(NEW YORK) — Dangerous heat is enveloping a large swath of the U.S., with temperatures forecast to climb above 100 degrees Monday from California to Arizona to Texas to Missouri.
Temperatures on Monday could reach a scorching 111 degrees in Redding, California; 114 in Palm Springs; 112 in Las Vegas; and 115 in Phoenix.
East of the Rockies, the humidity combined with the heat will make it feel oppressive. The heat index — what temperature it feels like with humidity — is forecast to skyrocket to 111 degrees in Austin, Texas; 109 in Houston; 105 in Dallas; 104 in St. Louis and 99 in Memphis, Tennessee.
College Station, Texas, reached a record high temperature of 111 degrees this weekend. At Camp Mabry, a military base in the Austin area, the temperature reached a July record high of 110.
More record highs are possible Monday in Texas, Northern California and Oregon.
Some of this heat will stretch into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a forecast of 92 degrees in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia and 91 degrees in New York. With humidity, it will feel like the upper 90s in some areas.
Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia, the first Bachelorettes to co-star in a full season, meet their 32 potential suitors on the season 19 premiere, debuting Monday night on ABC.
The ladies established a tight bond on Clayton Echard‘s The Bachelor season, which ended with their shocking double elimination. They told Good Morning America that their bond will be on full display throughout their Bachelorette experience.
“We do have the same journey but, in a way, our own, and people get to see two different love stories and our friendship along the way,” Recchia said.
Windey added that, while they didn’t really have a game plan for the season going into it, they had “lots of open communication” because they didn’t want to jeopardize their friendship.
“We were really lucky, because when Bachelorettes before have gone through this, it can be very isolating and you do really just have to rely on yourself,” she said.
In addition to each other, the Bachelorettes also had host Jesse Palmer — who first met them as he hosted Echard’s Bachelor season — to lean on.
“He knew our ins and outs and what we had been through, so he knew our personalities, he knew who we are as women, and was able to support us accordingly,” Windey said.
But Palmer wasn’t only a source of comfort throughout their season. “I think we gave Jesse a little bit of trouble,” Recchia joked. “He’s never had Bachelorettes before — let alone two of us.”
Both ladies said going through this unique adventure together was a chance for their own individual growth.
“Just having Rachel by my side,” Windey added, “I got to learn so much from her and grow as a person.”
The Bachelorette season 19 premieres tonight at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
Oprah and Vernon in 2003 — Adriane Jaeckle/Getty Images
Oprah Winfrey is paying tribute to her late father, Vernon Winfrey.
Taking to Instagram on Saturday, Oprah shared a short video of her father, who died Friday of cancer. He was 88.
“Vernon Winfrey 1933-2022,” she wrote. “Less than a week ago we honored my father in his own backyard. My friend and gospel singer Wintley Phipps saluted him with song. He FELT the love and reveled in it until he could no longer speak.”
“Yesterday with family surrounding his bedside, I had the sacred honor of witnessing the man responsible for my life, take his last breath. We could feel Peace enter the room at his passing,” Oprah continued, “That Peace still abides. All is well. Thank you for your prayers and good thoughts.”
Vernon was a former councilman and operated a barbershop in Nashville for over 50 years prior to his death.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department revealed in an early Monday morning court filing that federal investigators interviewed former President Donald Trump’s attorney Justin Clark two weeks ago in connection with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s criminal contempt case.
Prosecutors say that Clark confirmed in the interview that at no point did Trump ever invoke executive privilege over Bannon’s testimony — and directly contradicted other claims made by Bannon’s defense team in their case.
Bannon was charged last year with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after defying a Jan. 6 subpoena, though he argued Trump’s privilege claim protected him. He pleaded not guilty and is set to go to trial next week.
Prosecutors say in Monday’s filing that they believe Bannon’s recent efforts in conjunction with Trump to offer to finally testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack are no more than an effort to try to make Bannon more of a sympathetic figure to the jury he’s set to face next week.
“All of the above-described circumstances suggest the Defendant’s sudden wish to testify is not a genuine effort to meet his obligations but a last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability,” prosecutors say.
“The Defendant’s timing suggests that the only thing that has really changed since he refused to comply with the subpoena in October 2021 is that he is finally about to face the consequences of his decision to default,” prosecutors said in the filing.
Regarding Bannon, the filing also said Clark told investigators that he “never asked or was asked to attend the Defendant’s deposition before the Select Committee; that the Defendant’s attorney misrepresented to the Committee what the former President’s counsel had told the Defendant’s attorney; and that the former President’s counsel made clear to the Defendant’s attorney that the letter provided no basis for total noncompliance.”
Neither representatives for Bannon or the Jan. 6 committee immediately responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Bannon remained an outside adviser to Trump after helping to lead Trump’s first presidential campaign and serving a short stint in the White House. He was at a meeting at the Willard Hotel where lawmakers were encouraged to challenge the 2020 presidential election results in the lead-up to Jan. 6, the House Jan. 6 committee claimed in a 2021 letter to Bannon that accompanied his subpoena.
On his final night in office, Trump pardoned Bannon, who had been indicted on charges tied to an alleged conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering related to a crowdfunding effort to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Prosecutors had accused Bannon of defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors to the “We Build the Wall” fundraising campaign by falsely claiming that he and other organizers would not take a cut of any donated funds. Prosecutors alleged that organizers of the group, including Bannon, syphoned off at least $1 million for their own personal expenses.
Two of Bannon’s co-defendants in the case, Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, who did not receive pardons from Trump, pleaded guilty. The trial for a third co-defendant, Timothy Shea, ended in a mistrial after the jury could not reach a verdict.
Joe Elliott & Billy Joel in 2018; Myrna M. Suarez/Getty Images
Billy Joel pulled into Detroit’s Comerica Park on Saturday, with a little help from surprise guest Joe Elliott.
The Detroit Free Press reports the Piano Man was an hour into his show when the Def Leppard lead singer — in town for his band’s own Comerica Park show on Sunday — took the stage for a rendition of his band’s 1988 smash “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” backed by Joel’s eight-piece band.
It marked an encore performance for the two, who played the song together during Billy’s appearance at Boston’s Fenway Park back in 2018.
Besides his vast collection of hits, 73-year-old Billy’s Motor City stop — his first since 2014 — featured several Motown covers, including Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” and Martha & the Vandellas‘ “Dancing in the Streets,” the latter of which Billy slipped into his own 1993 hit, “River of Dreams.”
Goodbye, gorgeous. Beanie Feldstein will leave the Broadway revival of Funny Girl on July 31 — nearly two months before her scheduled exit — The Booksmart actress announced in a statement on Instagram. She attributed the move to a decision by producers “to take the show in a different direction,” but didn’t elaborate. The casting change, originally set for December, also included the planned departure of co-star Jane Lynch. It’s unclear if Lynch will also make an early exit…
It’s the age of director’s cuts, but don’t expect one from Thor: Love and Thunder helmer Taika Waititi. “Director’s cuts are not good,” Waititi tells NME. “I’ve been thinking about director’s cuts. I watch director’s cuts of a lot of other directors.” He adds, “Directors need to be controlled sometimes, and if I was to say, ‘ah, you wanna watch my director’s cut? It’s four and a half hours long!’ It’s not good, at four and a half hours. There’s a lot of cup-of-tea breaks in there, you don’t even have to pause it.” Thor: Love and Thunder is doing just fine the way it is: the film opened over the weekend with an estimated $143 million domestically…
Veteran character actor, L.Q. Jones, whose list of screen credits includes Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, Ride the High Country and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, died of natural causes Saturday at his home in Hollywood. He was 94. His death was confirmed by his grandson, Erté deGarces. Jones’ other big-screen appearances include The Mask of Zorro, The Patriot and Casino. His TV career consisted mainly Westerns, such as Gunsmoke, The Virginian and Bonanza. Beyond acting, he produced, directed and wrote the 1975 post-apocalyptic cult classic black comedy A Boy and His Dog, adapted from the novella by Harlan Ellison…
Thor: Love and Thunder debuted in first place at the weekend box office, grabbing an estimated $143 million. The latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the fourth starring Chris Hemsworth‘s God of Thunder was the biggest opening for a Thor movie — beating Thor: Ragnarok‘s $122.7 million — and the third-biggest movie bow of the year.
Love and Thunder — which also featured Natalie Portman and Tessa Thompson, reprising their respective roles as Jane Foster and Valkyrie, and Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher — grossed $302 million worldwide.
Minions: The Rise of Gru slipped to second place, delivering an estimated $45.6 million in its second week of release. Its domestic total now sits at $210 million, with a global tally of $400 million.
Top Gun: Maverick took third place, earning an estimated $15.5 million. Its seven-week North American haul currently sits at $597 million. Globally, the Top Gun sequel has collected $1.184 billion.
Fourth place belongs to Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic, grabbing an estimated $11 million and bringing its
three-week tally to $155 million.
Rounding out the top five is Jurassic World: Dominion with an estimated $8.4 million, bringing its domestic gross to $350 million after five weeks. The film has earned $876 million worldwide.
Finishing just outside the top five is The Black Phone, earning an estimated $7.7 million, bringing its two-week total to $62 million. It’s now the top-grossing non-sequel horror film since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 on Tuesday announced its next hearing: July 12 beginning at 1 p.m. ET.
The panel has been holding a series of public hearings since last month related to its year-long inquiry into the events before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters.
It has not yet been announced who will be testifying on July 12. The past hearings have stretched for several hours. The committee initially said the hearing would start at 10 a.m. ET but on Sunday announced the updated start time.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the panel, indicated earlier this month that the next hearing would focus on the formation of the mob that ultimately descended on the Capitol last year, including the participation of several far-right groups.
“Who was participating, who was financing it, how it was organized, including the participation of these white nationalist groups like the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, and others,” Schiff said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who served as the lead impeachment manager for the House proceedings against then-President Donald Trump after the insurrection, is anticipated to play a large role.
The last hearing featured lengthy testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
Hutchinson’s appearance sparked days of criticism of Trump — including from other conservatives — after she testified that the former president was aware that attendees of his speech at the Ellipse earlier on Jan. 6 were armed before he asked for security measures to be reduced and ultimately urged them to march to the Capitol. Hutchinson also testified that when the Secret Service would not take Trump to the Capitol after his speech, he lunged for the steering wheel of his SUV and then at the neck of a Secret Service agent.
Trump adamantly denied her account. The Secret Service said it would cooperate fully with the panel, “including by responding on the record,” if investigators had any follow up questions over the alleged incident.
Other hearings the committee has held have focused on the Capitol insurrection itself; on Trump allies’ awareness that his voter fraud claims were false; and on the pressure campaign by Trump and those in his orbit to push states to not certify now-President Joe Biden’s win.
In her testimony last week, Hutchinson said she had heard chatter about the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers — two prominent far-right groups — in the days leading up to Trump’s speech at the Ellipse. She said that Rudy Giuliani, who was then Trump’s personal lawyer, was frequently seen around the White House at the same time.
Leaders of both the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been charged with seditious conspiracy over the groups’ roles in last year’s riot.
A car sits parked outside of the Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinic in San Antonio, Texas, Feb. 16, 2016. – Bloomberg via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Two weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the South has become covered with abortion bans.
Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas — along with Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Dakota — all now have near-total bans on abortion in effect. The clinics that had been working there spent years navigating previous restrictions and fighting off state laws.
Now, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, which has facilities in Texas, staff are grappling with the idea that “there is no narrative that’s going to allow us to reopen. There is no lawsuit we get to try to win this time or some kind of fight that we can fight this time that will allow us to resume the care that we know our communities need.”
Instead, clinic leaders in these states are fully changing plans as they have stopped providing abortions. For some, this means staying open but altering the care provided. For others, this means packing up and leaving for good, with the intention of serving patients in the South by reopening in nearby states where abortion is still legal.
For all, there is worry for the patients who will not be able to access care they seek.
“I am very concerned about what the hospitals are going to see, when the hospital emergency rooms begin to receive women who have been desperate and take desperate measures,” Kathaleen Pittman, administrator for the New Hope Medical for Women in Louisiana, told ABC News.
Staying open, with new priorities
The West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa halted abortion operations as soon as the Supreme Court decision was announced on June 24. The state swiftly moved to ban an abortion, with a law that makes it a Class A felony to perform an abortion, except to prevent a serious health risk to the pregnant person.
The center closed down on June 29. But at 8 a.m. on July 11, the center will be reopening, according to operations director Robin Marty, who called the two-week closure a “clean break” between the past and present.
Due to legal concerns, the clinic will no longer provide abortions but will continue to offer access to contraceptives and HIV testing, among other sexual health services, Marty said.
The clinic will also no longer provide information or resources to assist pregnant people traveling to obtain an abortion elsewhere. This, Marty said, is because Alabama officials, including the state’s attorney general, have said they will consider expanding the criminality of abortion to those who help — logistically or financially — someone obtain an abortion outside of the state.
Despite these changes, Marty said, the clinic will assist those experiencing bleeding or possible miscarriages, no questions asked.
“There is a severe lack of health care in Alabama, there’s not a lot of providers or hospitals, there’s not a lot of access to contraceptives or to OB care in general,” Marty said. “There are hospitals and doctors that just don’t entirely know what care to do for patients who are bleeding.”
The Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, Louisiana, too will stay open, Pittman said — for options counseling and to provide ultrasounds.
“We’re going to continue to keep our doors open. We’ll do everything we can within the law to help the women and just hope,” she said.
The Louisiana Supreme Court allowed a ban on nearly all abortion to go into effect Friday after a series of court challenges by local abortion providers was moved to another jurisdiction. There is ongoing legal action on this front.
New Mexico becomes an outlet for the corridor
Meanwhile, at least two clinics in the block of southern states with bans are closing down and relocating to New Mexico. Along the southern border, abortion is largely illegal from Texas to Alabama.
Florida and Georgia do not have full bans, but do have gestational limits either in effect (Florida, 15 weeks) or tied up in courts (Georgia, six weeks). With Republican governors, abortion rights advocates do not believe these states are safe for abortion access.
But out to the West on the southern border, abortion rights advocates and providers see hope in New Mexico, where Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has vowed, “As long as I am governor, abortion will continue to be legal, safe, and accessible.”
Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, which was at the center of the Supreme Court case that led to the overturning of Roe, is taking that as an invitation. The clinic will be closing down in Mississippi, where a so-called “trigger law” went into effect on Thursday, and reopening in New Mexico, Diane Derzis, owner of the clinic, told ABC News, where they have been “accepted and welcomed.”
Derzis said the New Mexico facility will be a full-service abortion clinic.
“This is today in this country. Mississippi is the past, and the future is moving on to where women have an option,” she said.
Likewise, Whole Woman’s Health is closing operations in Texas, where the organization got its start almost 20 years ago, and planning to open a clinic in New Mexico, Hagstrom Miller told ABC News, calling the state “a beacon of hope.”
Just six years ago, Whole Woman’s Health won a Supreme Court case striking down abortion restrictions in Texas. The group has continued operating in the state in the face of an unprecedented ban that was allowed to go into effect almost a year before Roe was overturned. And like Jackson Women’s Health, Whole Woman’s Health has tried fighting the new ban in its state.
But in early July, the state Supreme Court dealt their case a blow. Legal proceedings are ongoing, but Hagstrom Miller said the state Supreme Court’s decision “sped up our timeline of trying to go to New Mexico.”
The organization, which also has clinics open in Maryland, Minnesota, Indiana and Virginia, where abortion is still legal, already provides abortions in New Mexico via telemedicine. They are now fundraising to open an in-person clinic, likely near the border with Texas, Hagstrom Miller said, to be more accessible to Texans.
“You can’t say for one second Whole Woman’s Health didn’t do everything we could to preserve access to safe abortion in Texas,” she said. “So, there’s some bitterness on our team, because people in Texas deserve the kind of care that we provide, and our staff deserve to continue to do this work that they love and that they’re trained to do. There’s grief and frustration.”
Concern for what happens to patients who can’t cross borders
These clinic leaders across Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama are doing what they can to reorganize to continue to work with patients in their states. Independent providers and those associated with Planned Parenthood have been in touch with each other to coordinate the new infrastructure for abortion care in a fractured United States, according to Hagstrom Miller.
Even so, Marty said, between bans and closures, “It’s a tidal wave that is working its way further and further up the nation. There’s never going to be enough clinics this way.”
Moreover, the clinic leaders each told ABC News they worry for the patients who will get left behind.
“There are a lot of people who did not vote for these laws or these politicians,” Marty said. “People here are affected and can’t leave. We can’t forget about them.”
“Not everybody can travel,” Hagstrom Miller said. “This sort of heroic narrative, the arc of ‘we’re setting up somewhere else, we’re going to take care of people,’ right? A lot of people are going to fall through those cracks.”
This is especially concerning, the leaders said, for communities already facing barriers to health care, including people of color, people with lower income, the young and those in abusive relationships.
“It’s sad to know that there are women getting left behind,” Derzis said. “Hopefully, it’s time that women rise up in this country and demand their rights.”
ABC News’ Briana Stewart and Ely Brown contributed to this report.
