(NEW YORK) — Former GOP Rep. Steve Buyer was arrested Monday on insider trading charges.
According to the complaint, Buyer, who has done consulting work since leaving Congress in 2011, “misappropriated material non-public information that he learned as a consultant and used [it] … to place timely, profitable securities trades in brokerage accounts in his own name and the names of others.”
In March 2018, Buyer attended a golf outing with an executive of T-Mobile, one of his consulting clients, from whom he learned about the company’s then-nonpublic plan to acquire Sprint, the complaint said. Buyer began purchasing Sprint securities the next day, and, after news of the merger leaked in April 2018, Buyer saw an immediate profit of more than $107,000, according to the complaint.
In total, Buyer’s fraudulent trading activity based on nonpublic information in 2018 and 2019 resulted in profits of at least $349,846.61, the complaint said.
Buyer was arrested in Indiana where he was expected to make an initial appearance in federal court later Monday.
Buyer, who was first elected to the House from Indiana in 1992, announced in 2010 he would not seek another term amid ethical questions involving fundraising.
Monday’s arrest was the result of a joint investigation by several federal agencies including the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission.
It wasn’t immediately clear who was representing Buyer following his arrest.
Eddie Vedder‘s Ohana Encore, the companion weekend to the Pearl Jam frontman’s Ohana Festival, has been canceled.
No official announcement was made, but the Ohana website no longer lists the Encore event. Additionally, the festival’s FAQ section states that those who purchased tickets to Ohana Encore will be automatically refunded.
According to Spin.com, ticketholders received an email saying that Ohana Encore was canceled due to “circumstances beyond our control.”
Ohana Encore was set to take place October 8-9 in Dana Point, California with performances by Vedder, The Black Keys, Alanis Morissette and HAIM. Ohana Festival, meanwhile, will be held in Dana Point from September 30 to October 2 with headliners Vedder, Jack White, Stevie Nicks and Pink.
Meanwhile, Pearl Jam has been dealing with a host of cancellations as Vedder recovers from vocal issues stemming from a Paris performance besieged by the European heat wave.
Stevie Nicks has added a dozen headlining dates to her upcoming 2022 U.S. tour, which includes appearances at five festivals.
The newly announced shows run from a September 13 concert in Clarkston, Michigan through an October 28 performance in West Palm Beach, Florida. Nicks’ tour also will visit Los Angeles, Massachusetts, Maine, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Stevie’s pal, singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton, will open all 12 shows. Tickets go on sale to the general public starting this Friday, July 29 at 10 a.m. local time via LiveNation.com. Pre-sale tickets will be available starting Thursday, July 28 at 10 a.m. local time.
“Here we go!” Stevie says in a statement about the trek. “I’m so excited to be back on the road and can’t wait to see everyone.”
Nicks’ festival performances are scheduled for September 4 at Jazz Aspen Snowmass in Snowmass, Colorado; September 8 and September 10 at Ravinia in Highland Park, Illinois; September 17 at the Sea.Hear.Now festival in Asbury Park, New Jersey; September 24 at Bridgeport, Connecticut’s Sound on Sound Festival; and September 30 at Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder‘s Ohana Fest in Dana Point, California.
(NEW YORK) — As the heat hovering over much of the country continues, residents on the East Coast will soon have another extreme weather event to contend with: severe storms.
More than 52 million people living along the Interstate 95 corridor will be under threat of severe thunderstorms on Monday afternoon.
As the storm system moves east, it will effectively end a nearly weeklong heat wave from Boston to Washington, D.C.
Records for heat were broken over the weekend in Newark, New Jersey, which hit 102 degrees for the fifth day in a row, breaking the all-time record for consecutive days over 100. Boston surpassed its record at 100 degrees, Philadelphia broke its record at 99 degrees and Providence, Rhode Island, did the same at 98 degrees. New York City’s LaGuardia Airport tied its heat record at 98 degrees.
Heat alerts remained in the Northeast on Monday, with hot and humid conditions from Maryland to Massachusetts.
Monday afternoon, a cold front is expected to pass through the region with severe thunderstorms, damaging winds, hail and the possibility of isolated tornados.
There will be a break in the heat following the storm system with temperatures in the Northeast staying in the 80s over the next several days.
However, scorching conditions will continue Monday afternoon in the Pacific Northwest, down the coast to central and Southern California and stretching to the Midwest, Plains and Southeast.
Triple-digit temperatures are expected in cities like Portland and Medford, Oregon; Fresno, California; San Antonio, Houston and Dallas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Shreveport, Louisiana. In Tennessee, Nashville is expected to hit 102 degrees, while Memphis is expected to reach 108 degrees.
A strong push of monsoon moisture into the Southwest will bring elevated threats for flash flooding Monday and through the week. Flood watches have been issued for Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado.
(NEW YORK) — Pope Francis is set to deliver a long-sought apology to the Indigenous community in Canada over the Catholic church’s role in the generational abuse they suffered at Indigenous residential schools for nearly 150 years.
The schools were operated for decades by churches and the federal government of Canada to force assimilation.
Beginning in the 1800s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children from Canada and the United States were taken from their homes and families and placed into so-called residential schools aimed at ridding the children from ties to their Native communities, language and culture. Some of the schools were run by the Catholic church, where missionaries participated in the policies of forced assimilation and abuse.
Upon his arrival in Edmonton, the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta, Pope Francis was greeted on Sunday at the airport by First Nations, Metis and Inuit leaders, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mary Simon, who is Canada’s first Indigenous governor general.
“[Pope Francis] is visiting Canada to deliver the Roman Catholic Church’s apology to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Survivors and their descendants – for its role in operating residential schools, and for causing pain and suffering that continues to this very day,” Trudeau tweeted on Sunday.
Francis is set to meet with residential school survivors on Monday near the site of a former residential school in Maskwacis in central Alberta, where he is expected to pray and deliver an apology.
“Dear brothers and sisters of [Canada], I come among you to meet the indigenous peoples. I hope, with God’s grace, that my penitential pilgrimage might contribute to the journey of reconciliation already undertaken. Please accompany me with [prayer],” Francis tweeted on Sunday.
Chief Tony Alexis of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, who had called for Pope Francis to deliver an in-person apology on behalf of the church, told ABC News’ Marcus Moore that Francis’ visit is “a validation of what has happened with the church and how they’ve hurt and abused our people.”
Ahead of his historic seven-day trip to Canada, Pope Francis asked for prayers to accompany him on what he called a “penitential pilgrimage” and offered an apology to Native communities for the Catholic church’s role in the abuse.
According to a 2015 report released by Canada’s National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous residential schools were an integral part of the Canadian government’s “conscious policy of cultural genocide,” where children were disconnected from their families, punished for speaking their Native languages and some faced physical and sexual abuse.
“The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources. If every Aboriginal person had been ‘absorbed into the body politic,’ there would be no reserves, no Treaties, and no Aboriginal rights,” according to the report.
Reflecting on the generational trauma that was inflicted on Indigenous communities, Alexis recalled a conversation with a survivor who told him, “The only thing I learned in the residential school was how to hate myself.”
The pope’s visit comes a year after nearly 1,000 sets of human remains were found at the cemetery of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan in western Canada and at the former St. Eugene’s Mission School for Indigenous children in Aqam, a community in British Colombia. It is unclear how many total students died at residential boarding schools and what their causes of death were.
After the graves were discovered in Canada, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Native American to hold a Cabinet position — launched a probe in June 2021 into the U.S. government’s own role in funding Indian boarding schools as part of an effort to dispossess Indigenous people of their land to expand the United States.
The probe’s initial findings were outlined in a May report that found more than 500 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died over the course of 150 years in Indigenous boarding schools run by the American government and churches.
Native Nations scholars estimate that almost 40,000 children have died at Indigenous boarding schools. According to the federal report, the Interior Department “expects that continued investigation will reveal the approximate number of Indian children who died at Federal Indian boarding schools to be in the thousands or tens of thousands.”
Haaland, whose grandparents attended Indian boarding schools, now oversees the government agency that historically played a major role in the forced relocation and oppression of Indigenous people and said that her work is a chance to bring some healing to the community.
“I have a great obligation, but I was taught by my mother and my grandfather and my grandmother that when you are asked to do something for your people that you step up,” Haaland told ABC’s Nightline in an interview earlier this year.
Martha Stewart is mourning the death of six of her pet peacocks.
Over the weekend, the business woman took to Instagram to shared a clip of one of the beautiful birds with its colorful feathers fully extended and wrote, “RIP beautiful BlueBoy.”
“The coyotes came in broad daylight and devoured him and five others including the magnificent White Boy any solutions for getting rid of six large and aggressive coyotes who have expensive tastes when it comes to poultry?? we are no longer allowing the peafowl out of their yard, we are enclosing the top of their large yard with wire fencing etc,” Stewart continued.
“By the way i do not have any idea how the marvin gaye music found it’s [sic] way to this sad post but when Blue Boy was alive it would have been perfectly appropriate,” she said of the post which was set to Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 symptoms are “almost completely resolved,” his physician said on Monday.
Kevin O’Connor wrote in a letter released by the White House that Biden is now only noting “some residual nasal congestion and minimal hoarseness.”
“His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain absolutely normal. His oxygen saturation continues to be excellent in room air. His lungs remain clear,” O’Connor added.
Biden on Sunday night also completed his fourth full day of Paxlovid, the COVID-19 treatment he’s been taking since he tested positive for the virus on Thursday. The president is believed to have contracted the BA.5 subvariant, which has shown increased resistance to vaccines than previous COVID strains.
Prior to Monday, Biden’s symptoms had included a runny nose, cough, sore throat, a slight fever and body aches. He had also been using an albuterol inhaler for a cough, though O’Connor’s Monday letter did not mention that.
Biden is fully vaccinated and double-boosted, though at 79 years old, he’s considered to be in a high-risk age group for severe infection.
The White House has said that 17 people are considered close contacts of the president, though no other positive tests from the administration have been reported as of Monday morning.
Biden will continue working from the White House residence until he tests negative. He had to cancel trips to Pennsylvania and Florida after contracting the virus.
Selena Gomez rang in the big 3-0 with best friend Taylor Swift by her side.
“30, nerdy and worthy,” she captioned a sweet Instagram post on Saturday, which showed the two sitting side-by-side at a dinner table. In one photo, the Rare Beauty mogul has an arm wrapped around Taylor, who is holding up three fingers and has a shocked expression on her face.
In the second photo, which appears to be a selfie, Taylor looks somewhat proud of herself and flashes a thumbs up as Selena giggles while reading her birthday card.
Selena is longtime friends with the “Shake It Off” singer. Their friendship goes all the way back to 2005 when they were both dating members of the Jonas Brothers. Selena was dating Nick Jonas,while Taylor was seeing Joe Jonas.
“We clicked instantly and, man, that was my girl,” Selena told The Wall Street Journal in 2020. “There’s so much of my friendship with Taylor that people don’t know about because we don’t necessarily feel the need to post about everything we do.”
She added, “She has showed up for me in ways that I would have never expected… It’s been proven year after year and in every moment of my life that she is one of my best friends in the world.”
As for Taylor, she said in the same interview, “I knew from when I met her I would always have her back. In my life, I have the ability to forgive people who have hurt me. But I don’t know if I can forgive someone who hurts her.”
(PHOENIX) — Ahead of Arizona’s Aug. 2 primary, Republican voters in the battleground state say they remain torn over former President Donald Trump’s place in the party — as he and his estranged former Vice President Mike Pence support dueling candidates in the GOP governor’s primary.
At a banquet-style event in Peoria on Friday with roughly 350 guests, Pence joined a term-limited Gov. Doug Ducey and GOP secretary of state candidate Beau Lane to support gubernatorial hopeful Karrin Taylor Robson, a wealthy donor and former member of the Arizona Board of Regents widely seen as the establishment candidate.
On the heels of another prime-time Jan. 6 hearing, Pence only mentioned Trump once in his 21-minute speech to tout their accomplishments — careful not to break fully from the former president in public but taking a quick swipe at Trump’s chosen candidate, Kari Lake, saying, “There are those who want to make this election about the past.”
That day, at a rally across the state, Trump and Lake, a former TV journalist-turned-“Ultra MAGA mom,” called President Joe Biden’s victory “illegitimate” and likened the former president to “Superman” before an energized crowd of thousands.
In interviews with ABC News, voters at a Lake town hall on Saturday expressed frustration with Pence for supporting Robson and for fulfilling his constitutional duty to certify the 2020 presidential election.
“To me, it just reiterated my disappointment in Pence,” said LeAnna Perez, a teacher for deaf and hard-of-hearing students from Louisiana who moved to Arizona in February and will be voting in her first election in the state next week. “I’m done with Mike Pence. He’s proving who he truly is.”
A half-dozen Republicans in Arizona told ABC News that while they support Trump’s “America First” policies, they are split on whether he is the right person to deliver them in an already polarized political climate.
“Whoever he is sponsoring is going to have a hard time in the primary and in the general election,” said Anastasia Keller, a lifelong Republican, Arizonan and small business owner who supported Trump in 2020.
Keller added that she had relatives break off from him: “They really liked Trump and what he stood for, some of the things that he accomplished, but the mean tweets and the overall attitude — I just don’t think that he can bring the country together.”
Pence, formerly Trump’s loyal No. 2, has become one of the most prominent GOP politicians with a contrasting style — endorsing a range of local candidates even against the Trump-endorsed picks, as he did when he stumped for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp over primary challenger David Perdue.
Lake is the odds-on favorite for the gubernatorial nod, but Robson has seen a surge in polling in recent weeks with former Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon dropping out of the race to back her and blast Lake. But Lake would face an uphill battle in the general election in a state that has shifted blue, with the likely Democratic nominee, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, singling out Lake over Robson in most of her attack ads.
John Mendibles, the executive director of Arizona’s League of Veterans who is supporting Robson, told ABC News that Republicans “want level heads. We don’t want no more craziness.”
“We’ve got enough of that. That’s behind us,” Mendibles said, holding a Robson sign for the camera. “This is 2022; 2024 is coming.”
One outside strategist in the Arizona governor’s race argued that Trump’s brand in the state was tarnished given Democrats’ victories in the state in 2018 and 2020.
“Kari Lake embodies the Trump experience. … She has taken the Trump playbook and [tried] to replicate what Trump did nationally in Arizona,” said GOP strategist and lifelong Arizonan Barrett Marson. “But Trump lost in 2020 in Arizona.”
According to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, nearly half (49%) of Republicans said they wanted Trump to seek a second term. But the other half of those surveyed told the Times that they wanted someone else to get the Republican nomination in 2024 and 16% of GOP voters said they would never vote for Trump.
Voters at Lake’s event over the weekend said they would back Trump in 2024 — but also praised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is at 25% among GOP primary voters, according to the Times poll.
Jason J. Baker, who works for DoorDash and a Christian film company, said Trump has his vote “unless there’s a candidate that just blows him away.”
“It would be kind of close for me, because I’m a huge supporter of Gov. DeSantis, and if [South Dakota] Gov. Kristi Noem was to ever run, she’d pretty much have my vote from the announcement,” Sanchez said.
Former Suicidal Tendencies bassist Bob Heathcote has passed away. He was 58.
According to a Facebook post from his son, Chris, Heathcote died Sunday following a motorcycle accident.
“I cannot put words together other than the fact that this is a loss I will hardly recover (if ever), and the fact that he was a hard working father who raised five children, including me,” Chris’ post reads.
Heathcote was a member of Suicidal Tendencies for just one year, between 1988 and 1989. He played on the 1988 album, How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today,before being replaced by a pre-MetallicaRobert Trujillo.
