfully. And as we’ve all seen before, that’s a very challenging thing to do,” said Wilson.

“Rendezvous is going to be a challenge. It’s always a technical challenge, but we think we’re ready to handle that,” he added.

NASA says space weather and how the Earth’s atmosphere interacts with the spacecraft could also impact the outcome.

“If my confidence proves true and this team pulls off everything perfectly, the darn sun puffing up the darn atmosphere, at the wrong time,” Domagal-Goldman said. “There are still unknowns, both in terms of the dynamic nature of this part of Earth’s atmosphere, and its response to solar activity that is beyond all of our control.”

The Swift Space Observatory is a NASA satellite built to study gamma-ray bursts, the brightest and most powerful explosions in the universe. Swift uses multiple instruments, including three multiwavelength telescopes that can collect data in visible, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma-ray light. NASA has used it to study black holes, stars, comets and other celestial objects.

“Swift can routinely conduct follow-up with things that go bump in the night within minutes. It really is NASA’s first responder,” said Brad Cenko, Swift’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Launched in 2004, the observatory was supposed to last only two years. But it’s been operating for more than two decades.

“Last year, Swift received five requests from the community to follow up newly discovered sources each and every day. That’s more annual community requests than any other NASA facility,” Cenko added.

New Utah wildfire triples in size, prompting evacuations and closing a highway The Cottonwood Fire is one of 342 active wildfires burning across Utah

June 23, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A wildfire burning in Utah tripled in size overnight, prompting mandatory evacuations of homes and campgrounds and completely closing a highway in the mountainous area.

Fueled by drought conditions and wind gusts up to 50 mph, the Cottonwood Fire in Beaver County started Monday afternoon and spread rapidly overnight, according to Utah Fire Info.

As of Tuesday morning, the blaze has burned more than 10,000 acres and was 0% contained, officials said.

The Cottonwood Fire ignited around 3:36 p.m. on Monday, threatening populated areas in Beaver County, according to officials.

Just after 9 p.m. local time on Monday, residents in the Eagle Point and Merchant Valley areas of Beaver County were ordered to evacuate immediately as flames bore down on the area, authorities said.

The cause of the blaze is under investigation.

The Cottonwood Fire is one of 342 wildfires currently burning across Utah, consuming more than 64,000 acres combined, according to Utah Fire Info.

The biggest active fire is the Iron Fire burning in Juab County, about 28 miles southwest of Provo. As of Tuesday morning, the Iron Fire had burned 31,304 acres and was 9% contained, said Al Nash, public information officer for the Great Basin Team 3, a federal agency in charge of the incident.

Nash told ABC News that firefighters battling the Iron Fire are bracing for another day of hot, dry and windy conditions.

The fire has prompted numerous evacuations in the area, including the complete evacuation of the town of Eureka, which has a population of just over 600.

“Our firefighters are expecting to have another challenging day,” said Nash, adding that humidity is expected to drop into the single digits.

Kelly Wicken, a spokesperson for the Utah Division of Forestry, said the blaze started on private land and has now spread across Juab and two other counties, crossing onto federal land and shutting down a highway.

Before the fire, the National Weather Service had issued red flag fire danger warnings for a large part of the state.

Red flag warnings for fire weather danger are in place across southern Utah and through much of western and central Colorado. Strong winds and low humidity are expected to fuel the existing fires and enable new fires to spark and spread rapidly.

New Utah wildfire triples in size, prompting evacuations and closing a highway

June 23, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A wildfire burning in Utah tripled in size overnight, prompting mandatory evacuations of homes and campgrounds and completely closing a highway in the mountainous area.

Fueled by drought conditions and wind gusts up to 50 mph, the Cottonwood Fire in Beaver County started Monday afternoon and spread rapidly overnight, according to Utah Fire Info.

As of Tuesday morning, the blaze has burned more than 10,000 acres and was 0% contained, officials said.

The Cottonwood Fire ignited around 3:36 p.m. on Monday, threatening populated areas in Beaver County, according to officials.

Just after 9 p.m. local time on Monday, residents in the Eagle Point and Merchant Valley areas of Beaver County were ordered to evacuate immediately as flames bore down on the area, authorities said.

The cause of the blaze is under investigation.

The Cottonwood Fire is one of 342 wildfires currently burning across Utah, consuming more than 64,000 acres combined, according to Utah Fire Info.

Nash told ABC News that firefighters battling the Iron Fire are bracing for another day of hot, dry and windy conditions.

The fire has prompted numerous evacuations in the area, including the complete evacuation of the town of Eureka, which has a population of just over 600.

“Our firefighters are expecting to have another challenging day,” said Nash, adding that humidity is expected to drop into the single digits.

Before the fire, the National Weather Service had issued red flag fire danger warnings for a large part of the state.

3-year-old boy dies after being left in hot car in Florida: Sheriff

June 23, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(RIVERVIEW, Fla.) — A 3-year-old boy died after being left in a hot car in Florida, according to authorities.

Deputies responded to a home in Riverview, just outside of Tampa, at about 10:40 p.m. Saturday after the boy’s father found him unresponsive in a parked car, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said.

The boy was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, the sheriff’s office said.

The temperature hit a scorching 95 degrees in Riverview on Saturday, and with humidity, it felt hotter than 100 degrees.

It’s not clear how long the boy was in the car.

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister called the death a “tragedy” and warned, “A vehicle can reach lethal temperatures within minutes.”

“We urge every parent and caregiver in our community to make hot vehicle safety a priority,” the sheriff said in a statement. “Never leave a child unattended in a vehicle, even for a moment.”

No charges have been filed at this time and the investigation is ongoing, according to the sheriff’s office.

At least eight children have died in hot cars so far this year in the U.S., according to national nonprofit KidsAndCars.org. Last year, at least 37 children died in hot cars across the country, KidsAndCars.org said.

Click here for what to know to keep your children safe.

ABC News’ Kenton Gewecke contributed to this report.

Supreme Court denies Rastafarian’s lawsuit after he was forcibly shaved bald behind bars

June 23, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — A narrowly divided Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a Louisiana man the ability to sue state prison officials for damages after they forcibly shaved him bald behind bars, allegedly violating his religious rights as a devout Rastafarian.

In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority said federal law did not permit the plaintiff, Damon Landor, to seek money from individual state employees.

Landor, whose locks of hair had grown uncut for 20 years, has said he felt “raped” by the experience.

The ruling was a victory for states, which said such claims could bankrupt them.

Religious rights advocates warned that it would severely restrict the ability of victims of religious discrimination to sue for justice and accountability.

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

Savannah Guthrie speaks out after reports that ransom note said Nancy Guthrie died after kidnapping

June 23, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — An emotional Savannah Guthrie spoke out on Tuesday following new reports that a ransom note said her mother, Nancy Guthrie, died shortly after she was abducted.

The “Today” show host’s 84-year-old mother was kidnapped from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the early hours of Feb. 1 and remains missing, according to authorities.

Various ransom notes were sent to the media in the days after Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance. The second ransom note received by a Tucson television station, days after Nancy Guthrie’s abduction, said she died shortly after she was taken and was buried in nature, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.

Savannah Guthrie wiped away tears as she addressed the news on “Today,” saying, “I’m not involved in our coverage, but I can’t pretend I’m not here.”

“And so, since I am, I wanted to just take the opportunity to ask people — to really, to beg people — to come forward,” she said. “Somebody knows something.”

“This is a news story today that is on your radar, but this is the life that my sister lives, that I live, that my brother lives, that our extended families live, that our children live, every day. And we are in agony,” Savannah Guthrie said through tears.

“Please do the right thing. … We love our mom, and we’ll never stop looking for her, ever,” she said.

Images from Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera showing a masked man at her house were released by authorities early on in the investigation, but the 84-year-old’s whereabouts remain unknown, and the suspect remains unidentified.

Anyone with information is urged to call 911, the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4900.

Kenya minister stops construction of US-backed Ebola quarantine facility

June 23, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Kenya’s Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has halted construction of the U.S.-backed Ebola quarantine facility at Laikipia Air Base after being found in contempt of court for allowing work to continue despite a court order.

Duale appeared before the High Court in Nairobi on Tuesday and said he directed “the immediate and complete cessation of any intended construction, site preparations or related activities” concerning the facilitly.

“It was never the intention of the ministry or myself as the Cabinet Secretary to disregard, undermine, or act in defiance of the orders,” he said.

Duale also told the court he would be “the last person to disregard a court order” and “the last person to violate any constitutional order given by any court.”

The court accepted Duale’s apology and discharged him with a warning, saying that he would face sentencing if there was any indication he disobeyed its orders again. The injunction stopping construction was extended until a hearing on July 23.

“Today was an important moment for justice in Kenya,” Nora Mbagathi, executive director of Kenya’s Katiba Institute, an organization formed to support the country’s constitution that challenged the U.S. plan, told ABC News in a WhatsApp message.

“By appearing in court and confirming that construction of the quarantine facility has been halted, Duale has affirmed the government’s recognition that they are not above the Constitution,” the message continued. “His apology to the Court and the people of Kenya is an important moment not just for our courts but for our democracy and rule of law.”

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

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