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Rep. Judy Chu weighs in on Women’s Health Protection Act

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — California Congresswoman Judy Chu is the lead sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act. Along with the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act, these two pieces of legislation aim to cement protections to reproductive rights by ensuring a federal right to abortion and ability to travel across state lines to get an abortion although neither are expected to pass the Senate.

Chu spoke with “GMA3” about these bills, what needs to be done to protect women’s reproductive rights and the healthcare provisions in the newly passed Inflation Reduction Act.

GMA3: California Congresswoman Judy Chu, welcome back to the program. We hear they are not expected [to pass]. Your Women’s Health Protection Act has passed the House for a second time, did it in July. Realistically, it is not going anywhere in the Senate. So I guess what do you do with it now? What is the next step?

CHU: Well, it actually had a very close vote in the Senate, 49 to 51. But the Senate has that 60 vote filibuster requirement. And so what we need are two votes in the Senate. We need two votes that will eliminate the filibuster and also vote for the Women’s Health Protection Act.

There are two candidates that have said that they would do that, John Fetterman, who is a senatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, and Mandela Barnes, who actually won his primary last night in Wisconsin. It’s just two more votes that we need. And then we can make Roe versus Wade the law of the land, as it has been for 50 years.

GMA3: Congresswoman Chu, in a recent op-ed you wrote, “We are living in a post-Roe reality and every opportunity must be explored. We cannot leave one stone unturned.” Obviously, you just talked about the need you believe to abolish the filibuster. What else realistically can be done?

CHU: There is so much that we need to do. There are states that are putting ballot initiatives on this November ballot. And in fact, our state of California is making abortion a constitutional right on the ballot. But we also need to protect women’s rights to cross state lines and also ensure that women in emergency rooms can get the abortion care that they need regardless of what state they’re in, because that is a federal law.

We need to make sure that there is access to contraception and there is a program called Title Ten, actually, that has guaranteed that right and has fully funded it. We actually need to make sure that it is funded even further because we know that women will need to depend on contraception in order to ensure that they are healthy and that they can have the freedom to face their futures.

So there is much to be done, as well as helping women who may not be able to afford an abortion in their own state. There need to be ways to ensure that they have that ability in other states, and so funds are needed to ensure that they can cross the state lines and can have the hotel and travel expenses covered.

GMA3: Congresswoman, the vote in Kansas, overwhelmingly, voters there wanted to uphold abortion rights. What’s the significance, in your opinion, of what we saw in Kansas, beyond Kansas?

CHU: I was so encouraged by the vote in Kansas. The vote was overwhelming. It was an 18 point margin and this was in a state that is Republican and voted for [Former President Donald]Trump. But what the voters saw was that there was a need to ensure that we do not go backwards in this country, that young women have less rights than their grandmothers. Instead, they upheld the right to an abortion. They upheld Roe versus Wade. And in fact, actually, 70% of Americans believe that Roe versus Wade should be upheld. So I believe that they reflect the sentiment in this country.

GMA3: Congresswoman Chu, the Inflation Reduction Act, as you know, passed the Senate. It awaits a vote in the House. And among the things it purports to do, it will lower healthcare costs for families. It tackles climate change. But a lot of opponents say it really isn’t going to do anything when it comes to the inflation. We’ve just got the new numbers actually out, 8.5% for July. Will the Inflation Reduction Act actually reduce inflation?

CHU: I believe it will, in fact, immediately. It will lower costs for Americans. For one thing, there will be rebates and grants for Americans to be able to afford energy efficient appliances and solar panels, and therefore, they will be able to lower their utility costs. And immediately, there will be a $2,000 cap for seniors who are on Medicare for their prescription drugs so that they do not have to pay more out-of-pocket every year. And of course, there will be a limit on the amount that insulin will cost for those on Medicare, a limit of $35 a month. It is things like that that will enable Americans to afford to pay their own expenses. And because of that, it will lower inflation for sure.

Three people dead after home explodes in Indiana, officials say; cause under investigation

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(EVANSVILLE, Ind.) — Three people are dead after a house exploded Wednesday in southern Indiana, officials said.

Dozens of firefighters responded to the scene in Evansville, after the blast occurred Wednesday afternoon on the 1000 block of North Weinbach Avenue, officials said.

So far three deaths have been reported to the Vanderburgh County Coroner’s Office as a result of the explosion, chief deputy coroner David Anson said in a statement. The victims’ names will be released pending family notification, he said.

The home where the explosion occurred was destroyed and 39 other structures were “damaged severely or suffered minor damage,” Evansville Fire Chief Mike Connelly told reporters Wednesday evening. The Knight Township Trustee’s Office was among the buildings damaged and will be closed for the foreseeable future, officials said.

According to Evansville’s building department, 11 of the 39 homes damaged in the explosion are uninhabitable, Connelly said.

Some 60 firefighters were on the scene assisting, Connelly said.

A 100-foot radius around the blast is not searchable and some buildings are not safe to enter, Connelly said, noting that there could be other victims.

The cause of the explosion is under investigation.

CenterPoint Energy arrived following the blast and “made the scene safe,” Connelly said. “There was no detection of gas and they’re restoring service now.”

Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke was on-site surveilling the damage.

“There’s a big investigation and cleanup effort underway,” Winnecke told ABC Evansville affiliate WEHT.

An off-duty Evansville police officer reported the explosion, the mayor said.

The block where the incident occurred “will be shut down for the foreseeable future,” the Evansville Police Department said.

“As more information becomes available, the respective agencies investigating will be able to provide more information,” the department said.

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

ABC News’ Darren Reynolds contributed to this report.

Can election deniers win big in the midterms?

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s false allegation that the 2020 presidential election was stolen continues to reverberate among GOP political candidates who are running on anti-establishment platforms and eager to gain the support of the former president’s voter base.

Kari Lake is one of those candidates. The former newscaster-turned-gubernatorial candidate in Arizona won a spot on the ballot August 4 and will face Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs in November.

In her victory speech, Lake said, “we outvoted the fraud, we didn’t listen to what the fake news had to say. The MAGA movement rose up and voted like their lives depended on it.”

When asked directly to corroborate her unsubstantiated allegation that the election system is fraudulent, she vaguely claimed, “we have a lot of evidence of irregularities and problems.”

“I’m not going to release it to the fake news,” she added, “but we’ll release it to the authorities.”

Kari Lake, Republican candidate for governor of Arizona holds a press conference at her campaign headquarters in Phoenix, Ariz., Aug. 3, 2022.

According to an analysis by ABC News partner FiveThirtyEight, at least 120 Republican political candidates who deny the integrity of the 2020 elections will be on ballots this fall.

An additional 48 nominees have expressed doubt about the election’s integrity, meaning half of Republican candidates have “at least flirted with” denying the election, according to the FiveThirtyEight analysis.

“Concerns inside the Republican Party about voter integrity also is something that’s been going on for decades” Rick Klein, Political Director at ABC News, told “NIGHTLINE.”

“What’s different is that you had in former President Trump someone who, during the campaign, actively stowed mistrust in the system,” he added.

These claims remaining popular despite the fact that multiple lawsuits and investigations nationwide after the 2020 presidential election never came close to proving election fraud that would call into question President Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.

Last week, a candidate endorsed by former President Trump, businesswoman Tudor Dixon, won her party’s gubernatorial nomination in Michigan.

When asked directly about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, Dixon told a Fox News reporter, “it’s certainly a concern for a lot of folks here in Michigan because of the way the election was handled by our secretary of state.”

Political newcomer John Gibbs, also a Michigan Republican endorsed by Trump, beat the incumbent Republican Rep. Peter Meijer last week.

Earlier this summer Gibbs falsely claimed that the 2020 election results weren’t accurate, telling a local NBC station, “I think when you look at the results of the 2020 election, there are anomalies in there, to put it very lightly, that are simply mathematically impossible.”

In the coming weeks, dozens of other candidates will be decided, revealing how deeply Republican voters are invested in the former president’s claims of a stolen election.

“In a Republican primary it is a definite boon to a candidate to say that you deny the legitimacy of the last election,” Klein said.

“It gets you on the radar screen of former President Trump, who’s had a terrific track record through many of the primaries in redder states,” said Klein.

“The other thing it does is a connection to a segment of the base for whom denying the last election’s outcome is almost a mantra,” he said.

The baseless idea planted by Donald Trump that there’s rampant voter fraud and cheating at the ballot box, two allegations that have repeatedly been proven false, taking hold in the minds of many voters.

Authorities urge people to come forward in search for teen reported missing after attending party

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(TRUCKEE, Calif.) — Authorities are urging people to come forward with tips as they continue searching for a missing 16-year-old who was last seen early Saturday at a large party near a campground in northern California.

“We’re trying to find out exactly what happened. We believe someone knows, but they are not coming forward,” Placer County Sheriff Lt. Josh Barnhart told reporters during a briefing Wednesday afternoon.

Kiely Rodni was last seen at around 12:30 a.m. Saturday near the Prosser Family Campground in the small town of Truckee, some 20 miles north of Lake Tahoe, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office. Her phone has been out of signal since then, and her car — a silver 2013 Honda CRV with a California license plate No. 8YUR127 — has also been reported missing, authorities said.

The teen had attended a large party that night alongside upward of 300 young people, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, which is leading the ongoing investigation and search.

The Placer County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday that detectives obtained surveillance footage from a local business in Truckee that shows Rodni around 6:30 p.m. on the night of her disappearance.

That footage is the only known lead so far in the case, the sheriff’s office said.

“So far nothing has been able to lead us to Kiely,” Angela Musallam, public information officer for the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters Wednesday.

The Placer County Sheriff’s Office has urged anyone who saw her that night to come forward. So far investigators have received more than 200 tips, according to Placer County Sgt. Scott Alford. Though beyond the surveillance footage from the Truckee business, law enforcement has no new leads in the case, Barnhart said.

“We do not have any new leads, and that, I can tell you, is very frustrating for us,” Barnhart said. “We reiterate that anyone, please, anyone that was at the party that night please come to law enforcement.”

“People that were there know something. If you know something, please say something,” he said.

Rodni’s family has also urged people to speak out.

“We’re just begging, begging for you to please come forward and share your story,” Rodni’s mother, Lindsey Rodni-Nieman, told ABC News.

Detectives are not ruling out a possible abduction, though “right now we don’t have any evidence that supports an abduction,” Alford told reporters during a briefing Tuesday.

“We’re considering everything,” he said. “This is a missing person’s case, this is a search-and-rescue effort.”

Dozens of law enforcement personnel have been involved in the search, including foot patrol, aircraft and dive teams. A canine team has also been utilized.

Other local, state and federal agencies, including the Truckee Police Department, the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office, the California Highway Patrol and the FBI, are assisting the Placer County Sheriff’s Office in the investigation, according to Musallam.

A $50,000 reward is being offered for information leading to Rodni’s safe return. Authorities said she was last seen wearing a black bodysuit, green pants with a black belt and black Vans shoes. She also may have a black hoodie that was loaned to her several days before she disappeared, the sheriff’s office said.

“We can’t stress this enough — out of the 200-300 juveniles and young adults who were at that party at the Prosser Campground Friday evening — somebody knows something about Kylie,” Musallam said during Tuesday’s briefing. “We are please urging and pleading with the community to please come forward. You will remain anonymous.”

US Open ticket sales skyrocket after Serena Williams announcement

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The demand for tickets to the U.S. Open are soaring after Serena Williams announced she’s preparing to say goodbye to tennis.

In a first-person essay for Vogue, Williams said she is “evolving away” from the sport and instead choosing to focus on her family.

“I have never liked the word retirement,” Williams wrote. “It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me. Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution. I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”

The article appeared to hint the upcoming U.S. Open tournament will be her last grand slam, fueling ticket sales.

Following her announcement, approximately 13,000 U.S. Open tickets were sold on Tuesday, tournament organizers told ABC News.

Of those tickets sold, nearly 4,500 were for the tournament’s opening night, according to the United States Tennis Association, despite Williams not being guaranteed to play in that slot.

Williams has played tennis professionally since 1995 and is one of the most decorated tennis players of all time. She has taken home 23 grand slams — one short of the record — and four Olympic gold medals in her career and spent 319 weeks ranked No. 1 in the world.

While her next chapter is on the horizon, in her Vogue essay, Williams said she’s still enjoying her sport.

“This sport has given me so much. I love to win. I love the battle. I love to entertain. I’m not sure every player sees it that way, but I love the performance aspect of it — to be able to entertain people week after week … Night matches in Arthur Ashe Stadium at Flushing Meadows. Hitting an ace on set point.”

As she shifts to focus on motherhood and investing in a new part of herself, Williams wrote on Instagram: “My goodness do I enjoy tennis. But now, the countdown has begun … I’m gonna relish these next few weeks.”

Vanessa Bryant’s invasion of privacy trial against LA County begins

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(LOS ANGELES) — Jury selection and opening arguments in Vanessa Bryant’s case against Los Angeles County began Wednesday.

Bryant filed a lawsuit in September 2020, alleging that first responders took and shared photos of her husband’s and daughter’s remains on Jan. 26, 2020. Bryant’s husband, basketball superstar Kobe Bryant, and daughter Gianna were killed in a helicopter crash. Everyone on board, including the pilot, was killed.

“Mrs. Bryant feels ill at the thought that sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, and members of the public have gawked at gratuitous images of her deceased husband and child,” her lawsuit states. “She lives in fear that she or her children will one day confront horrific images of their loved ones online.”

Orange County financial adviser Chris Chester also filed a lawsuit against the county for photos taken of his wife and daughter killed in the same crash. In July, U.S. District Judge John Walter decided to consolidate Bryant’s and Chester’s trials.

Both Bryant and Chester claim they suffered emotional distress because of the alleged sharing of photos.

On Wednesday, Bryant’s attorneys said they wanted to call a witness from the county coroner’s office, adding that the witness should bring “all photographs” of the victims from the crash, according to court documents.

The L.A. County’s legal team opposed the request, with attorney Mira Hashmall saying they “are highly sensitive, gruesome images that have no place in this courtroom.”

Hashmall said the plaintiffs are trying to “inflame the jury’s emotions” by including the coroner’s photos.

“If the plaintiffs really wanted to keep the tragic details of what happened to their loved ones out of the public domain, they would not put these photos into the case,” Hashmall said.

L.A. County maintains that first responders did not share any photos from the scene of the crash.

While the county “sympathizes with the losses suffered by the Bryant and Chester families,” the case is about whether the county publicly disseminated crash site photos in violation of the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, Hashmall told City News Services. “From the time of the crash to now, the county has worked tirelessly to prevent its crash site photos from getting into the public domain. Over two and a half years later, no county photos have appeared in the media, none can be found online, and the plaintiffs admit they’ve never seen them.”

The county also attests that an investigation by the Internal Affairs Bureau of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that all of the photos were destroyed.

Both Bryant’s and Chester’s lawsuits argue that the photos were shared before being deleted by first responders.

“At least 11 [sheriff’s] personnel and a dozen firefighters shared the photos within 24 hours of the crash,” Bryant’s lawsuit said. “In the following weeks, one [sheriff’s] deputy flaunted photos of remains at a bar, another texted photos to a group of video game buddies, and [county fire] personnel displayed photos at an awards gala.”

According to the lawsuits, the images taken of the wreckage and remains at the Calabasas crash site are graphic. Bryant’s lawsuit states that Sheriff Alex Villanueva told Bryant he was securing the scene and ordered all responders to delete any photos taken, but that responders did not do so and Villanueva attempted to “cover it up.”

Villanueva and L.A. County have denied that any photos were shared under their supervision, according to court documents. ABC News reached out for comment and did not receive a response.

Since Bryant filed her lawsuit, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an invasion-of-privacy bill, named after Kobe Bryant, in September 2020 to make it illegal for first responders to share photos of a dead person at a crime scene “for any purpose other than an official law enforcement purpose.” The misdemeanor crime is punishable by up to $1,000 per violation.

3 people dead after home explodes in Indiana, officials say; cause under investigation

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(EVANSVILLE, Ind.) — Three people are dead after a house exploded Wednesday in southern Indiana, officials said.

Dozens of firefighters responded to the scene in Evansville, after the blast occurred Wednesday afternoon on the 1000 block of North Weinbach Avenue, officials said.

Some 60 firefighters were on the scene assisting, Connelly said.

A 100-foot radius around the blast is not searchable and some buildings are not safe to enter, Connelly said, noting that there could be other victims.

The cause of the explosion is under investigation.

CenterPoint Energy arrived following the blast and “made the scene safe,” Connelly said. “There was no detection of gas and they’re restoring service now.”

Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke was on-site surveilling the damage.

“There’s a big investigation and cleanup effort underway,” Winnecke told ABC Evansville affiliate WEHT.

An off-duty Evansville police officer reported the explosion, the mayor said.

The block where the incident occurred “will be shut down for the foreseeable future,” the Evansville Police Department said.

“As more information becomes available, the respective agencies investigating will be able to provide more information,” the department said.

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

Bangles frontwoman Susanna Hoffs to publish debut novel in 2023

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs is going from walking like an Egyptian to writing like an author: She’s publishing her first novel, This Bird Has Flown, next spring.

The book is about a washed-up pop singer who finds new inspiration when she falls in love with an Oxford literature professor she meets on a plane to London. Helen Fielding, who wrote Bridget Jones’ Diary, calls the book a “sexy, page-turning treat.”

Susanna tells Entertainment Weekly, “I decided to make my protagonist a musician and songwriter because it’s a job I know well … I also wanted to give readers a peek behind the curtain of what it’s like to face an audience with your heart thumping so loudly you fear they can hear it, too — and then, somehow, to find your voice.”

The “Eternal Flame” singer adds that she found the novel-writing process “truly exhilarating,” adding, “It was permission to escape into my fictional world with my characters, as though I’d gone through a portal into another world. … It was essentially like playing with dolls in my imagination.”

This Bird Has Flown — presumably titled after the Beatles song “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” — arrives April 4, 2023.

Måneskin premieres first episode of ‘On the Road’ series

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Måneskin has premiered the first episode of the band’s On the Road series.

The 26-minute video follows the Italian rockers during their European festival tour in June, featuring behind-the-scene footage of sound-checks and many, many wardrobe fittings.

In between, the band members kill time on the road playing games and sports and joking around. For someone who is the lead singer of one of the world’s hottest bands, it feels a little unfair that Damiano David also has such a smooth basketball jumpshot.

You can watch episode one of On the Road streaming now on YouTube.

Måneskin will be on the road this fall for their first-ever North American headlining tour, which kicks off Halloween night in Seattle.

(Video contains uncensored profanity)

FBI director condemns threats to agents after raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(OMAHA, Neb.) — Answering questions at the FBI Omaha, Nebraska field office, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday he couldn’t talk about FBI agents searching Mar-a-Lago, the home of former President Donald Trump, but did say that he is “always concerned” about the threats to law enforcement.

“Well, as I’m sure you can appreciate that’s not something I can talk about,” Wray said, becoming the first senior Justice Department official to decline to comment on the record and on camera about the search of the former president’s estate.

Multiple sources confirmed to ABC News that former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was raided by FBI agents on Monday.

The sources told ABC News that the search began at around 10 a.m.

The former president put out a statement Monday evening saying federal investigators were there and that they had even gotten into his safe.

It is standard Justice Department practice to not comment on ongoing investigations.

There is an uptick in violent threats against rank and file FBI agents in the wake of the raid, senior law enforcement officials told ABC News.

While not directly addressing those threats, Wray said any threat against law enforcement is cause for concern.

“Violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter what anyone is upset about,” Wray said. “In the last few years we’ve had an alarming rise in violence against law enforcement.”

The director said it takes a “special person” to sacrifice his or her life for a stranger, and that is what law enforcement officers, including FBI agents, do every day.

When asked for more specifics on the threats against FBI agents, the FBI offered a generic statement and provided no details.

“The FBI is always concerned about violence and threats of violence to law enforcement, including the men and women of the FBI,” an unnamed FBI spokesperson said in an e-mail to ABC News. “We work closely with our law enforcement partners to assess and respond to such threats, which are reprehensible and dangerous. As always, we would like to remind members of the public that if they observe anything suspicious to report it to law enforcement immediately.”

As a reminder, Wray was appointed by former President Trump in 2017, and has not been outspoken on many controversial issues.

The President of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA) called the recent threats against FBI agents in the wake of the raid on Mar-a-Lago “politically motivated threats of violence” and “unprecedented,” in a statement Wednesday.

“Levying threats against apolitical federal employees simply applying the law to the facts of a case it not a democratic way to solve anything. It is also illegal,” Larry Cosme said. “An investigation will not occur unless there are allegations of violations of the law and will not progress unless there is evidence of wrongdoing.”

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