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Trump targeting GOP impeachment voter at Ohio revenge rally
Former President Donald Trump will return to the rally stage this weekend, holding his first campaign-style event since leaving the White House as he makes good on his pledge to exact revenge on those who voted for his historic second impeachment.
Trump’s event at Ohio’s Lorain County Fairgrounds, not far from Cleveland, will be held Saturday to support Max Miller, a former White House aide who is challenging Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez for his congressional seat. Gonzalez was one of 10 GOP House members who voted to impeach Trump for his role in inciting the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol building.
Trump wants them to pay.
The rally, held five months after Trump left office under a cloud of violence, marks the beginning of a new, more public phase of his post-presidency. After spending much of his time behind closed doors building a political operation and fuming about the last election, Trump is planning a flurry of public appearances in the coming weeks. He’ll hold another rally in Florida over the July Fourth weekend unattached to a midterm candidate and will travel to the southern border next week to protest President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
The rally also comes as Trump is facing immediate legal jeopardy. Manhattan prosecutors informed his company Thursday that it could soon face criminal charges stemming from a wide-ranging investigation into the former president’s business dealings. The New York Times, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported that charges could be filed against the Trump Organization as early as next week. Trump has denounced the investigations as nothing more than a “witch hunt” aimed as damaging him politically.
Although Trump remains a deeply polarizing figure, he is extremely popular with the Republican base, and candidates have flocked to his homes in Florida and New Jersey seeking his endorsement as he has tried to positioned himself as his party’s kingmaker.
Trump has said he is committed to helping Republicans regain control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections. But his efforts to support — and recruit — candidates to challenge incumbent Republicans who have crossed him put him at odds with other Republican leaders who have been trying to unify the party after a brutal year in which they lost control of the White House and failed to gain control of either chamber of Congress.
READ: ‘Fire and Fury’ author writes new Trump book ‘Landslide’
So far, nine of the 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment have drawn primary challengers. And Trump has offered to support anyone who steps forward to challenge the remaining candidate, Rep. John Katko of New York, syracuse.com reported.
“We’re giving tremendous endorsements,” Trump boasted Friday morning as he called into the conservative Newsmax channel and explained his endorsement rationale.
“Fake Republicans, anybody that voted for the impeachment doesn’t get it,” he said. “But there weren’t too many of them. And I think most of them are being, if not all, are being primaried right now, so that’s good. I’ll be helping their opponent.”
Gonzalez, a former college and professional football player, has stood by his impeachment vote in the face of fierce criticism from his party’s conservative wing, including his censure by the Ohio Republican Party.
At the same time, Trump continues to obsess over his ongoing efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he insists he won, even though top election officials, his own attorney general and numerous judges have said there is no evidence of the mass voter fraud he alleges.
On Monday, he told the conservative Real America’s Voice that he had never conceded the race or admitted defeat. And he publicly entertained the idea that he could somehow be reinstated into office, even though no legal or constitutional basis for doing so exists.
At the same time, he continues to tease the possibility that he will mount a comeback run for the White House in 2024. Aides say Trump, who was banned from Twitter and Facebook after Jan. 6, will make a decision after the midterms next fall.
Trump’s rallies have been an instrumental part of his political brand since he launched his 2016 campaign. The former reality star is energized by performing in front of his audiences and often test-drives new material and talking points to see how they resonate with the crowd. His political operation also uses the events to collect critical voter contact information from attendees and as fundraising tools.
READ: Seized House records show just how far Trump admin would go
And they have spawned a group of hardcore fans who traveled the country, attending dozens of rallies, often camping out overnight to snag prime spots. Some of those supporters began lining up outside the venue days early this week as they reunited for the event.
Chauvin gets 22 1/2 years in prison for George Floyd’s death
Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin has been sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, whose dying gasps under Chauvin’s knee led to the biggest outcry against racial injustice in the U.S. in generations.
The punishment handed out Friday fell short of the 30 years that prosecutors had requested.
Read: Floyd verdict gives hope, if only fleeting, to Black America
With good behavior, Chauvin, 45, could be paroled after serving two-thirds of his sentence, or about 15 years.
Former police Officer Derek Chauvin broke his long courtroom silence Friday as he faced sentencing for the murder of George Floyd, offering condolences to Floyd’s family and saying he hopes more information coming out will give them “some peace of mind.”
Chauvin, who did not testify at his trial, removed his COVID-19 and turned toward the Floyd family, speaking only briefly because of what he called “some additional legal matters at hand” — an apparent reference to the federal civil rights trial he still faces.
Read: Biden to America after Floyd verdict: 'We can't stop here'
“But very briefly, though, I do want to give my condolences to the Floyd family. There’s going to be some other information in the future that would be of interest. And I hope things will give you some some peace of mind,” he said, without elaborating.
Hisattorney Eric Nelson called Floyd’s death “tragic,” and that Chauvin”s “brain is littered with what-ifs” from the day: “What if I just did not agree to go in that day? What if things had gone differently? What if I never responded to that call? What if what if what if?”
Floyd’s family members took the stand and expressed sorrow about his death. They asked for the maximum penalty.
“We don’t want to see no more slaps on the wrist. We’ve been through that already,” said a tearful Terrence Floyd, one of Floyd’s brothers.
Toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 remain missing
Officials say there are still 159 people unaccounted for after the partial collapse of a beachside building in Florida.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava noted Friday that rescue officials were still searching for survivors from the condo building collapse in Surfside, saying that a search and rescue mission was ongoing.
Raide Jadallah, an assistant Miami-Dade County fire chief, said rescue operations continued throughout the night. He said that 130 firefighters are working at the site.
Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said they are working with the medical examiner’s office to identify the four victims.
The Champlain Towers South drew people from around the globe to enjoy life on South Florida’s Atlantic Coast, some for a night, some to live. A couple from Argentina and their young daughter. A beloved retired Miami-area teacher and his wife. Orthodox Jews from Russia. Israelis. The sister of Paraguay’s first lady. Others from South America.
They were among the nearly 100 people who remained missing Friday morning, a day after the 12-story building collapsed into rubble early Thursday. Much of the Champlain’s beach side sheared off for unknown reasons, pancaking into a pile of concrete and metal more than 30 feet (10 meters) high.
Three bodies were pulled from the rubble overnight, bringing the death toll to four, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said on “Good Morning America” Friday. Officials feared that number could skyrocket. Eleven injuries were reported, with four people treated at hospitals.
“These are very difficult times, and things are going to get more difficult as we move forward,” Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said.
Fire Rescue personnel and others worked through the night in hopes of finding survivors.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo of Miami Beach told the Miami Herald he watched as tactical teams of six worked early Friday to sift through the debris. He said he saw one body taken in a yellow body bag and another that was marked. They were taken to a homicide unit tent that was set up along the beach.
Many people remained at the reunification center set up near the collapse site early Friday morning, awaiting results of DNA swabs that could help identify victims.
Officials said no cause for the collapse has been determined.
Video of the collapse showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first and a section nearest to the ocean teetering and coming down seconds later, as a huge dust cloud swallowed the neighborhood.
About half the building’s roughly 130 units were affected, and rescuers pulled at least 35 people from the wreckage in the first hours after the collapse.
Television video early Friday showed crews still fighting flareups of fires on the rubble piles. Intermittent rain over South Florida is also hampering the search.
Raide Jadallah, an assistant Miami-Dade County fire chief, said that while listening devices placed on and in the wreckage had picked up no voices, they had detected possible banging noises, giving rescuers hope some are alive. Rescuers were tunneling into the wreckage from below, going through the building’s underground parking garage.
Personal belongings were evidence of shattered lives amid the wreckage of the Champlain, which was built in 1981 in Surfside, a small suburb north of Miami Beach. A children’s bunk bed perched precariously on a top floor, bent but intact and apparently inches from falling into the rubble. A comforter lay on the edge of a lower floor. Televisions. Computers. Chairs.
Argentines Dr. Andres Galfrascoli, his husband, Fabian Nuñez, and their 6-year-old daughter, Sofia, had spent Wednesday night there at an apartment belonging to a friend, Nicolas Fernandez.
Galfrascoli, a Buenos Aires plastic surgeon, and Nuñez, a theater producer and accountant, had come to Florida to get away from a COVID-19 resurgence in Argentina and its strict lockdowns. They had worked hard to adopt Sofia, Fernandez said.
“Of all days, they chose the worst to stay there,” Fernandez said. “I hope it’s not the case, but if they die like this, that would be so unfair.”
They weren’t the only South Americans missing. Foreign ministries and consulates of four countries said 22 nationals were missing in the collapse: nine from Argentina, six from Paraguay, four from Venezuela and three from Uruguay.
The Paraguayans included Sophia López Moreira — the sister of first lady Silvana Abdo and sister-in-law of President Mario Abdo Benítez — and her family.
Israeli media said the country’s consul general in Miami, Maor Elbaz, believes that 20 citizens of that country are missing.
Also missing was Arnie Notkin, a retired Miami-area elementary school physical education teacher, and his wife, Myriam. They lived on the third floor.
“Everyone’s been posting, ‘Oh my God, he was my coach,’” said Fortuna Smukler, a friend who turned to Facebook in hopes of finding someone who would report them safe.
“They were also such happy, joyful people. He always had a story to tell, and she always spoke so kindly of my mother,” Smukler said. “Originally there were rumors that he had been found, but it was a case of mistaken identity. It would be a miracle if they’re found alive.”
Collapsed Florida building drew global visitors, residents
The Champlain Towers South drew people from around the globe to enjoy life on South Florida’s Atlantic Coast, some for a night, some to live. A couple from Argentina and their young daughter. A beloved retired Miami-area teacher and his wife. Orthodox Jews from Russia. Israelis. The sister of Paraguay’s first lady. Others from South America.
They were among the nearly 100 people who remained missing Friday morning, a day after the 12-story building collapsed into rubble early Thursday. Much of the Champlain’s beach side sheared off for unknown reasons, pancaking into a pile of concrete and metal more than 30 feet (10 meters) high.
Only one person had been confirmed dead, but officials feared that number could skyrocket. Eleven injuries were reported, with four people treated at hospitals.
Read:Miami-area condo collapse causes massive emergency response
“These are very difficult times, and things are going to get more difficult as we move forward,” Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said.
Fire Rescue personnel and others worked through the night in hopes of finding survivors. Officials said no cause for the collapse has been determined.
Video of the collapse showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first and a section nearest to the ocean teetering and coming down seconds later, as a huge dust cloud swallowed the neighborhood.
Youtube video thumbnailAbout half the building’s roughly 130 units were affected, and rescuers pulled at least 35 people from the wreckage in the first hours after the collapse.
Raide Jadallah, an assistant Miami-Dade County fire chief, said that while listening devices placed on and in the wreckage had picked up no voices, they had detected possible banging noises, giving rescuers hope some are alive. Rescuers were tunneling into the wreckage from below, going through the building’s underground parking garage.
Personal belongings were evidence of shattered lives amid the wreckage of the Champlain, which was built in 1981 in Surfside, a small suburb northwest of Miami. A children’s bunk bed perched precariously on a top floor, bent but intact and apparently inches from falling into the rubble. A comforter lay on the edge of a lower floor. Televisions. Computers. Chairs.
Read:Tornado sweeps through suburban Chicago, causing damage
Argentines Dr. Andres Galfrascoli, his husband, Fabian Nuñez and their 6-year-old daughter, Sofia, had spent Wednesday night there at an apartment belonging to a friend, Nicolas Fernandez.
Galfrascoli, a Buenos Aires plastic surgeon, and Nunez, a theater producer and accountant, had come to Florida to get away from a COVID-19 resurgence in Argentina and its strict lockdowns. They had worked hard to adopt Sofia, Fernandez said.
“Of all days, they chose the worst to stay there,” Fernandez said. “I hope it’s not the case, but if they die like this, that would be so unfair.”
They weren’t the only South Americans missing. Foreign ministries and consulates of four countries said 22 nationals were missing in the collapse: nine from Argentina, six from Paraguay, four from Venezuela and three from Uruguay.
The Paraguayans included Sophia López Moreira — the sister of first lady Silvana Abdo and sister-in-law of President Mario Abdo Benítez — and her family.
Israeli media said the country’s consul general in Miami, Maor Elbaz, believes that 20 citizens of that country are missing.
Read:8 kids in youth van among the 13 lives lost to Claudette
Also missing was Arnie Notkin, a retired Miami-area elementary school physical education teacher, and his wife, Myriam. They lived on the third floor.
“Everyone’s been posting, ‘Oh my God, he was my coach,’” said Fortuna Smukler, a friend who turned to Facebook in hopes of finding someone who would report them safe.
“They were also such happy, joyful people. He always had a story to tell, and she always spoke so kindly of my mother,” Smukler said. “Originally there were rumors that he had been found, but it was a case of mistaken identity. It would be a miracle if they’re found alive.”
Miami-area condo collapse causes massive emergency response
The sea-view side of a beachfront condo tower collapsed in the Miami-area town of Surfside early Thursday, drawing a massing response from emergency services.
Miami Dade Fire Rescue was conducting search and rescue operations, and said in a tweet that more than 80 units were “on scene with assistance from municipal fire departments.”
Read:Unmarked graves found at another Indigenous school in Canada
Authorities had no word yet on casualties or details of how many people lived in the building.
“We’re on the scene so it’s still very active,” said Sgt. Marian Cruz of the Surfside Police Department. “What I can tell you is the building is twelve floors. The entire back side of the building has collapsed.”
Police blocked nearby roads, and scores of fire and rescue vehicles, ambulances and police cars swarmed the area.
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The collapse sent a cloud of debris through the neighborhood, coating cars up to two blocks away with a light layer of dust.
Photos and video from the scene show the collapse affected half the tower. Piles of rubble and debris surrounded the area just outside the building. The department has yet to say what may have caused the collapse near 88th Street and Collins Avenue.
The building address is 8777 Collins Avenue, according to Surfside police. The sea-view condo development was built in 1981 in the southeast corner of Surfside, on the beach. It had a few two-bedroom units currently on the market, with asking prices of $600,000 to $700,000, an internet search shows.
Read:Witnesses say airstrike in Ethiopia’s Tigray kills dozens
The area is a mix of new and old apartments, houses, condominiums and hotels, with restaurants and stores serving an international combination of residents and tourists. The community provides a stark contrast from bustle and glitz of South Beach with a slower paced neighborhood feel.
Biden faces growing pressure from the left over voting bill
When New York Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones was at the White House for the signing of the proclamation making Juneteenth a national holiday last week, he told President Joe Biden their party needed him more involved in passing voting legislation on the Hill.
In response? Biden “just sort of stared at me,” Jones said, describing an “awkward silence” that passed between the two.
For Jones, the moment was emblematic of what he and a growing number of Democratic activists describe as a lackluster engagement from Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on an issue they consider urgent and necessary for the health of the democracy.
Although the White House has characterized the issue as “the fight of his presidency,” Biden has prioritized his economic initiatives, measures more likely to win Republican support in the Senate. And he’s shown little interest thus far in diving into a messy debate over changing Senate rules to pass the legislation on Democratic votes alone.
Read:Adams takes fragile lead in NYC Democratic mayoral primary
But as Democrats’ massive election legislation was blocked by Republicans on Tuesday, progressives argued Biden could not avoid that fight much longer and must use all his leverage to find a path forward. The criticism suggested the voting debate may prove to be among Biden’s first major, public rifts with the left of his presidency.
“President Obama, for his part, has been doing more to salvage our ailing democracy than the current president of the United States of America,” Mondaire said, referring to a recent interview in which the former president pushed for the legislation.
The White House argues that both Biden and Harris have been in frequent touch with Democratic leadership and key advocacy groups as the legislation — dubbed the For the People Act — moved through Congress. Biden spoke out forcefully at times, declaring a new Georgia law backed by Republicans is an “atrocity” and using a speech in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to say he was going to “fight like heck” for Democrats’ federal answer, but he left negotiations on the proposal to Hill leaders.
On Monday, in advance of the vote, Biden met with Sen. Joe Manchin, D.W.Va., at the White House to discuss both voting rights and infrastructure.
But Biden didn’t use his clout to work Republicans, who have expressed staunch and unified opposition to any voting legislation, arguing Democrats are pushing an unnecessary federal takeover of elections now run by state and county officials.
Biden spent much of the month focused on foreign policy during a trip to Europe, encouraging Americans to get vaccinated and selling his infrastructure plan to the American public. He tasked Harris with taking the lead on the issue, and she spent last week largely engaged in private meetings with voting rights advocates as she traveled for a vaccination tour around the nation.
Those efforts haven’t appeased some activists, who argue that state laws tightening election laws are designed to make it harder for Black, young and infrequent voters to cast ballots. The best way to counter the state laws is with federal legislation, they say, and Biden ought to come out for a change in the Senate filibuster rules that require 60 votes to advance most legislation.
“Progressives are losing patience, and I think particularly African American Democrats are losing patience,” said Democratic strategist Joel Payne, a longtime aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “They feel like they have done the kind of good Democrat thing over the last year-plus, going back to when Biden got the nomination, unifying support around Biden, turning out, showing up on Election Day.”
“Progressives feel like, ’Hey, we did our part.′ And now when it’s time for the bill to be paid, so to speak, I think some progressives feel like, ’OK, well, how long do we have to wait?”
Read:Voting ends, wait for results begins in NYC mayoral primary
Still, there could be a silver lining for Democrats in the ongoing battle over voting rights: The issue is a major motivator for progressives and may serve to drive enthusiasm among Black voters as well, potentially driving engagement in a midterm year where Democrats are certain to face a tough political climate.
Harris is expected to continue to meet with voting rights activists, business leaders and groups working on the issue in the states, and will speak out publicly on the issue aiming to raise awareness of new voting laws and to pressure Republicans to get on board with federal legislation.
She watched the legislation fail to advance to debate on Tuesday, in her role as president of the Senate, and coming off the floor told reporters that she and Biden still support voting legislation and “the fight is not over.”
Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, a progressive grassroots group, said it’s been nowhere near the level of advocacy the public has seen on the infrastructure bill.
“The president has been on the sidelines. He has issued statements of support, he’s maybe included a line or two in a speech here or there, but there has been nothing on the scale of his public advocacy for recovery for COVID relief, for roads and bridges,” Levin said.
“We think this is a crisis at the same level as crumbling roads and bridges, and if we agree on that, the question is, why is the president on the sidelines?”
White House aides push back against any suggestion the president and vice president haven’t been engaged on the issue, and say his laissez-faire approach to the negotiations is based partly on his experience as a senator and his belief that his involvement risks undermining a deal before it’s cut.
But in private, White House advisers see infrastructure as the bigger political winner for Biden because it’s widely popular among voters of both parties, a White House official said. Passing a major infrastructure bill is seen within the White House as going further towards helping Democrats win in the 2022 midterms and beyond than taking on massive voting overhaul that had a slim chance of passage without a debate over filibuster rules, said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal talks.
Embracing filibuster changes, in particular, risks undermining Biden’s profile as a bipartisan dealmaker and could poison the delicate negotiations around infrastructure, where the White House insists it still sees opportunity for bipartisan compromise.
Read:US hits encouraging milestones on virus deaths and shots
“He does have to preserve some negotiating power, and his brand probably does not compute with being at the tip of the spear on reforming the filibuster,” Payne acknowledged.
Still, other Democrats say it’s time for Biden to get out front on the issue. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, said the proposals Republicans are looking to pass in his home state are “more explicit and more dangerous than anything I’ve ever come across.”
Allred said that the voting fight increases pressure on Biden to take the leadership on the filibuster fight.
“We do need President Biden to make that a priority, because if you’re going to talk about supporting the underlying legislation, it really doesn’t matter if we don’t have way to get past the filibuster,” he said.
Adams takes fragile lead in NYC Democratic mayoral primary
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams appeared to take a fragile lead Tuesday in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, but it could be weeks before it becomes clear who is actually on top in the first citywide election to use ranked choice voting.
As ballot counting began Tuesday, a plurality of Democrats ranked Adams as their first choice in the race.
It was tough to tell, though, whether that lead would hold. As many as 207,500 absentee ballots remained to be counted. Voters’ full rankings of the candidates have yet to be taken into account. It could be July before a winner emerges in the Democratic contest.
Adams, a former police captain who co-founded a leadership group for Black officers, was leading former city sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and former de Blasio administration lawyer Maya Wiley.
Read:Voting ends, wait for results begins in NYC mayoral primary
Speaking to jubilant supporters, Adams acknowledged that he hadn’t won yet, and that under the ranked choice system there were multiple rounds of ballot counting still to go.
“We know that there’s going to be twos and threes and fours,” he said. “But there’s something else we know. We know that New York City said, ‘Our first choice is Eric Adams.’”
Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who was far behind in early returns, conceded about two hours after polls closed and vowed to work with the next mayor.
In the Republican primary, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa defeated businessman Fernando Mateo. Ranked choice voting wasn’t a factor because there were only two candidates in the race.
Several candidates in the race to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio have the potential to make history if elected. The city could get its first female mayor, or its second Black mayor, depending on who comes out on top.
But in the Democratic contest, the initial picture could be misleading. After polls closed at 9 p.m., New York City’s Board of Elections began releasing results of votes cast in person, but the returns focused on who candidates ranked as their first choice.
The ranked choice system, approved for use in New York City primaries and special elections by referendum in 2019, allowed voters to rank up to five candidates on their ballot.
Vote tabulation is then done in computerized rounds, with the person in last place getting eliminated each round, and ballots cast for that person getting redistributed to the surviving candidates based on voter rankings. That process continues until only two candidates are left. The one with the most votes wins.
It won’t be until June 29 that the Board of Elections performs a tally of those votes using the new system. It won’t include any absentee ballots in its analysis until July 6, making any count before then potentially unreliable.
Among the votes counted on election night, Adams trailed both Garcia and Wiley when voters listed their second, third and fourth choices in the ranked choice voting system.
Besides Adams, Garcia, Wiley and Yang, other contenders in the Democratic contest included City Comptroller Scott Stringer, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire and nonprofit executive Dianne Morales.
Read:US hits encouraging milestones on virus deaths and shots
Stringer, McGuire and Morales addressed supporters after polls closed as early returns showed them trailing the front-runners but did not immediately concede.
De Blasio, a Democrat, leaves office at the end of the year due to term limits.
The candidates traveled around the city Tuesday doing a last round of campaigning.
Wiley was losing her voice greeting voters near her polling place in Brooklyn. Garcia campaigned up in the Bronx, while Sliwa and Stringer bumped into each other campaigning in Manhattan.
A still hoarse Wiley acknowledged the uncertainty of the race in a speech later. “What we celebrate today is that we have a path,” she said.
Garcia told her supporters, “I know that we’re not going to know a lot more tonight, so I want to thank everyone who is here, and everyone who has been a part of this journey.”
Concern over a rise in shootings during the pandemic has dominated the mayoral campaign in recent months, even as the candidates have wrestled with demands from the left for more police reform.
As a former officer, but one who spent his career fighting racism within the department, Adams may have benefited most from the policing debate.
He denounced the “defund the police” slogan and proposed reinstating a disbanded plainclothes unit to focus on getting illegal guns off the streets.
Wiley and Stringer, battling for progressive votes, both said they would reallocate a portion of the police department’s budget to other city programs.
Of the top contenders, either Garcia or Wiley would be city’s first female mayor if elected. Adams or Wiley would be the second Black mayor.
Yang and Garcia formed an alliance in the campaign’s last days in an apparent effort to use the ranked voting system to block Adams. The two held several joint campaign events, with Yang asking his supporters to rank Garcia as their No. 2 — though Garcia did not quite return the favor, not telling her voters where to rank Yang. Adams accused his two rivals of purposely trying to block a Black candidate.
Read:Biden and Congress face a summer grind to create legislation
Sliwa does not have much of a chance to win the November general election in a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 7 to 1.
Former allies, the two Republicans Sliwa and Mateo traded personal insults and tried to shout over each other during one debate on Zoom.
Sliwa, a radio host who still wears his red Guardian Angels beret when he appears in public, got an endorsement from former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who called him “my great friend” in a robocall to Republican voters.
Flanked by Giuliani at his victory party, Sliwa promised a general election campaign focused on crime. “This is going to be a campaign clearly in which I talk about cracking down on crime, supporting the police, refunding our heroes the police, hiring more police, taking the handcuffs off the police and putting it on the criminals, and restoring qualified immunity to the police so that they can’t be personally sued,” he said.
Voting ends, wait for results begins in NYC mayoral primary
The votes are in. The polls are closed. But the top contenders may have a long, anxious wait ahead of them for accurate results in New York City’s mayoral primary, the first citywide election to use ranked choice voting.
Several candidates in the race to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio have the potential to make history if elected. The city could get its first female mayor, its first Asian American mayor or its second Black mayor, depending on who comes out on top.
But with the debut of the ranked voting system and a mountain of absentee ballots still at least a week away from being counted, it could be July before a winner emerges in the Democratic contest.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former police captain who co-founded a leadership group for Black officers, led in several recent polls. But he was closely trailed by former city sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and former de Blasio administration lawyer Maya Wiley, with former presidential candidate Andrew Yang also in pursuit.
“This has been an amazing journey,” Adams told reporters after voting in Brooklyn, emotionally recounting how his path into both law enforcement and politics began at age 15, when he was beaten by police officers. “A little boy, laying on the floor of the 103rd Precinct, assaulted by cops, now could become the mayor to be in charge of that same police department.”
After polls closed at 9 p.m., New York City’s Board of Elections planned to release partial results of votes cast in person, but that initial picture could be misleading because it will only include data on who candidates ranked as their first choice.
Also read: Mongolians voting for president amid biggest virus outbreak
The ranked choice system, approved for use in New York City primaries and special elections by referendum in 2019, allowed voters to rank up to five candidates on their ballot.
Vote tabulation is then done in computerized rounds, with the person in last place getting eliminated each round, and ballots cast for that person getting redistributed to the surviving candidates based on voter rankings. That process continues until only two candidates are left. The one with the most votes wins.
It won’t be until June 29 that the Board of Elections performs a tally of those votes using the new system. It won’t include any absentee ballots in its analysis until July 6, making any count before then potentially unreliable.
Also read: Dems walk, stop Texas GOP s sweeping voting restrictions
More than 87,000 absentee ballots had been received by the city as of Monday, with more expected to arrive in the mail over the next few days.
Besides Adams, Garcia, Wiley and Yang, other contenders in the Democratic contest include City Comptroller Scott Stringer, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire and nonprofit executive Dianne Morales.
De Blasio, a Democrat, leaves office at the end of the year due to term limits.
In the Republican primary, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa faced off against businessman Fernando Mateo. Because there were only two candidates in that race, ranked choice voting won’t be a factor.
The candidates raced around the city Tuesday doing a last round of campaigning.
Wiley was losing her voice greeting voters near her polling place in Brooklyn. Garcia campaigned up in the Bronx, while Sliwa and Stringer bumped into each other campaigning in Manhattan.
Yang rode the subways to meet voters.
Also read: House passes sweeping voting rights bill over GOP opposition
“If you want your city to work for us and our families, you have got to get out and vote,” he said after voting in Manhattan.
Concern over a rise in shootings during the pandemic has dominated the mayoral campaign in recent months, even as the candidates have wrestled with demands from the left for more police reform.
As a former officer, but one who spent his career fighting racism within the department, Adams may have benefited most from the policing debate.
He denounced the “defund the police” slogan and proposed reinstating a disbanded plainclothes unit to focus on getting illegal guns off the streets.
Wiley and Stringer, battling for progressive votes, both said they would reallocate a portion of the police department’s budget to other city programs.
Of the top contenders, either Garcia or Wiley would be city’s first female mayor if elected. Adams or Wiley would be the second Black mayor. Yang would be the city’s first Asian American mayor.
Yang and Garcia formed an alliance in the campaign’s last days in an apparent effort to use the ranked voting system to block Adams. The two held several joint campaign events, with Yang asking his supporters to rank Garcia as their No. 2 — though Garcia did not quite return the favor, not telling her voters where to rank Yang. Adams accused his two rivals of purposely trying to block a Black candidate.
Neither Sliwa nor Mateo has much of a chance to win the November general election in a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 7 to 1.
Former allies, the two Republicans traded personal insults and tried to shout over each other during one debate on Zoom.
Sliwa, a radio host who still wears his red Guardian Angels beret when he appears in public, got an endorsement from former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who called him “my great friend” in a robocall to Republican voters.
Mateo, a restaurateur who has led organizations advocating for car service drivers and bodega owners, was endorsed by Michael Flynn, former president Donald Trump’s first national security adviser.
Tornado sweeps through suburban Chicago, causing damage
A tornado swept through communities in heavily populated suburban Chicago, damaging more than 100 homes, toppling trees, knocking out power and causing multiple injuries, officials said.
There was relief Monday, though, as authorities reported that it appeared no one had died. Less than a dozen people were hurt in the tornado that touched down after 11 p.m. Sunday, and all were expected to recover.
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At least eight people were hospitalized in Naperville, where 22 homes were left “uninhabitable” and more than 130 homes were damaged in the suburb of 147,500 people that’s about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Chicago.
Two people initially described in critical condition had improved by Monday afternoon, said Naperville Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis.
“It could have been a lot worse, I will say that,” Puknaitis said. “When you look at the destruction that has occurred over this five square block area or so, it’s amazing that we can stand here and report that we only had eight people that were transported to a hospital.”
Officials in the nearby village of Woodridge said a tornado damaged at least 100 structures. The village’s fire chief said three people were taken to hospitals, but he could not provide more detail on their injuries during a Monday press conference.
Woodridge Police Chief Brian Cunningham said early warnings likely minimized the number of injuries.
“It was a nighttime event, a lot of people were sleeping, weren’t aware of what was going on,” he said. “The early warning got people to shelter. And the fact that there’s only three people injured and the amount of devastation that’s in the community, it’s just amazing.” The storm destroyed the second floor of Bridget Casey’s Woodridge home. She sat in a lawn chair in the driveway before sunrise Monday. Her 16-year-old son, Nate, said he was watching TV when the storm swept through and he raced to help his mother get his three younger siblings to the basement.
Read: Weather service: At least 6 tornadoes hit middle Tennessee
“I just heard a loud crash and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, what are my brothers up to?’ I go look and I see the sky, and then I hear my brothers screaming from the room,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Mayor Gina Cunningham called the damage to homes and other property in the village “extensive.”
“I’m just emotional because it is devastating to drive through the community that I grew up in and worked in and share with so many wonderful neighbors,” she said.
The tornado was confirmed by radar, and a team with the National Weather Service began surveying damage Monday to determine its strength and path. The agency said one tornado likely caused damage in Naperville, Woodridge and Darien.
“If there were no fatalities — and there haven’t been any reported to us — that’s great news considering the population of the area, the level of damage and the time of day, after 11 p.m. when many people may be asleep,” Matt Friedlein, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville, said.
Radar also showed storm rotation over several other areas of suburban Chicago, and in northwestern Indiana in the Hobart and South Haven areas, Friedlein said.
Read:Tornado, virus fears, machines disrupt voting in some states
The weather service said surveys on Monday determined two EF1 tornadoes packing winds up to 100 mph (161 kph) struck northern Indiana’s St. Joseph and Steuben counties, damaging some barns and trees and destroying other exterior structures.
Severe storms also hit other parts of the Midwest. A tornado damaged several buildings and knocked down power lines and trees in eastern Iowa on Sunday night. And in Missouri, a thunderstorm with strong winds whipped through parts of the state, knocking down trees and power lines.
US hits encouraging milestones on virus deaths and shots
COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have dipped below 300 a day for the first time since the early days of the disaster in March 2020, while the drive to put shots in arms hit another encouraging milestone Monday: 150 million Americans fully vaccinated.
The coronavirus was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020, behind heart disease and cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But now, as the outbreak loosens its grip, it has fallen down the list of the biggest killers.
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CDC data suggests that more Americans are dying every day from accidents, chronic lower respiratory diseases, strokes or Alzheimer’s disease than from COVID-19.
The U.S. death toll stands at more than 600,000, while the worldwide count is close to 3.9 million, though the real figures in both cases are believed to be markedly higher.
About 45% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. Over 53% of Americans have received at least one dose of vaccine. But U.S. demand for shots has slumped, to the disappointment of public health experts.
Dr. Ana Diez Roux, dean of Drexel University’s school of public health, said the dropping rates of infections and deaths are cause for celebration. But she cautioned that the virus still has a chance to spread and mutate given the low vaccination rates in some states, including Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Wyoming and Idaho.
“So far it looks like the vaccines we have are effective against the variants that are circulating,” Diez Roux said. “But the more time the virus is jumping from person to person, the more time there is for variants to develop, and some of those could be more dangerous.”
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New cases are running at about 11,400 a day on average, down from over a quarter-million per day in early January. Average deaths per day are down to about 293, according to Johns Hopkins University, after topping out at over 3,400 in mid-January.
In New York, which suffered mightily in the spring of 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted on Monday that the state had 10 new deaths. At the height of the outbreak in the state, nearly 800 people a day were dying from the coronavirus.
Some states are faring worse than others. Missouri leads the nation in per-capita COVID-19 cases and is fourth behind California, Florida and Texas in the number of new cases per day over the past week despite its significantly smaller population.
The surge is being driven by new cases in a farming region in the northern part of the state and in the southwest corner, which includes the towns of Branson and Springfield. COVID-19 hospitalizations in southwest Missouri have risen 72% since the beginning of the month as of Friday.
The fall will bring new waves of infection, but they will be less severe and concentrated more in places with low vaccination rates, said Amber D’Souza, a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
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“So much depends on what happens over the summer and what happens with children,” D’Souza said. “Anyone who is not vaccinated can become infected and transmit the virus.”
Meanwhile, because of regulatory hurdles and other factors, President Joe Biden is expected to fall short of his commitment to share 80 million vaccine doses with the rest of the world by the end of June, officials said Monday.