News – Page 879 – 105.7 WDNY

What does presidential immunity ruling mean for presidential power, democratic norms?

July 3, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — In a long-awaited decision, the United States Supreme Court found that former President Donald Trump has some executive immunity for official acts committed as president, leaving experts concerned that the decision has drastically expanded presidential powers and dealt a blow to checks and balances.

One constitutional law expert warned that the ruling alters the possibility of consequences over the improper use of presidential powers, leaving the powers of the presidency “largely unchecked” with the exception of possible impeachment.

“It’s extremely troubling and is an example of the expanding powers of an imperial presidency,” Jared Carter, a constitutional law professor at Cornell Law School, told ABC News in an interview.

“The immunity is so broad that this essentially swallows the possibility of actual prosecution for a president and I think Justice Sotomayor’s dissent — pointing out the various things that a president could conceivably do, and have absolute immunity — demonstrate that point,” Carter said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered a strong dissenting opinion saying the ruling reshapes the presidency and makes the president “a king above the law,” dealing a blow to the foundation of the U.S. Constitution and system of government that “no man is above the law.”

“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”

In the court opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that a president’s motives are not relevant to the assessment nor is the fact that an action would have allegedly violated a generally applicable law. One expert called this the most damaging part of the decision.

“Motive, I think to everyone’s mind and the normal criminal law, is the soul of any criminal charge. If you consider what Trump is alleged to have done, it is really the reasons that he did it that make it criminal or not, or so we would have thought before [the decision],” Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general and professor of constitutional law, told ABC News.

While the decision distinguishes between what acts are official acts of the presidency and what are not, Litman argued it is a grey area and the decision reshapes presidential power.

“Even though it doesn’t purport to alter the scope of presidential power, what it does purport to do is alter any kind of criminalization of the improper use of federal power,” Litman said.

Did Nixon need to be pardoned?

Experts told ABC News that under this ruling, former President Richard Nixon would not have needed a pardon from then-President Gerald Ford in the aftermath of the 1972 Watergate scandal because Nixon couldn’t have been criminally charged.

The Watergate scandal centered on the Nixon administration’s involvement in a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and involved Nixon’s efforts to impede an investigation into the break-in, which eventually led to his resignation from office after Congress initiated impeachment proceedings.

“We do think of Nixon as having acted in criminal ways then having been pardoned, but after [the decision] it’s not clear — he would have had immunity anyway,” Litman said.

“Nixon’s conduct — telling the FBI to shut down an investigation of himself, which seems front and center self-dealing and the kind of thing you don’t want a president to do — absolutely, he couldn’t have been prosecuted for under yesterday’s opinion,” Litman said. “He wouldn’t have needed to be pardoned.”

The court saying a president’s motive is not relevant is a significant shift.

“The court makes clear in the opinion yesterday that Trump’s conversations with the DOJ — even though they seem completely the furthering of a scheme to steal the election — they’re totally beyond inquiry from a court or a prosecutor because that goes to motive,” Litman said.

Carter warns that things have drastically taken a turn for the worse.

“I think it’s far more dangerous now than what we saw in that span of time [under Nixon] because President Trump has bucked the norms,” Carter said. “He has no interest in the traditions of the presidency.”

What could we see in the future?

The decision dramatically shifts the balance of power — and the consequences of that decision remain to be seen, Carter said.

“The presidency has been getting stronger. This, though, is a giant leap because it eliminates that check of the possibility of criminal conviction as long as a president can make out a rational argument that this was some court duty, or an official act. It’s going to be very, very hard to prosecute,” Carter said.

The decision may have hurt democratic norms.

“Democracy depends on the rule of law. At its heart, a big part of that is that no person is above it,” Carter said.

“[The ruling] places one person largely above the law. So I think it’s antithetical to democracy, and, and is not going to lead to any positive outcomes on the democracy front,” he added.

Carter called this a “scary time for democratic institutions.”

“As of right now, we are going to be relying on the goodwill of whoever is president to behave themselves,” Carter said.

Two-year-old found stuck in cabin ceiling after severe turbulence on Air Europa flight, mother says

July 3, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Dr. Cecilia Laguzzi was sleeping while on an overnight flight home to Uruguay when the mother of two said she was woken up by severe turbulence and found her 2-year-old son stuck in the ceiling above the overhead compartment.

“It was an image I will never forget,” Laguzzi told ABC News’ Good Morning America following the incident on the Air Europa flight, which the airline said resulted in several passengers being hurtled toward the ceiling of the cabin.

The flight from Madrid to Montevideo, Uruguay, experienced “heavy” turbulence early Monday morning and was diverted to Brazil “due to the nature of the turbulence and for safety reasons,” the airline said. The plane landed safely at Natal International Airport in São Gonçalo do Amarante and several passengers were treated for serious injuries, it said.

Laguzzi, a surgeon, said she was returning home from a three-month internship in Barcelona and was traveling with her husband and their two young children when she was woken up by unknown objects hitting her, she said.

“I felt something very hard hitting my head and then my back, and I fell on my head, and I couldn’t get up at first,” she said. “I remember I was in the plane, and I could feel it like falling, like free falling, for what felt like an eternity.”

Laguzzi estimates that after six or seven seconds, the plane resumed normal operations, at which point she started looking for her children, who had been sleeping several seats away near her husband. She found her 4-year-old daughter with her husband but couldn’t find her son in the dark, “chaotic” aftermath with passengers and luggage on the floor of the plane.

“We were trying to find him on the floor and started screaming his name until someone told me, ‘Are you looking for a baby?’ and I said, Yes,” she said. “He said, ‘Well, it’s up there,’ and he pointed up, and the minute I look up he was there crying, looking at us.”

Laguzzi said they found their son above the luggage compartment where plastic had broken off, and her husband was able to retrieve him.

“I’ll never forget how I felt in that moment,” she said. “He was crying, he was very scared, and we were all very scared as well, but the moment I took him in my arms, he calmed down.”

Laguzzi said she looked him over and he seemed fine. She said her family is a “little bruised up,” but they are otherwise OK.

Forty people were injured, some seriously, during the incident, officials said. Thirty people received medical care at the airport, while 10 had to be transported to the hospital for further examination, the airport confirmed to ABC News Monday night.

Seven passengers remained hospitalized in serious but not life-threatening condition as of Tuesday morning, Air Europa confirmed to ABC News.

Laguzzi said she went to tend to other passengers after a flight attendant asked for a doctor on the plane.

“Most of the people I saw had severe back pain from the trauma, but I also saw some fractures — legs, shoulders, collarbone, nose fracture,” she said. “As these plastic panels fell down, they fell on people and they fell on their faces, arms and such.”

Laguzzi said that following her assessment of the injuries, a crew member asked her if she thought the plane should make an emergency landing in Brazil or continue on to its final destination in Uruguay — another four hours away. The doctor urged the crew to land as soon as possible to get the injured immediate care, she said.

The plane requested an emergency landing around 2:32 a.m. local time Monday, according to the Natal airport. Laguzzi said first responders started triaging patients once they landed. After several hours of waiting on the plane and then in the airport, passengers started being transported to Recife by bus to continue their flight to Montevideo, she said.

Laguzzi said she was a little nervous to get back on a plane but “I just wanted to get home, whatever it took.” The family made it back home Tuesday morning, she said.

The incident remains under investigation, Air Europa said.

The plane flew through an area called the Intertropical Convergence Zone, where there is a belt of thunderstorms, according to ABC News contributor Col. Steve Ganyard, a retired Marine Corps fighter pilot.

Laguzzi said the whole ordeal was “traumatizing,” and she doesn’t plan on flying “for a long time.”

“It was very hard to be in these situations,” she said. “When you have small children, you feel so helpless, you know. You wish you could do more, but the situation is very overwhelming.”

Ganyard said when it comes to turbulence there are two things to remember.

“One is the airplane is very, very strong,” he said. “The second is, nobody that’s wearing a seatbelt gets hurt. It’s only the people who are not belted in that get hurt.”

More than 4,000 pounds of liquid eggs recalled from nine states

July 3, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — More than 4,600 pounds of liquid egg products have been pulled from shelves due to “misbranding and undeclared allergens.”

Michael Foods Inc. has issued a recall on approximately 4,620 pounds of liquid egg products that contained milk, which is a known allergen but was not declared on the product label, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced Sunday.

Details about liquid egg recall

“The problem was discovered during a routine carton inventory evaluation. The establishment notified FSIS when it discovered that a limited amount of Whole Egg with Citric Acid cartons was unaccounted for, and there was a corresponding excess of Breakfast Blend Scrambled Egg carton in inventory,” the FSIS stated. “The unaccounted Whole Egg with Citric Acid cartons were inadvertently utilized during a single short Breakfast Blend Scrambled Egg production run. The Breakfast Blend formulation contains an allergen, a dairy ingredient (milk), which is not declared on the Whole Egg with Citric Acid label.”

Recalled liquid egg product information

According to the FSIS, the recalled items were produced June 11, 2024. Impacted products include 32-ounce paperboard cartons containing the name “FAIR MEADOW Foundations WHOLE EGGS with CITRIC ACID” with a use by date of Sept. 16, 2024 (“16 SEP 24” on the carton), and the lot code 4162G.

“This product is packaged within a corrugated case labeled Scrambled Egg Blend with the same use by date and lot code,” the agency stated.

The recalled liquid eggs also bear an establishment number “EST. G1455” inside the USDA mark of inspection, the FSIS said.

Where recalled liquid egg products were sold

According to the FSIS announcement, the recalled products were “shipped to restaurant consignees for institutional use in Alabama, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, and Utah.”

What restaurants should do with recalled liquid eggs

The agency said it is “concerned that some product may be in institutional, restaurant refrigerators” and urged those establishments “not to serve these products.”

“These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase,” the recall announcement stated.

As of time of publication, the FSIS stated that there have been “no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products.”

A representative for Michael Foods Inc. did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for additional comment.

“Consumers with questions about the recall can contact Kristina Larsen, Director Customer Service, Michael Foods Inc. at 952-258-4903 or kristina.larsen@michaelfoods.com,” the FSIS said Sunday, adding that those with general food safety questions may “call the toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-MPHotline (888-674-6854) or send a question via email to MPHotline@usda.gov.”

Child, 12, missing after being attacked and taken by crocodile: Report

July 3, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — Police in Australia have launched a search near a remote community for a missing 12-year-old child after reports that they were attacked and taken by a crocodile while swimming in a creek.

The incident took place on Tuesday evening at about 5:30 p.m. local time in the remote community of Palumpa — approximately a seven-hour drive southwest of Darwin with a population of about 400 people — in Australia’s Northern Territory, according to the Northern Territory Police, Fire & Emergency services in a statement released on Wednesday.

“Around 5:30pm last night, police received reports of a missing 12-year-old child who was last seen swimming at Mango Creek,” authorities said. “Initial reports stated the child had been attacked by a crocodile. Community members and Peppimenarti Police attended the scene and began searching for the child, who has yet to be located.”

A search and rescue team was immediately deployed into the area with officers from Wadeye assisting but the child has still not been located, according to officials.

“Local officers are on scene and our thoughts are with the family and the community,” said Senior Sgt. Erica Gibson. “Officers are currently searching a large section of the creek via boat and we thank the community for their ongoing assistance.”

The Northern Territory is home to the world’s largest wild crocodile population, with more than 100,000 of the predators in the wild, according to Australia’s Northern Territory tourism website.

“If you’ve ever wanted to see a crocodile in the wild, the NT is the best place in the world to do it,” the page reads.

While the crocodiles can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh up to 1 ton (2,000 pounds), attacks on humans are very rare, though officials warn to steer clear of them.

“They have a taste for fish, but will eat just about anything including cows and buffaloes, wild boar, turtles, birds and crabs,” according to the NT’s tourism website. “Don’t attempt to feed any wild crocodiles during your stay, and don’t swim in any waterway or camp, fish or walk in any area where crocodile hazard signs are posted. The best way to avoid getting hurt is to avoid crocodiles in the wild altogether.”

Survivors of Tulsa Race Massacre call on President Biden to open investigation into 1921 attack

July 2, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(TULSA, Okla.) — Two survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre are calling on President Joe Biden to open an investigation into the deadly attack following the Oklahoma Supreme Court decision last month to dismiss the survivors’ lawsuit that sought reparations.

Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, and Viola Ford Fletcher, 110, made a plea to the Biden administration on Tuesday to invoke the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007, which allows for cold cases of violent crimes against Black people committed before 1970 to be reopened and investigated.

“We must face it, and we must give respect to our survivors and descendants in this community by demanding that the Department of Justice immediately investigate what happened here, on this sacred ground, over 100 years ago,” Tiffany Crutcher, a descendant of massacre survivors and the executive director of the Terence Crutcher Foundation, said. “This community is watching, President Biden. This nation is watching.”

Randle and Fletcher have also filed a petition for a rehearing to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, asking the court to consider the case again following its June 12 decision to dismiss the survivors’ lawsuit against defendants, which include the city of Tulsa. They were seeking reparations and wanting to hold someone accountable for the massacre and its long-term effects on the local and national Black community.

In an 8-1 decision, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the survivors against the city of Tulsa, the Board of County Commissioners for Tulsa County, the Tulsa Regional Chamber and the Oklahoma Military Department, affirming a July 2023 decision by Tulsa District Court Judge Caroline Wall to dismiss the suit with prejudice, meaning that the case cannot be refiled.

“We are profoundly disappointed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court decision to reject our lawsuit. And we are deeply sad that we may not live long enough to see the state of Oklahoma or the United States of America honestly confront and right the wrongs of one of the darkest days of history,” Randle and Fletcher said in a joint statement.

Fletcher’s younger brother, Hughes Van Ellis, was the third plaintiff when the suit was originally filed in 2020. He died last fall at age 102. The suit now names Muriel Watson, personal representative for his estate, as the third plaintiff.

The lawsuit included a claim of public nuisance, alleging that as a result of the massacre, the survivors “continue to face racially disparate treatment and city-created barriers to basic human needs, including jobs, financial security, education, housing, justice and health, that annoy, injure, or endanger their comfort, repose, health, or safety and render them insecure in life, or in the use of their property.”

According to the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision, though the plaintiffs’ grievances are legitimate, they do not fall within the scope of the state’s statute for public nuisance.

Besides the allegations of public nuisance, attorneys for the survivors argued that the city of Tulsa has used the historic reputation of Black Wall Street for their own financial benefit. Attorneys argued that any money the city receives from promoting Black Wall Street, the site of the massacre, should be put into a compensation fund for victims and their descendants.

Between May 31 and June 1, 1921, white Tulsa residents set fire to and bombed several square blocks of the city, killing an estimated 300 Black residents and leaving thousands homeless, according to historians. The area affected by the massacre included the Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street, because of its successful shops and businesses owned by Tulsa’s Black residents.

Though the massacre deeply affected the Greenwood community, it was largely omitted from local, state and national histories for years. In 1997, the Oklahoma State Legislature authorized the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. The commission released its final report in February 2001. In more recent years, the massacre has gotten more attention from the media due to the survivors’ ongoing fight for reparations. Still, there has been no government investigation and no parties have been held accountable for the massacre.

“But now that we have been failed by the courts, now that we’ve been failed by the Congress, we’re calling upon President Biden to fulfill his promise to these survivors, to this community and for Black people throughout this nation,” DaMario Solomon-Simmons, lead attorney for the survivors, said. “We hurt as a community, a national Black community, for the destruction of Greenwood.”

ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.

Salman Rushdie stabbing suspect rejects plea deal ahead of state trial

July 2, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y.) — The New Jersey man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie on stage at a speaking event in 2022 rejected a plea deal that involved state and potential federal charges, attorneys said Tuesday.

Rushdie was stabbed multiple times on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in southwestern New York in August 2022 in what prosecutors said was a “preplanned” attack.

Hadi Matar was charged with second-degree attempted murder and assault in connection with the attack. He has pleaded not guilty.

During a court appearance in Chautauqua County on Tuesday, Matar declined the plea deal that covered both state and any potential federal charges, the Chautauqua County District Attorney’s Office said.

The deal required a guilty plea to the top state count of second-degree attempted murder for a sentence of 20 years — down from a maximum of 25 years for the charge, the district attorney’s office said.

Under the deal, state and federal prosecutors agreed to the 20-year sentence “with the understanding that Mr. Matar would also plea to a charge in federal court and receive an additional 10-20 years in a federal facility,” the Chautauqua County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement to ABC News.

The federal sentence would have run consecutive to his state sentence, for 30 to 40 years of total incarceration plus lifetime supervision upon release, the office said.

The defense had made a counteroffer on Tuesday that proposed a 15-year sentence for the second-degree attempted murder charge, which was rejected by the state, his public defender, Nathaniel Barone II, told ABC News.

“At that point, it was determined that he was not going to accept the state’s offer,” Barone said.

Barone said the proposed federal charge was attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, which had yet to be filed.

ABC News reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York for comment.

Jury selection in the state case is scheduled for Sept. 10, online court records show.

Matar remains in custody at the Chautauqua County Jail.

The indictment alleged that he “attempted to cause the death of Salman Rushdie by stabbing him multiple times with a knife.”

Rushdie is now blind in his right eye from the attack, which he recounted in a new book, “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.”

The video player is currently playing an ad. You can skip the ad in 5 sec with a mouse or keyboard

The state trial was postponed from January so that manuscripts related to the memoir could be subpoenaed by the defense.

A hearing regarding a motion to quash defense discovery subpoenas regarding the book is scheduled for July 18, Barone said.

What to know as clinical trial begins for ‘next generation’ nasal COVID-19 vaccine

July 2, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The first phase of human trials studying a possible nasal COVID-19 vaccine has opened, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced.

The clinical trial, sponsored by the federal health agency, is enrolling participants at three sites across the U.S.

Researchers believe the vaccine candidate may provide even better protection against emerging variants than the COVID vaccines given via injection.

“The concept is that we’re looking for next generation vaccines,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “Throughout the pandemic, we had the incredible scientific breakthrough of COVID vaccines that happened, that got into production incredibly quickly and were safe and effective. But of course, we also recognize that there are challenges of the existing vaccines.”

Here’s what you need to know about the nasal COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial now underway:

What is the new vaccine candidate?

The candidate, MPV/S-2P, uses a live-weakened version of a virus called murine pneumonia virus (MPV), which does not cause disease in humans.

MPV will deliver a stabilized version of the spike protein, which the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that causes COVID-19, uses to attach and infect human cells. This will teach the body to recognize the protein and train immune cells to attack if a person is infected.

Pre-clinical trials in non-human primates found MPV/S-2P to be safe and well-tolerated and that it produced a robust immune response, both in SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and in the epithelial cells that line the nose and respiratory tract.

“Viruses like SARS-CoV-2 come into the body through the nose, into the lungs and then gets integrated into our bloodstream and disseminated through the body,” Dr. Reynold Panettieri, a professor of medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Rutgers University, told ABC News.

“What we realized is that systemic vaccination — when we inject it and it goes through the body to build up immunity — is not as effective as generating a mucosal, or lining cell, immunity in the nose or in the lungs,” he said. “And so, when people can inhale the protein, in this case, the spike protein … it actually builds up an immune response that’s much more robust than that when it is injected.”

Challenges with the current vaccine

In December 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized two new messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccines, from Pfizer-BioNTech and from Moderna, to target the original variant.

While most vaccines use a weakened or inactivated virus to stimulate an immune response, mRNA vaccines teach the body how to make proteins that can trigger an immune response and fight off an infection.

Because researchers can design mRNA vaccines more quickly than they can produce the live or weakened pathogens needed for a traditional vaccine, mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 were quickly developed, tested, mass produced and delivered to the general population, preventing millions of hospitalizations and deaths, according to analyses.

Both have been updated over time to target new variants including in September 2022 to target both the original variant and BA.4 and BA.5 – offshoots of the omicron variant — and in September 2023 to target the XBB offshoot of the omicron variant. Only the latter is currently in use.

“The current vaccines have diminished efficacy over time,” Brownstein said. “These vaccines were highly protective against severe COVID hospitalizations and deaths, [but] it wasn’t as effective at slowing cases and preventing transmission.”

Additionally, mRNA vaccines require a multi-step process to manufacture as well as ultra-cold storage, which can present logistical challenges. Further, some people may not want to receive mRNA vaccines because they are averse to needles.

“Nasal spray is often more often more accepted by a population, so if it’s a less concerning mode of delivery, plus it offers better protection, plus it offers potentially better storage and distribution potential, it highlights that this could be a really important new step in controlling this virus,” Brownstein said.

How will the trial work?

The clinical trial will enroll 60 healthy adult participants between ages 18 and 64 who received at least three doses of an MRNA COVID-19 vaccine approved or authorized by the FDA.

There will be several trial sites including at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston Texas; The Hope Clinic of Emory University in Decatur, Georgia; and New York University Grossman Long Island School of Medicine in Long Island.

Participants will be split into three groups, each receiving different dosages. Researchers will follow-up with the volunteers seven times over the course of a year and measure if the vaccine is safe and if it produces an immune response in the nose and in the blood.

Because clinical trials take time to produce data and require at least three phases before being submitted for FDA authorization, experts say it’s unlikely these vaccines will be available in fall 2024.

“Early in the pandemic, we were moving quicker than usual to get a get a vaccine out there,” Panettieri said. “Not that any steps were skipped, but we needed to save lives.”

Because a COVID-19 infection now results in mild symptoms for most healthy people, “we do have time to actually go through the typical process the FDA takes to approve a new therapy,” he added. “That is going to help everyone. It’s going to be making sure it’s safe and effective.”

Dr. John Beigel, associate director for clinical research in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ (NIAID) division of microbiology and infectious diseases, told ABC News that MPV/S-2P falls under Project NextGen.

The project, led by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and the NIAID, plans to support 15 next generation vaccines into Phase 1 clinical trials, of which MPV/S-2P is the first.

White House seeks to ‘turn the page’ after Biden’s debate performance with events, interview

July 2, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The White House said Tuesday it wants to “turn the page” on President Joe Biden’s debate performance last Thursday, which stoked renewed concerns about his age and mental fitness and set off alarm bells among some Democrats about his ability to carry on as the party’s nominee.

Biden has yet to take any questions from reporters on his politically disastrous debate showing against 2024 rival Donald Trump. That continued Tuesday as he visited an emergency operations center in Washington to discuss extreme heat and new workplace protections, where he largely read from a teleprompter and did speak off-the-cuff as many critics said would be a true test of his competence.

That will change on Friday when he sits for his first television interview since the debate with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.

The White House, seeking to change the narrative before then, also announced a flurry of campaign stops in the coming week that will get Biden on the road and in front of voters.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday that Biden will speak with Democratic lawmakers and governors on Wednesday to address their concerns before traveling to battleground states this weekend.

Biden will be in Wisconsin on Friday and Pennsylvania on Sunday, Jean-Pierre said, and will give a solo news conference during next week’s NATO summit that he’s hosting in Washington.

“We’re going to turn the page,” she said. “We’re going to get out there. Across the country, Americans are going to see him for themselves.”

But during the nearly hour-long briefing, Jean-Pierre faced a flurry of tough questions about the debate, the panic it’s caused among some Democrats and Biden’s overall fitness to serve.

“First of all, I want to say we understand the concerns,” Jean-Pierre said. “We get it. The president did not have a great night, as you all know.”

“But I will say this, and the president said this over the past couple of days, certainly right after the debate: He knows how to do the job,” Jean-Pierre said, “and he knows how to do the job not because he says it, because his record proves it.”

Jean-Pierre said “bad night” 13 times as she reiterated that Biden had a cold and that his record over the past three and a half years speaks for itself.

Still, some Democrats are continuing to express concern after the debate performance. Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett on Tuesday became the first Democratic member of Congress to call on Biden to withdraw as the party’s presidential nominee.

ABC News Senior Congressional Rachel Scott asked about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comments earlier Tuesday that it’s fair for people to ask whether Biden was facing “an episode or a condition.”

“Which one is it?” Scott asked.

“Well, what I can tell you is that he had a cold and a bad night. I would not see this as an episode,” Jean-Pierre responded. “I would see this as what it was and what we believe it to be, which is, it was a bad night. And he did, on top of that, he had a cold. And that is the reality of the situation.” She said he hadn’t been taking cold medication.

Jean-Pierre was also asked directly about the president’s health records and whether anything is being hidden from the public eye.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, said after Biden’s physical in February that he was a “healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.”

Jean-Pierre was also asked repeatedly about whether Biden will release results from any mental acuity tests.

“The medical team said it is not warranted in this case. We have put forward a thorough, transparent, annual report on his health. So, they have said that is not warranted. It is not necessary. Again, we understand, we understand. We’re not taking away from what you all saw, what the American people saw. We understand, it was a bad night,” she said.

Death toll climbs to 6 as Beryl is downgraded from a record-breaking Category 5 hurricane

July 2, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As the death toll from Hurricane Beryl climbed to six on Tuesday, the cyclone was losing some steam as it closed in on Jamaica.

According to the National Hurricane Center, Beryl was downgraded to a Category 4 from a Category 5, but its maximum sustained winds remained dangerous at 155 mph.

Beryl is forecast to continue to weaken as it moves through the Caribbean Sea but is still expected to be a major hurricane when it reaches Jamaica on Wednesday.

The hurricane has killed three people in Cariacou in Grenada, where it made landfall on Monday, officials said. Another death from the storm was reported in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and two people were killed in northern Venezuela, officials in those countries said.

Overnight, Hurricane Beryl had strengthened into a Category 5 as it moved through the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, becoming the strongest July Atlantic hurricane on record.

Earlier Tuesday, Beryl was packing maximum winds of 165 mph. The hurricane surpassed the July record of 160 mph maximum winds produced by Hurricane Emily in 2005, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Hurricane Beryl is expected to reach Jamaica and is forecast to produce rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches across the mountainous island country, with isolated amounts of up to 12 inches possible. This could trigger flash flooding in vulnerable areas.

The storm was shifting slightly north, taking it on a trajectory that would bring it dangerously close to the coast of Jamaica possibly Wednesday afternoon or evening with sustained maximum winds of 130 mph. A storm surge of up to 8 feet is expected and the hurricane is expected to dump up to a foot of rain.

The outer bands of Beryl could also impact southern portions of the Dominican Republic and Haiti late Tuesday and into Wednesday, potentially causing 2 to 6 inches of rain in those areas.

Residents of St. Vincent and the Grenadines were cleaning up Tuesday and assessing damage. Schools, homes, buildings and farmland sustained extensive hurricane damage, officials said. On Union Island, which is part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, authorities said 90% of the houses were either destroyed or severely damaged and the roof of the Union Island airport was ripped off by the hurricane’s buzzsaw-like winds. Heavy damage was also reported at Argyle International Airport on St. Vincent.

The one death reported in the Grenadines occurred on Bequia Island, officials said.

After touring the damaged areas on Tuesday, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves told reporters that Beryl “left in its wake immense destruction.”

Sea surface temperatures in the eastern Caribbean Sea, where Beryl is currently located, are running warmer than average for this time of the year, more in line with where they would be at the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season rather than early July. This is providing ample fuel for Beryl’s extreme intensification.

The latest forecast calls for little change in strength overnight, with a gradual weakening trend commencing on Tuesday as the storm sweeps west-northwestward across the Caribbean Sea.

Beryl will continue to track across the Caribbean Sea throughout the week, closing in on Jamaica on Wednesday, likely weakening to a Category 2 storm by then. The center and worst impacts will likely pass south of the island; however, the latest forecast now has the center of the storm passing a little closer to Jamaica, so more intense rain, wind and storm surge impacts will be possible on the current track.

A weakening trend will continue through the rest of the week as Beryl sweeps across the Caribbean Sea and encounters less favorable atmospheric conditions.

Beryl will then aim for Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula by the end of the week. The current forecast calls for a second landfall sometime on Friday along the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Beyond that, the system will likely move into the southwestern Gulf of Mexico/Bay of Campeche, continuing to weaken, while taking aim at parts of eastern Mexico next weekend as a tropical storm.

Unfortunately, the same general area of eastern Mexico will likely now see impacts from all three of the first named storms of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. After being hit by Alberto and Tropical Storm Chris, Beryl will likely bring at least some impacts to the same region by later in the upcoming weekend.

As questions swirl about fitness for office, Biden campaign outraised Trump in June fundraising haul

July 2, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and his allied groups registered their largest fundraising month of the campaign in June, his campaign announced, as his team seeks to spotlight good news amid a torrent of questions about the president’s capabilities to run the country after his debate performance last week.

The Biden operation raised $127 million in June, part of a total $264 million raised from April through June, the campaign said.

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign, the Republican Party and their joint fundraising announced raising $111.8 million in the month of June, a little short of the Biden campaign fundraising from the same month.

The Trump team, however, is entering July with a bigger cash on hand than the Biden team. The Trump campaign and the Republican Party together ending June with $285 million compared to the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party ending the month with $240 million.

This is because Trump had outraised Biden two months in a row earlier this year, including the Trump team’s $141 million May haul dwarfing the Biden team’s $85 million total that month.

“President Trump’s campaign fundraising operation is thriving day after day and month after month. Winning this quarter brought us a cash on hand advantage, which is punctuated by a Biden burn rate that grows while yielding no tangible results for them,” senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote in a statement.

Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said the “Q2 fundraising haul is a testament to the committed and growing base of supporters standing firmly behind the President and Vice President and clear evidence that our voters understand the choice in this election between President Biden fighting for the American people and Donald Trump fighting for himself as a convicted felon.”

The campaign on Tuesday sought to contrast that with Trump, who a spokesperson accused of “running a campaign for his ultra-rich friends and corporations, not the American people.”

The Biden campaign touted the nearly $40 million raised in the final days of the month, which happened to be in the wake of the debate performance.

The Biden operation raised a majority of its June money from grassroots, small-dollar donors, a fact the campaign highlighted to indicate the breadth of enthusiasm for the president.

+ More