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Ex-officer in Tyre Nichols beating case texted photos from fateful night, former girlfriend testifies

September 19, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(MEMPHIS) — A former Memphis police officer on trial in the beating death of Tyre Nichols texted photos of a bloodied Nichols to his then-girlfriend, she said Wednesday during testimony.

Brittany Leake, an officer with the Memphis Police Department (MPD) who used to date Demetrius Haley, said Haley texted her and one of her family members a photo of Nichols that showed the 29-year-old leaning against a police car, bleeding from his mouth, wearing a torn shirt, appearing dirty and with his eyes closed, according to WATN, the ABC affiliate in Memphis covering the case in the courtroom.

Haley is on trial along with Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean, who were charged on Sept. 12, 2023, with violating Nichols’ civil rights through excessive use of force, unlawful assault, failing to intervene in the assault and failing to render medical aid. These charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The officers have pleaded not guilty to all charges.

“I wasn’t offended, but it was difficult to look at,” Leake said, claiming she deleted the photo, according to WATN.

Leake said she told Haley that Nichols needed to go to the trauma center, according to WATN. She claimed Haley previously sent her other photos from his patrols, including pictures of a burned suspect. Leake testified that she has never sent photos from the job in her two years as an MPD officer because it is against department policy, according to WATN.

Prosecutors on Wednesday also called to the stand Jesse Guy, a former Memphis Fire Department paramedic who cared for Nichols on the scene and in the ambulance that transported him to St. Francis Hospital, according to WATN.

Guy said when he first arrived on the scene, an emergency medical technician (EMT) told him Nichols “just went out,” according to WATN. Guy claimed he heard one of the officers say Nichols took something.

Guy testified that Nichols was unresponsive, had head swelling, scratches and marks around his neck and blood spilling from his mouth, according to WATN.

“It’s time to go,” Guy told prosecutors he was thinking after Nichols had no pulse and was unresponsive to Narcan, an overdose reversal drug, according to WATN. “I felt like something was going on.”

Guy said he gave Nichols oxygen, intubated him, removed his wet clothes and attempted with no success to defibrillate his heart, according to WATN. After giving Nichols epinephrine, more oxygen and sodium bicarbonate, Guy said there was still no pulse.

“I was trying to save his life,” Guy said, according to WATN.

Guy claimed he decided Nichols must go to the closest hospital to get better care, according to WATN. By the time they arrived at St. Francis Hospital, the former paramedic said they were able to get Nichols’ heart beating again.

Guy noted that when he asked one of the officers involved in the encounter what happened, the officer responded with a sigh.

“Never mind,” Guy said he told the officer because the paramedic thought the policeman was going to give him “B.S.” according to WATN.

Guy said during cross-examination that EMTs on the scene when he arrived had not assessed Nichols and didn’t tell him much about Nichols’ health status, according to WATN.

When defense attorneys asked Guy about information he received from the EMTs who were already on site, Guy claimed that the EMTs told him they heard Nichols moan in response to one of the medics.

Michael Stengel, Haley’s attorney, asked Guy when he knew Nichols was going through a medical emergency, according to WATN.

“When I laid eyes on him,” Guy said.

Body-camera footage shows that Nichols fled after police pulled him over on Jan. 7, 2023, for allegedly driving recklessly, then shocked him with a Taser and pepper-sprayed him.

Officers allegedly then beat Nichols minutes later after tracking him down. Nichols, 29, died on Jan. 10, 2023. Footage shows the officers walking around, talking to each other as Nichols was injured and sitting on the ground. The incident triggered protests and calls for police reform.

Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis said she has been unable to substantiate that Nichols was driving recklessly.

The prosecution told ABC News last week that they will not have any statements until after the trial. The defense attorneys did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

After the police encounter, Nichols was transferred to the hospital in critical condition. The medical examiner’s official autopsy report for Nichols showed he “died of brain injuries from blunt force trauma,” the district attorney’s office told Nichols’ family in May 2023.

Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., the two other officers who were also charged in this case, have pleaded guilty to some of the federal charges. Martin pleaded guilty to excessive force and failure to intervene, as well as conspiracy to witness tamper, according to court records. The other two charges will be dropped at sentencing, which has been scheduled for Dec. 5, according to the court records. Mills pleaded guilty to two of the four counts in the indictment — excessive force and failing to intervene, as well as conspiring to cover up his use of unlawful force, according to the DOJ. The government said it will recommend a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, based on the terms of Mills’ plea agreement.

The five former officers charged in this case were all members of the Memphis Police Department SCORPION unit — a crime suppression unit that was disbanded after Nichols’ death. All of the officers were fired for violating MPD policies.

ABC News’ Deena Zaru and Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.

UK team performs surgery to fix rhino’s broken leg, an operation they say is world’s 1st

September 19, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — A team of over ten vets – including specialist surgeons, anaesthetists, and animal keepers – have on Thursday performed what they described as a ground-breaking world-first surgery on a Rhino with a broken leg.

Amara is an almost 2-year old Southern white rhino whose home is the Knowsley Safari Park near Prescot, in northwestern England.

Vets say they performed a lengthy “world first medical procedure” on the Rhino, who had suffered a broken leg.

“Earlier this year, Amara began limping on her right front leg,” Knowsley Safari Park told ABC News in a statement. “The Knowsley Safari team brought in specialist equine surgeons from the University of Liverpool to help with the diagnosis, where radiographs confirmed a fractured ulna.”

The ulna — also known as the ulnar bone — is a long forearm bone that stretched from the elbow to the wrist in humans. For Rhinos, the Ulna is associated with the lower front leg of the animal.

The safari park says no records or documentation exists worldwide for this form of surgery, the team having to use expertise in treating horses with similar injuries to apply it to Amara for the groundbreaking surgery.

“Under anaesthesia in Amara’s enclosure, the large team performed a lengthy operation, including key-hole surgery of Amara’s wrist, in a procedure lasting five hours.”

Dr. David Stack, senior lecturer in Equine Surgery at the University of Liverpool, says the surgery was “unlike they have experienced previously.”

“Due to the unprecedented nature of the procedure, we didn’t know how much room we would have to operate, or how much of the affected area we would be able to see,” Stack said.

He added, “We were unsure if the cast would be strong enough and how Amara would cope with such a restriction on her limb. We hoped that she would accept it and that she would be able to move around, get down and, importantly, back up again but this was unchartered water.”

The Zoo says Amara wore a full limb cast to support her leg and was kept in her enclosure to minimize her movement. The zoo says she is doing “well” with her treatment and wearing the cast, which is set to be removed in May, the zoo told ABC News.

Southern white rhinos are commonly found in savannahs of southern and eastern Africa. The species is today listed as ‘near threatened’ due to ‘decades of rampant poaching’ for Rhino horn, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

The zoo describes Amara as a Rhino known for her “boisterous play,” a trait the zoo says is typical of her species.

“Treating Amara has been a truly ground-breaking veterinary journey incorporating many firsts which we will now document should another animal team encounter similar scenarios in the future, though we very much hope the notes are never needed,” said Stack.

What does the Fed interest rate cut mean for mortgages and homebuyers?

September 19, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The Federal Reserve delivered a jumbo-sized rate cut this week in a move widely viewed as a declaration of victory over inflation and a signal of relief for borrowers.

Few areas of the economy welcomed the news more than the nation’s sluggish housing market, where high mortgage rates have largely shut out homebuyers.

Experts who spoke to ABC News cautioned that the rate cut would not deliver an immediate drop in mortgage rates or a loosening up of the housing market.

Mortgage rates had already dropped over recent months in anticipation of the rate cut, they said. They forecasted a gradual thaw in the market as homebuyers perk up and borrowing costs slowly decline.

“This is a harbinger of good times to come, but we’re not there yet,” Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, told ABC News.

Here’s what to know about what the Fed’s rate cut means for mortgage rates and the housing market.

What does the Fed’s rate cut mean for mortgage rates?

The interest rate cut likely will not have a significant impact on mortgage rates over the short term, experts said. That’s because mortgage rates had already moved due to an expectation of this rate decision.

The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage stands at 6.09%, according to Freddie Mac data released on Thursday.

That figure has plummeted more than a percentage point since May. The average interest rate for a 30-year mortgage has dropped even further from a peak reached last October.

“Everybody has been talking about an expected drop in the Fed Funds rate,” Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist and vice president of research at the National Association of Realtors, told ABC News. “The mortgage market heard that loud and clear.”

Initial evidence suggesting unchanged mortgage rates can be found in the yield on a 10-year Treasury bond, experts said.

Mortgage rates closely track the yield on a 10-year Treasury bond, or the amount paid to a bondholder annually. In the aftermath of the Fed’s rate cut on Wednesday, the yield on a 10-year Treasury bond ticked slightly upward, defying the nudge downward by the central bank.

“Ten-year rates are basically pricing in the effect of interest rates coming down,” Lu Liu, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, told ABC News.

Still, experts added, mortgage rates may gradually decline over the remainder of 2024 and the duration of 2025.

The Federal Open Market Committee, a policymaking body at the Fed, on Wednesday forecasted further interest rate cuts.

By the end of 2024, interest rates will fall nearly another half of a percentage point from their current level of between 4.75% and 5%, according to FOMC projections. Interest rates will drop another percentage point over the course of 2025, the projections indicated.

If interest rates track those projections, then mortgage rates may see some decline as investors gain confidence that falling interest rates will not hit a snag, experts said.

“By the end of 2025, we can expect mortgage rates to be in the 5% range,” Wachter said.

Lautz offered a slightly less optimistic assessment, predicting mortgage rates next year in the high 5% range.

Uncertainty about the path of mortgage rates remains significant, said Liu. “It’s always a little bit of wait and see,” Liu said.

Experts agreed, however, that mortgage rates would not return to levels of between 2% and 3% enjoyed by homebuyers as recently as 2021. Those rates came in response to aggressive rate cuts at the Fed in response to COVID-19.

“That was a very unusual environment,” Lautz said. “It’s very unlikely to happen.”

What does the Fed’s rate cut mean for the housing market?

Experts expect the housing market to eventually heat up. But they do not expect the interest rate cut to deliver a sudden jolt.

The housing market remains sluggish. Existing-home sales declined 2.5% in August compared to the previous month, according to a report released by the National Association of Realtors on Thursday. The slowdown took place despite a significant decline in mortgage rates over that period.

The housing market will loosen up as low mortgage rates trickle through to homebuyers, and as those consumers proceed through the monthslong process of purchasing a home, experts said. The lower mortgage rates will also entice prospective buyers who previously balked at higher borrowing costs, they added.

Still, the current drop in mortgage rates may not rekindle the housing market, experts said, citing a phenomenon known as the “lock-in effect.”

While mortgage rates have fallen, they remain well above the rates enjoyed by most current homeowners, who may be reluctant to put their homes on the market and risk a much higher rate on their next mortgage.

In turn, the market could continue to suffer from a lack of supply, making options limited and prices sticky. Over the coming months, however, the housing market could loosen up, experts said.

“Now with rates coming down, we may gradually see some people willing to give up lower rates, move and sell their houses,” Liu said. “Hopefully there will be a little more supply on the market, but prices aren’t likely to come down all that much.”

Lautz agreed, predicting better days ahead. “It’s a slow burn,” she said. “We should see a change in activity and more buyers able to afford the market.”

Judge agrees to push Hunter Biden’s sentencing in gun case to Dec. 4

September 19, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(WILMINGTON, Del.) — The federal judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s conviction in Delaware on gun charges agreed Thursday to push back his sentencing date three weeks, from Nov. 13 to Dec. 4, granting a request by President Joe Biden’s son to allow more time for his attorneys to gather materials for his sentencing memorandum.

In their request this week to delay the sentencing, attorneys for Hunter Biden invoked the upcoming presidential election on Nov. 5 as one reason for the request.

“Several people who plan to submit letters to both Courts as part of sentencing memoranda for Mr. Biden are short of time because they are presently involved in government work and travel with the current Administration, or are involved in the 2024 presidential campaign,” attorneys for Hunter Biden wrote.

Attorneys for Hunter Biden also suggested that they may have “in-person witnesses” prepared to testify on his behalf, including some who “may not be available until after November 5 and the events that could occur right after that date.”

Prosecutors in special counsel David Weiss’ office had opposed the motion to reschedule sentencing.

Hunter Biden was found guilty in June on three felony counts related to his purchase of a firearm in 2018 while allegedly addicted to drugs.

Earlier this month, in a separate case, he pleaded guilty to nine federal tax-related charges in Los Angeles, where he is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 16.

Doug Emhoff blasts Gov. Sanders’ remarks about Harris not having biological children

September 19, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Second gentleman Doug Emhoff blasted remarks made by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said Vice President Kamala Harris “doesn’t have anything to keep her humble” because she does not have biological children.

“We know that all parents, no matter how you become one, make the same sacrifices and revel in the same joys of raising children as any parent anywhere,” Emhoff defended his wife while speaking at a campaign event in Brooklyn, New York, Wednesday evening.

“As if keeping women humble, whether you have children or not, is something we should strive for. It is not,” the second gentleman said. “Women in this country will never humble themselves before Donald Trump.”

Emhoff referred to Sanders’ comment as “unbelievable,” and he expressed his appreciation for his wife, ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff, and their “big, beautiful, blessed family.”

Harris is the stepmom to Cole and Ella Emhoff, her husband’s children from his first marriage.

Kerstin Emhoff jumped to Harris’ defense as well, responding to a video of Sanders on X.

“Kamala Harris has spent her entire career working for the people, ALL families. That keeps you pretty humble,” she wrote Tuesday.

Sanders had been speaking at a Michigan town hall with former President Donald Trump on Tuesday when she made the comments. “So my kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble,” she said.

During a visit Wednesday to a Bitcoin bar in Greenwich Village, New York, Trump was asked about Sanders’ remarks and whether Harris should be attacked for not having biological children.

“Well, I just don’t know what I think about it, you know,” Trump said during the event.

Ohio Sen. JD Vance previously commented on Harris and other women for not having children with his well-known “childless cat ladies” comment.

In the 2021 clip, which only recently resurfaced, Vance accused Harris and the Democrats of being “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”

There has been much backlash to Vance’s remark, and some have even made mocked the comment by making it their own. Most famously, Taylor Swift signed her endorsement for Harris as a “childless cat lady.”

ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow, and Chris Donovan contributed to this report.

Israel launches strikes on Hezbollah in wake of device explosions

September 19, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — Israel launched a series of strikes on Hezbollah targets Thursday as the war against the Lebanon-based group widened in the wake of two consecutive days of deadly explosions triggered in wireless devices.

Israel said it hit at least 30 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, including a weapons storage facility, adding it will continue to “operate against the threat of the Hezbollah.”

“The IDF is currently striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon to degrade Hezbollah’s terrorist capabilities and infrastructure,” the Israeli army said Thursday afternoon. “The Hezbollah terrorist organization has turned southern Lebanon into a combat zone. For decades, Hezbollah has weaponized civilian homes, dug tunnels beneath them, and used civilians as human shields.”

Two large sonic booms shook buildings in Beirut on Thursday as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivered a speech on this week’s device explosions. The IDF strikes come as Nasrallah said the use of the devices in civilian areas crossed all laws and red lines.

“This criminal act is a major terrorist operation, an act of genocide and massacre and amounts to a declaration of war,” Nasrallah said.

“The only way to return the displaced to the north is to stop the aggression on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. What you are doing will increase the displacement of the displaced from the north and will remove the opportunity for their return,” Nasrallah said.

The last two days of explosions in Lebanon, triggered remotely with explosives inside pagers or walkie-talkies, have killed at least 37 people and wounded 2,931, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Al-Abyad said in a press conference Thursday.

Prior to announcing the strikes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu restated his intention of returning tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to their homes in the north of the country, parts of which have been emptied by the threat of Hezbollah attacks.

Two IDF soldiers were killed by Hezbollah rockets in the north on Thursday, the army said.

“This is a new phase of the war, it includes opportunities but also significant risks. Hezbollah feels that it is being persecuted and the sequence of military and defense actions will continue,” Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday following the airstrikes.

The Israeli rhetoric was punctuated by the two waves of explosions in Lebanon.

Pager devices exploded on Tuesday prompting chaos in the capital Beirut and across the Hezbollah militant group’s southern heartland. On Wednesday, walkie-talkies exploded, some during funeral processions being held for militants killed in Tuesday’s explosions.

An ABC News source confirmed that Israel was behind the Tuesday pager attacks. Israeli leaders have not publicly commented on either round of explosions.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said 12 people were killed and 2,323 wounded in Tuesday’s pager detonations, and another 25 people were killed and 608 wounded in Wednesday’s walkie-talkie blasts, according to Al-Abyad.

The Lebanese health minister told reporters that he does not want to comment on security and political matters, but he said “it is certain that what happened in terms of aggression is considered a war crime, as the majority of the injuries were recorded in civilian areas and not in the battlefield, and the government is doing its duty and has called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, and human rights organizations are doing their duty on this issue.”

Hezbollah said 20 of its members were killed in Wednesday’s walkie-talkie explosions. Another 11 were killed in Tuesday’s pager explosions in Lebanon and Syria, bringing the overall death toll for the group to 31.

The Iranian-backed group blamed Israel for both waves of explosions and vowed a “reckoning.”

The militant group claimed several retaliatory strikes into Israel this week — including on Thursday morning — with Israel Defense Forces warplanes and artillery responding.

Cross-border fire has been near-constant since Oct. 8, when Hezbollah began attacks in protest of the Israel Defense Forces operation into the Gaza Strip — the response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 infiltration attack into southern Israel.

But as Gallant told reporters on Wednesday, “I believe that we are at the onset of a new phase in this war.”

A source confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that Israel’s 98th Division is being deployed from Gaza battlefields to the north of the country.

“We are determined to change the security reality as soon as possible,” Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, head of the IDF’s Northern Command, said. “The commitment of the commanders and the troops here is complete, with peak readiness for any task that will be required.”

The war, U.S. officials have long warned, could spiral into a broader conflict involving Iran — a prime benefactor of both Hezbollah and Hamas.

Notable casualties demonstrated the multinational nature of the crisis. A detonating pager injured at least 14 people in Syria, where both Hezbollah and Iranian forces have been active for several years in support of its President Bashar al-Assad.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini, was also among the thousands injured, Iranian officials said. Tehran “will duly follow up on the attack against its ambassador in Lebanon,” the country’s ambassador to the United Nations said in a letter to U.N. leaders on Wednesday.

Israel and Iran have already exchanged significant strikes since Oct. 7. Israel assassinated a top Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Syria in April and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July. Iran fired a huge barrage of drones and missiles toward Israel in response to Zahedi’s killing.

This week’s bombings in Lebanon raised the possibility of further action, whether overt or covert. Police announced on Thursday that an Israeli citizen was arrested on suspicion of working with Iranian intelligence to assassinate leaders including Netanyahu and Gallant.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated U.S. appeals for calm during a press conference in Egypt on Wednesday, where he traveled for fresh Gaza cease-fire talks.

“Broadly speaking, we’ve been very clear, and we remain very clear about the importance of all parties avoiding any steps that could further escalate the conflict that we’re trying to resolve in Gaza,” Blinken said.

A conflict spreading to other fronts, he added, is “clearly not in the interest of anyone involved.”

The U.S., Blinken and other American officials said, were not involved in or pre-briefed on the remote explosions that rocked Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Gallant spoke with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin three times in two days, the latest conversation on Wednesday reaffirming the “unwavering U.S. support for Israel in the face of threats from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iran’s other regional partners” and the need for de-escalation, a Pentagon readout said.

U.S. officials were notified by Israeli counterparts on Tuesday that they were planning an operation against Hezbollah, but did not provide any details about what they were going to do, U.S. officials said.

ABC News’ Ghazi Balkiz, Will Gretsky, Morgan Winsor, Luis Martinez, Shannon K. Kingston, Ellie Kaufman, Nasser Atta, Jordana Miller and Marcus Moore contributed to this report.

Biden calls rate cut ‘an important day for the country’

September 19, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday called the Federal Reserve’s rate cut the day before an “important signal” from the Fed to Americans that inflation is cooling, but he cautioned that it “doesn’t mean the work is done” to improve the economy.

In remarks on Thursday at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., Biden said, “Yesterday was an important day for the country.”

“Two and a half years after the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates, it announced that it began lowering interest rates,” Biden said. “I think it’s good news for consumers, and that means the cost of buying a home, a car, and so much more would be going down. And it’s good news in my view, for the overall economy.”

The president in his remarks discussed how far the U.S. has come since the COVID-19 pandemic, including supply chain issues, high costs of food and goods, and baby formula shortages. He also checked through all of his legislative achievements such as the American Rescue Plan, Inflation Reduction Act, Chips and Science Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

“At its peak, as you all know, inflation was 9.1% in the United States. Today it’s much closer to 2%,” Biden said. “It doesn’t mean our work is done. Far from it. Far from it, no one should confused why I’m here. I’m not here to take a victory lap. I’m not here to say, ‘A job well done.’ I’m not here to say ‘We don’t have a hell of a lot more work to do.’ We do have more work to do.”

White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients told reporters on a call previewing Biden’s remarks that president and Vice President Kamala Harris are still looking ahead to the work that is not finished, pointing to the cost of child care and housing as two of the biggest areas.

One White House official on the call was asked about whether the administration was concerned about rising unemployment in response to today’s rate cut, but the official brushed off the concern, saying that the Fed’s data today shows “the labor market remaining solid,” and adding that unemployment has “remained the lowest on average of any administration in 50 years.”

A reporter also asked whether rising tensions in the Middle East could be a setback in the fight against rising inflation. The different White House official said that it is one of the “geopolitical risks that we consistently monitor.”

“But our assessment, you know, right now is that the economy is in a healthy place, and that the kind of range of risks, while we continue to monitor them are do not pose a significant risk to the to the outlook,” the White House official added.

In his remarks Thursday, Biden also falsely claimed that he has “never once spoken to the chairman of the Fed since I became president.” He actually met with Jerome Powell in the Oval Office in May 2022.

Trump paints NYC hometown as wasteland at Long Island rally, says Dems are ‘threat to democracy’

September 19, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump, in his first rally since the most recent apparent assassination attempt, painted a bleak picture of his hometown of New York City at a raucous rally just miles away in the suburbs of Long Island and painted his Democratic opponents as a “threat to democracy.”

In the appearance before thousands at Nassau Coliseum, Trump also vowed to visit the city of Springfield, Ohio — a town he has repeatedly targeted with falsehoods about the Haitian population there eating “pets,” despite assertions from officials, including the state’s Republican governor that they are untrue. He said he would visit in the next two weeks.

Trump’s pointed comment about Democrats came as he and his surrogates have repeated that rhetoric from his opponents about him being a threat to democracy was responsible for the attempts on his life.

Trump’s reason for his Long Island rally on Wednesday night was to appeal to voters in New York, a blue state. Wednesday night’s event was Trump’s second rally in the state, on top of the multiple campaign stops he made in between his court appearances for his New York civil fraud trial.

As he addressed the crowd, Trump said a Harris win in November would turn New York “into a third-world country, if it isn’t already.”

Trump has often claimed during this campaign that crime has been on the rise in New York City and other metropolitan areas. But those claims appear to be at odds with data collected separately by the FBI and New York City officials.

The city has recorded 11% fewer murders this year compared to 2023, according to data released this week by the mayor and police commissioner. Total violent crime complaints, including murder, rape and robbery, have fallen in New York City by almost 3% this year and about 81% over the last 31 years, according to the data.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in June that the most recent national crime data collected by the FBI made clear that a “historic decline in violent crime is continuing.”

Trump on Wednesday thanked law enforcement that thwarted an apparent assassination attempt on him on Sunday and praised the woman who captured a picture of the suspect’s vehicle, saying he’d like to meet her.

Then he turned to his Democratic opponent, “the radical left Democrat politicians and the fake news media.”

“The message is it’s time to stop the lies, stop the hoaxes, stop the smears, stop the lawfare or the fake lawsuits against me, and stop claiming your opponents will turn America into a dictatorship,” Trump said. “Give me a break. Because the fact is that I’m not a threat to democracy. They are.”

He also pledged to restore SALT (state and local deductions), which his 2017 tax cut capped at $10,000.

Outside the Coliseum ahead of Trump’s event, vendors lined up selling various Trump merchandise. The celebration, which included music blaring through speakers, featured golden cars with Trump’s face on the front and bedazzled Trump jackets. Trump’s campaign claimed that 60,000 tickets were requested, which would make it one of Trump’s largest rallies during this campaign cycle.

The line for attendees stretched around the building hours before doors opened.

Trump’s rally was on the same day he was initially scheduled to be sentenced in his New York civil fraud trial. The judge in the case delayed his sentencing from Sept. 18 until Nov. 26 — after the presidential election.

Ahead of his Wednesday rally, Trump worked to court New Yorkers by promising to reverse a tax policy he signed into law in 2017. In a post on his social media platform, Trump claimed he would “get SALT back,” suggesting eliminating the cap on state and local tax deductions. In his 2017 tax law, Trump capped deductions at $10,000.

A majority of New York’s congressional Republican delegation has been pushing to reverse the SALT deduction cap on Capitol Hill, spearheading the ongoing debate around the issue.

However, while many local Republicans have celebrated Trump’s posture change, it also comes as he has recently rolled out a series of tax breaks, raising concerns about significant increases to the deficit.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU HAVE TO LOSE? VOTE FOR TRUMP! I will turn it around, get SALT back, lower your Taxes, and so much more,” the former president posted on his social media network ahead of his Wednesday rally.

In May, Trump pledged to turn New York red during a campaign rally in deep-blue South Bronx, New York, attempting to court the Hispanic and Black voters that make up a majority of the area’s population.

“We have levels of support that nobody’s seen before … Don’t assume it doesn’t matter just because you live in a blue city. You live in a blue city, but it’s going red very, very quickly,” Trump said at the time.

The Trump campaign has worked to court New Yorkers this campaign cycle, attempting to at least pull enthusiasm away from Democrats and help make down-ballot races more competitive.

Trump on Wednesday also repeated false claims about the mostly legal immigrants living in Springfield, where he says he’ll be holding a campaign stop soon, going on to suggest he could may not back alive from the visit.

“I’m going to go there in the next two weeks. I’m going to Springfield and I’m going to Aurora. You may never see me again, but that’s okay. Got to do what I got to do. Whatever happened to Trump? ‘Well, he never got out of Springfield.'”

“We’re going to take those violent people and we’re going to ship them back to their country, and if they come back in, they’re going to pay a hell of a price,” Trump said, alluding to the Haitian residents who are mainly either legally authorized to live and work in the U.S. or are protected from expulsion by law.

Trump also again falsely suggested that schools were being heavily occupied by children who don’t speak English, suggesting the mayor should just kick them out.

“So the mayor of Springfield, and I think he’s a very nice person, but instead of saying, we’re getting them all out, we’re getting them out, he says very simply, we’re hiring teachers to teach them English. Can you believe it? We are hiring interpreters,” Trump said, making an unsupported claim.

This is also his first large-scale campaign rally after an apparent assassination attempt on Trump while he was golfing in West Palm Beach on Sunday. The day prior, Trump held a town hall where nearly 4,000 Michigan voters attended; the Nassau rally is expected to be four times the size.

Trump had also made multiple smaller campaign stops in New York City before and after his mandated court appearance throughout his seven-week hush money payment criminal trial earlier this year to highlight several campaign messaging at each stop.

In mid-April, he visited a small bodega in Harlem that was the scene of a fatal stabbing two years earlier to highlight what he claimed was the failure of Democratic prosecutors in New York to ensure public safety as they prosecute him. Later that month, he visited a construction site in midtown Manhattan to boast support from union workers and working-class voters.

Puerto Rico’s infrastructure still recovering from Hurricane Maria seven years after the Category 4 storm devastated the island

September 19, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Puerto Rico is still recovering from Hurricane Maria — nearly seven years after the powerful Category 4 storm caused extensive damage to the island’s already delicate infrastructure.

September marks National Preparedness Month and the start of Hispanic Heritage Month — stark reminders of the work that remains to be done on the island, especially as climate change could lead to more rapidly intensifying hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin.

Getting Puerto Rico to the necessary storm preparedness is about “justice and fairness” in protecting a unique culture and heritage that belongs to the United States, Jorge Gonzalez-Cruz, professor at the University of Albany’s Atmospheric Sciences Research Center who has researched urban energy sustainability in Puerto Rico, told ABC News.

“We are U.S. citizens and deserve the best possible opportunity to develop and grow and have a sense of well-being and prosperity,” said Gonzalez-Cruz, who was born and raised on the island.

Hurricane Maria brought 155 mph winds as it made landfall near the city of Yabucoa, on the southeast portion of the island, on Sept. 20, 2017. The storm knocked out 95% of cell towers, leaving residents without the ability to communicate. Power, already scarce due to Hurricane Irma just weeks before, was knocked out on the entire island. Flooding on the island was rampant, with 13 locations reaching record flood stage, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Structural damage to buildings was widespread, and nearly all road signs and traffic lights were destroyed, officials said.

Some communities were without power for up to a year, according to Gonzalez-Cruz.

Out of the nearly 3,000 deaths attributed to Maria, only dozens were as a result of the actual storm, Kyle Siler-Evans, senior engineer of RAND, a nonprofit research institute and public sector consulting firm, told ABC News. The rest of the fatalities were caused by lack of access to clean water, food and power for an extended period of time, he added.

The frequency of strong storms that impacted the U.S. in 2017 likely contributed to delays in response to Puerto Rico, Sally Ray, director of domestic funds for the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, told ABC News. Hurricane Harvey brought widespread flooding to the Houston area in August 2017. Hurricane Irma caused extensive damage in Florida after striking the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, in early September 2017.

“By the time you got to Maria, you know, everybody had given all their attention and money to Harvey and not as much to the subsequent storms of that season,” Ray said.

The COVID-19 pandemic, subsequent storms that followed and the rise of inflation delayed the reconstruction even more, Siler-Evans said.

Puerto Rico was awarded $34 billion from the federal government for Hurricane Maria recovery efforts, $28.6 billion of which was allocated for permanent work and management costs, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

As of September 2023, 86% of FEMA’s Projects for Puerto Rico, including hazard mitigation and management costs had been completed, according to FEMA.

Gonzalez-Cruz described recovery efforts as being at a “good pace,” despite the setbacks. Improvements continue to be made to the power system, new flooding zones are regularly identified and reconstruction is moving steadily across the island, he said.

Thousands of smaller projects, such as the building of baseball fields and repairs to roads and bridges, are currently in the works as well, Siler-Evans told ABC News.

“But, [there’s] still a lot of work to be done,” Gonzalez-Cruz said.

Puerto Rico is often in the bullseye of storm systems that generate in the Atlantic Basin, the experts said. Every extreme weather event to impact the island since 2017 has been a litmus test of what still needs to be done to modernize its aging infrastructure, much of which was built during the mid-20th century.

More than 30,000 homes still had damaged roofs — covered in blue tarp — in 2019 as Hurricane Dorian neared the island, but a direct hit was avoided due to a late shift in track. In 2020, one million customers were without power following back-to-back earthquakes. An explosion and subsequent fire at a substation left 900,000 customers on the island without power in June 2021. Another massive fire at a major power plant caused a massive outage for about 1.3 million customers in April 2022, followed by Hurricane Fiona in September of that year.

Fiona was considered the first big test of the improvements made on the infrastructure since Maria, Gonzalez-Cruz said. The entire island lost power following the impact of the Category 1 storm.

The most recent named storm, Hurricane Ernesto, caused significant flooding on the island and left 730,000 customers without power — about half the island — after striking the island last month, officials said.

“There’s this whole cycle of problems that happens after a storm like Ernesto that [doesn’t] get the attention,” Ray said.

The toll from the aftermath of Hurricane Maria took on the collective psyches of Puerto Ricans cannot be understated, Gonzalez-Cruz said.

“It also shocked the makeup of the Puerto Rican people,” he said. “It revealed a lot of challenges that the island has been dealing with over [the] years.”

FEMA, its federal partners and the Government of Puerto Rico continue working closely on the island’s unprecedented recovery mission, a FEMA spokesperson said in an emailed statement to ABC News.

“FEMA is committed to the work that lies ahead and to ensuring that this historic recovery will have a lasting, positive impact on future generations,” the spokesperson said. “As National Hispanic Heritage Month begins, FEMA is proud to mention that its Hispanic and Latino Employee Resource Group is one of the largest in the agency with nearly 1,000 members across the country, many of whom are Puerto Rican and are leading the island’s long-term recovery efforts.

A request for comment from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority was not immediately answered.

Instagram imposes new restrictions for teens. Will they work?

September 19, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Instagram this week unveiled mandatory accounts for teens that bolster privacy protections, enable parental supervision, and restrict notifications during overnight hours.

New and existing users under the age of 18 will be automatically enrolled in what Instagram is calling “Teen Accounts,” the company said.

The move comes 16 months after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned in an advisory that excessive social media could pose a “profound risk” to the mental health of children. Instagram also has faced pressure from some federal and state lawmakers seeking to regulate social media use among children and teens.

Experts who spoke to ABC News differed about whether Meta’s new restrictions for teen users would effectively mitigate the risks that young Instagram users face.

Some experts applauded the guardrails as a meaningful, though insufficient, step toward preventing teen harm. Others said the absence of robust age verification account measures would allow young users to circumvent the rules, rendering the new settings largely pointless.

In response to an ABC News request for comment, Meta said the company is expanding its efforts to verify the age of teen users.

“We’re requiring teens to verify their age in new ways. For example, if they attempt to create a new account with an adult birthday, we will require them to verify their age in order to use the account,” Meta spokesperson Dani Lever told ABC News.

“We also want to do more to proactively find accounts belonging to teens, even if the account lists an adult birthday. We’re building technology to proactively find these teens and place them in the same protections offered by Teen Account settings,” Lever added.

One expert said the restrictions also risk going too far, potentially limiting the free expression of teens and subjecting them to the control of parents with whom they may disagree about fundamental aspects of their identity.

“We need to be conscientious about the content that platforms are showing kids and how that can shape offline attitudes and behaviors,” Jon-Patrick Allem, a professor of public health at Rutgers University, told ABC News.

Allem added that he is reserving judgment until the changes receive further examination.

The new Teen Accounts were announced by Instagram head Adam Mosseri in a live interview Tuesday on ABC News’ Good Morning America.

“They’re an automatic set of protections for teens that try to proactively address the top concerns that we’ve heard from parents about teens online,” Mosseri told GMA. “Things like who can contact them, what content they see and how much time they spend on their device … all without requiring any involvement from the parent.”

New teen users will automatically be enrolled in Teen Accounts, while existing teen users will see their accounts switch to the new model within 60 days, Mosseri said on GMA.

The new accounts will place users under 18 years old into a private account by default, the company said, while users under age 16 will require parental permission to switch over to a public account. Under the private account setting, teens will need to specifically accept new followers, and only those followers will be able to see their content and interact with them.

With the new accounts, teens also will have the power to choose the age-appropriate topics they want to see more of on Instagram, like sports or art, and parents will also be able to see the topics their teens choose, according to Instagram.

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University and author of The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, offered lukewarm praise for the restrictions in a post on X on Tuesday.

“I am cautiously optimistic about Meta’s new teen accounts,” Haidt said. “Most of the problems with social media will still plague teens on Instagram. But this is a good start, and I hope it is just the first of many steps from Meta.”

Paul Barrett, a professor at New York University Law School and deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, acknowledged that some of the Instagram changes would alleviate harm endured by teens on the platform. However, he added that the move would likely have little impact in the absence of better age verification measures to ensure that teens enroll in the Teen Accounts.

“This points in the right direction,” Barrett told ABC News. But, he added: “None of this is very meaningful until the company does something about age and identity verification. All of the other requirements become ineffective if kids just pretend that they’re adults.”

At least one expert said the changes risk causing some harm by putting too many restrictions on teen Instagram users. For instance, a child’s parents may have different views about fundamental questions of identity, such as whether one should believe in god, Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law who studies content moderation, told ABC News. The increased parental supervision in the new accounts could enable such parents to limit their child’s personal growth, he added.

“Parents might have norms about certain behavior for their children,” Goldman said. “This might take away self-expression and self-exploration.”

In general, some children would likely benefit from the changes, while others would suffer harm, he added.

“Groups of children have different needs,” Goldman said. “If it’s a one-size-fits-all solution, some children are likely to benefit and others are likely to be harmed,” though he added that Instagram has the right to make changes that it deems appropriate.

In response to such criticism, Meta said the company worked with relevant stakeholders to strike a balance between user experience and parental involvement.

“We consulted with parents, teens, and experts throughout the process of building Teen Accounts. With these changes, parents decide if teens under 16 can change the built-in settings,” said Lever, of Meta. “This allows teens to use social media to connect with friends, explore and discover, while giving parents peace of mind that their teens have the right protections in place.”

“If Instagram is adopting this because they think it’s the best for users, I support their freedom to set the policies and approach that is right for them,” Goldman said.

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