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  • Trump joins TikTok, the video-sharing app he once tried to ban as president

    Trump joins TikTok, the video-sharing app he once tried to ban as president

    Donald Trump has joined the popular video-sharing app TikTok, a platform he once tried to ban while in the White House, and posted from a UFC fight two days after he became the first former president and presumptive major party nominee in U.S. history to be found guilty on felony charges.

    What You Need To Know

    • Donald Trump has joined TikTok, the video-sharing app he once tried to ban as president
    • He posted his first video from a UFC fight in New Jersey on Saturday night
    • That was two days after he had become the first former president in U.S. history to be found guilty on felony charges
    • In the video, Trump says “it’s an honor” and there is footage of him waving to fans and posing for selfies at the UFC fight
    • By Sunday morning, Trump had amassed more than 1.1 million followers on the platform and the post had garnered more than 1 million likes and 24 million views


    “It’s an honor,” Trump said in the TikTok video, which features footage of him waving to fans and posing for selfies at the Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday night. The video ends with Trump telling the camera: “That was a good walk-on, right?”

    By Sunday morning, Trump had amassed more than 1.1 million followers on the platform and the post had garnered more than 1 million likes and 24 million views.

    “We will leave no front undefended and this represents the continued outreach to a younger audience consuming pro-Trump and anti-Biden content,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement about the campaign’s decision to join the platform.

    “There’s no place better than a UFC event to launch President Trump’s Tik Tok, where he received a hero’s welcome and thousands of fans cheered him on,” he added.

    Democratic President Joe Biden signed legislation in April that could ban TikTok in the U.S., even as his campaign joined in February and has tried to work with influencers.

    Trump received an enthusiastic welcome at the fight at Newark’s Prudential Center, where the crowd broke into chants of “We love Trump!” and another insulting Biden with an expletive.

    It was Trump’s first public outing since a jury in New York found him guilty Thursday on 34 charges of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by covering up hush money payments made to a porn actor who claimed she and Trump had sex. Trump has maintained he did nothing wrong and plans to appeal the verdict. He will be sentenced on July 11.

    Throughout his campaign, Trump has used appearances at UFC fights to project an image of strength and to try to appeal to potential voters who may not closely follow politics or engage with traditional news sources. It’s also part of a broader effort to connect with young people and minority voters, particularly Latino and Black men.

    TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, is another opportunity to reach those potential voters. The platform has about 170 million users in the U.S., most of whom skew younger — a demographic that is especially hard for campaigns to reach because they shun television.

    As president, Trump tried to ban TikTok through an executive order that said “the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned” by Chinese companies was a national security threat. The courts blocked the action after TikTok sued.

    Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that ByteDance could share user data such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers with China’s government. TikTok said it has never done that and would not, if asked.

    The platform was a hot topic of debate during the 2024 GOP primary campaign, with most candidates shunning its use. Many, including former Vice President Mike Pence, called for TikTok to be banned in the U.S. due to its connections with China

    Trump said earlier this year that he still believes TikTok posed a national security risk, but was opposed to banning it because that would help its rival, Facebook, which he continues to criticize over his 2020 election loss to Biden.

    “Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it,” Trump told CNBC.

    The legislation signed by Biden gives ByteDance nine months to sell the company, with a possible additional three months if a sale is in progress. If it doesn’t, TikTok will be banned. Biden barred the app on most government devices in December 2022.

    His reelection campaign nonetheless uses the app, which it joined the night of the Super Bowl in February. Aides argue that in an increasingly fragmented modern media environment, the campaign must get its message out to voters via as many platforms as possible, including TikTok as well as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

    Biden’s “bidenhq” account currently has more than 330,000 followers and 4.5 million likes.

    Trump’s appearance at Saturday’s fight came after he had sat down for an interview with Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” that aired Sunday.

    In that appearance, Trump said he was “OK” with the prospect of potential jail time or house arrest, saying it was “the way it is.’’’

    But he again suggested the public might not accept such a punishment for a former president now running to return to the White House.

    “I don’t know that the public would stand it, you know. I’m not sure the public would stand for it,” he said. “I think it would be tough for the public to take. You know, at a certain point there’s a breaking point.”

    Trump, as he has throughout the trial, maintained his innocence, saying he “did absolutely nothing wrong.”

    He was asked how his wife, former first lady Melania Trump, has taken the news.

    “She’s fine. But I think it’s very hard for her. I mean, she’s fine. But, you know, she has to read all this crap,” he said.

    She did not appear with Trump in court at any point during his seven-week trial.

    Associated Press

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  • Families of hostages in Gaza back cease-fire deal set out by Biden

    Families of hostages in Gaza back cease-fire deal set out by Biden

    TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas called for all parties to immediately accept a proposal detailed by U.S. President Joe Biden to end the war in Gaza, but Israel’s government said that conditions for a cease-fire still must be met.

    What You Need To Know

    • The families of Israeli hostages are supporting a proposal by President Joe Biden urging Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement to release about 100 remaining hostages, along with the bodies of around 30 more, for an extended cease-fire in Gaza

    • Cease-fire talks halted last month after a push by the U.S. and other mediators to secure a deal in hopes of averting a full-scale Israeli invasion of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah. Israel says the Rafah operation is key to uprooting Hamas fighters responsible for the Oct. 7 attack

    • Many families of hostages accuse the government of a lack of will to secure a deal

    • Hamas said in a statement Friday that it viewed the proposal “positively” and called on Israel to declare explicit commitment to an agreement that includes a permanent cease-fire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a prisoner exchange and other conditions

    Biden outlined a three-phase deal Friday that he said was proposed by Israel to Hamas, saying the militant group is “no longer capable” of carrying out a large-scale attack on Israel like the one in October that started the fighting. He urged Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement to release about 100 remaining hostages, along with the bodies of around 30 more, for an extended cease-fire in Gaza.

    Cease-fire talks halted last month after a push by the U.S. and other mediators to secure a deal in hopes of averting a full-scale Israeli invasion of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah. Israel says the Rafah operation is key to uprooting Hamas fighters responsible for the Oct. 7 attack.

    Israel on Friday confirmed its troops were operating in central parts of the city. The ground assault has led around 1 million Palestinians to leave Rafah and has thrown humanitarian operations into turmoil.

    Following Biden’s speech, hostage families said time was running out.

    “This might be the last chance to save lives,” Gili Roman told The Associated Press. His sister, Yarden Roman-Gat, was taken hostage and freed during a weeklong cease-fire in November, but Yarden’s sister-in-law, Carmel, is still held. Roman added: “There is no other way towards a better situation for all. Our leadership must not disappoint us. But mostly, all eyes should be on Hamas.”

    The proposal came after what hostage families called an aggressive meeting Thursday with Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, who told them that the government wasn’t ready to sign a deal to bring all hostages home and that there was no plan B.

    Hanegbi said this week he expects the war to continue another seven months to destroy the military and governing capabilities of Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group.

    Netanyahu has promised a “total victory” that would remove Hamas from power, dismantle its military structure and return the hostages. On Saturday, the government said that its conditions for ending the war hadn’t changed and that putting a permanent cease-fire in place before the conditions are fulfilled is a “nonstarter.”

    Many families of hostages accuse the government of a lack of will to secure a deal.

    “We know that the government of Israel has done an awful lot to delay reaching a deal, and that has cost the lives of many people who survived in captivity for weeks and weeks and months and months,” Sharone Lifschitz said. Her mother, Yocheved, was freed in the November cease-fire, and her father, Oded, is still held.

    The first phase of the deal announced by Biden would would last for six weeks and include a “full and complete cease-fire,” a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages, including women, older people and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

    The second phase would include the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza. The third phase calls for the start of a major reconstruction of Gaza, which faces decades of rebuilding from the war’s devastation.

    Biden acknowledged that keeping the proposal on track would be difficult, with a number of “details to negotiate” to move from the first phase to the second. Biden said that if Hamas fails to fulfil its commitment under the deal, Israel can resume military operations.

    Hamas said in a statement Friday that it viewed the proposal “positively” and called on Israel to declare explicit commitment to an agreement that includes a permanent cease-fire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a prisoner exchange and other conditions.

    In Deir al-Balah, where many Palestinians have fled following Israel’s ground assault on Rafah, there was some hope.

    “This proposal came late, but better late than never,” said Akram Abu Al-Hasan. “Therefore, we hope from God, the American administration, and the European community in general to continue to put pressure on Israel for a cease-fire.”

    The main difference from previous proposals is the readiness to stop the war for an undefined period, according to analysts. It leaves Israel the option to renew the war and diminish Hamas’ ability to govern, but over time, said Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum in Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University.

    Experts said that Biden’s speech was one of the few times that gave hope the war might end.

    “It was a very good speech … it seems that Biden is trying to force it on the Israeli government, he was clearly speaking directly to the Israeli people,” said Gershon Baskin, director for the Middle East at the International Communities Organization.

    Also on Saturday, Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News said that officials from Egypt, the United States and Israel would meet in Cairo over the weekend for talks about the Rafah crossing, which has been closed since Israel took over the Palestinian side in early May.

    The crossing is one of the main ways for aid to enter Gaza. Egypt has refused to open its side, fearing the Israeli hold will remain permanent. Egypt has demanded that Palestinians be put back in charge of the facility. The White House has been pressing Egypt to resume the flow of trucks.

    Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 killed around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. More than 36,370 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israel’s campaign of bombardment and offensives, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.

    Associated Press

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  • Boeing readies for maiden crewed Starliner launch despite helium leak

    Boeing readies for maiden crewed Starliner launch despite helium leak

    CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION — After dealing with a number of delays, Boeing is ready to launch the maiden crewed Starliner flight with two NASA astronauts onboard, even though the spacecraft has a helium leak.


    Countdown to launch

    Sitting on top of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket, Boeing’s Starliner will take flight on Saturday, June 1, at 12:25 p.m. ET from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

    (Boeing built the Starliner and United Launch Alliance — a joint business venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin — built the Atlas V rocket.)

    NASA astronauts Cmdr. Barry “Butch” Wilmore and pilot Sunita “Suni” Williams will be heading to the International Space Station while sitting in Starliner, which is christened Calypso.

    The 45th Weather Squadron has given a 90% chance of good launch conditions, with the only concerns being ground winds and the cumulus cloud rule.

    Mark Burger of the squadron explained to Spectrum News what the liftoff conditions are like for both the launch day and for Sunday, one of the backup attempts. 

    If the Starliner does not go up, the next attempts are set for the following dates, according to NASA: Sunday, June 2, Wednesday, June 5, and Thursday, June 6. No launch times have been given.

    Getting off the ground: A timeline

    The Boeing Crew Flight Test mission has seen several delays, from an issue with a valve on the Atlas V rocket to a persistent helium leak on the Starliner. In fact, NASA stated on Friday, May 24, that the Starliner will be launched with the helium leak, saying it was stable and manageable.

    The first launch attempt was set for Monday, May 6. However, minutes before the lift off, officials scrubbed it because they discovered an issue with a pressure regulation valve on a liquid oxygen tank on the Atlas V rocket’s Centaur upper stage.

    Both Starliner and the rocket were rolled back to Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex-41 to repair the issue. The pair has since been rolled back to the pad.

    Boeing hoped for a second launch attempt on Friday, May 17, at 6:16 p.m. ET. However, a small helium leak that was discovered in the Starliner’s service module put an end to that attempt. The cause of the leak is from a faulty seal.

    The small helium leak also dashed the hopes of two more attempts: One for Tuesday, May 21, at 4:43 p.m. ET and the second one on Saturday, May 25, at 3:09 p.m. ET.

    More information about the helium leak can be found here.

    On Friday, May 24, NASA confirmed with Spectrum News that it will allow Starliner to launch with a helium leak.

    On Wednesday, May 29, both the private company and the U.S. space agency announced that the Starliner mission is still on for the weekend.

    “NASA and Boeing teams polled ‘go’ to proceed with plans to launch the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station at 12:25 p.m. EDT Saturday, June 1. During a Delta-Agency Flight Test Readiness Review Wednesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, leaders from NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) verified launch readiness, including all systems, facilities, and teams supporting the test flight,” Boeing stated.

    During a press conference on Friday, May 31, NASA officials once again assured that the Starliner is safe to flight, despite it losing helium.

    Answering a question posed by Spectrum News as to why both NASA and Boeing do not roll the stacked vehicle back into the hanger and remove the space capsule to fix the leak, space agency officials said they have been thorough with reviewing the situation and the data they have collected.

    “First of all, we’ve looked really hard at what our options were for this particular flange and the fact that this flange has a fuel line that goes into the flange, an oxygenizer line and helium line all going into the flange makes it problematic to work on. It makes it almost unsafe to work on,” answered Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

    He said the broken seal is leaking a half a pound a day and because the tank can hold 50 pounds of helium, they feel they can manage the small leak and within the margin of safety for spaceflight.

    “Sometimes for spaceflight, we plan for contingencies and design the vehicle to have margin and in our case, we have margin in the helium tank,” Stich said. “… We really think we can manage this leak both by looking at it before we launch and then if it got bigger in flight, we can manage it. In fact, we can handle it as I said on Friday a leak 100 times worse than this.”

    Mark Nappi, Boeing’s vice president and program manager of its commercial crew program, echoed what Stich said, adding that they asked themselves, “Is it safe or not? And it is safe and that’s why we determined to go fly with what we have.”

    Learn about Starliner and Atlas V rocket

    While the Starliner can fit up to seven crew members, for NASA missions it will carry between four to five people.

    Each 16.5-foot (5 meter) tall Starliner is designed for up to 10 launch missions and they are made for each assignment, stated Boeing.  

    The Starliner spacecraft only has two missions under its wide belt: The first Orbital Flight Test in December 2019, which did launch as planned but there was a glitch in the mission-elapsed timer that caused the spacecraft to go into an orbital insertion burn at the wrong time, which wasted a lot of fuel.

    So, while it achieved a stable orbit, it could not meet up with the space station.

    The Starliner in the first Orbital Flight Test will be the same one used for this maiden crewed mission. And it is named Calypso after Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s oceanography vessel, RV Calypso, stated NASA.

    In May 2022, the second Orbital Flight Test was successful and made it to the famed floating laboratory.

    After the stage separation, the Atlas V booster will fall into the ocean. Unlike SpaceX rockets, Atlas rockets do not land.

    The Atlas V rocket, with the Starliner on top, stands at 171 feet (52 meters) tall. It is a bit smaller than a stacked SpaceX Falcon rocket at 229.6 feet (70 meters).

    Understanding the mission

    After the launch, the Starliner duo will have a more than 24-hour journey to the International Space Station, where Calypso will dock on the space station’s Harmony module, Steven Siceloff, a NASA public affairs specialist, explained to Spectrum News on Wednesday, May 29.

    If all goes according to plan, it should dock autonomously at 1:50 p.m., Sunday, stated NASA.

    One of the main objectives of the mission is to demonstrate the Starliner’s ability to launch and land. This will be the first time that the Starliner spacecraft will have a journey to the ISS with people onboard.

    “The CFT crew is focused on testing Starliner systems in detail throughout their stay on ISS. For a flight test like this, they will not be tasked with research work on the station itself. They are qualified to do so, but for this mission, the flight testing elements have priority,” according to Siceloff.

    The pair will assess the spacecraft, its displays, and cargo transfer systems; and will even go inside Starliner and close the hatch to show it can be used as a “safe haven” in case there is an emergency, NASA explained.

    During the first launch attempt, former NASA astronaut and former Boeing CST-100 Starliner Director of Crew and Mission Systems Christopher J. Ferguson explained to Spectrum News what Wilmore and Williams will experience as the Starliner launches.

    This mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which is designed to work with American aerospace companies to build spacecraft and rockets to send equipment, technology and astronauts from American soil.

    “The goal of the program is to provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation on space station missions, which will allow for additional research time,” NASA stated.

    United Launch Alliance is the joint business venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which are famed for the Atlas V and the now-retired Delta IV Heavy rockets and the new Vulcan rockets.

    “In 2014, Boeing was awarded up to $4.2 billion by NASA to build, test and fly the Starliner. The contract includes six service missions, as well as an uncrewed and a crewed flight test to the ISS,” Boeing stated in a 51-page document.

    Both Wilmore and Williams will be at the ISS as part-time Expedition 71 members for about eight days before they climb back onboard the Starliner and return to Earth, NASA officials stated.

    “Overall, they will be in space … but the exact duration depends on mission conditions and testing of Starliner systems while at the station,” he stated.

    (ISS expeditions are missions that can last about six months.)

    The Starliner will have a “hard landing” in the American Southwest. Its parachutes will slow it down to 4 mph before touching the earth again. The exact location has not yet been disclosed.

    Meeting the crew

    Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are seen in this 2022 photo. They will be the first astronauts to crew Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station. (NASA/Robert Markowitz)

    When it comes to space travel, the Starliner crew are pros. Wilmore, the commander of the Crew Flight Test mission, became a NASA astronaut in July 2000.

    The retired Navy veteran has been on the Atlantis shuttle mission STS-129 in 2009 and two ISS Expedition missions: 41 and 42 between 2014 and 2015.

    Williams will be the pilot for this first voyage of the crewed mission. The Ohio native was selected to be a NASA astronaut in 1998 and has been on two ISS missions: Expeditions 14 and 15 in 2006 and 2007. And then 32 and 33 in 2012.

    “Williams, who has spent a 322 total days in space, ranks sixth on the all-time U.S. endurance list, and second all-time for a female astronaut,” Boeing stated of the former retired Navy test pilot and captain.

    Watch the launch

    Anthony Leone

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  • At least 19 injured as Russia hits Ukraine’s power grid with fresh barrage

    At least 19 injured as Russia hits Ukraine’s power grid with fresh barrage

    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia pummeled Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with a large-scale drone and missile attack Saturday, injuring at least 19 people, local officials said.

    What You Need To Know

    • The Ukrainian military reported that it had downed 35 out of the 53 missiles launched at targets across the country overnight on June 1

    • Twelve people, including eight children, were hospitalized after a strike close to two houses where they were sheltering in the Kharkiv region

    • The strikes were part of a series of sustained attacks by Russia against Ukraine’s power grid, which has been ongoing since March

    • Elsewhere, five civilians died amid Ukrainian shelling in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region, said the area’s Moscow-installed leader Denis Pushilin

    The Ukrainian military reported that it had downed 35 out of the 53 missiles launched at targets across the country overnight on June 1, as well as 46 out of 47 attack drones.

    Injuries were reported by officials across the country, including in Ukraine’s western Lviv region and the central Dnipropetrovsk region.

    Twelve people, including eight children, were hospitalized after a strike close to two houses where they were sheltering in the Kharkiv region, said Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.

    The strikes were part of a series of sustained attacks by Russia against Ukraine’s power grid, which has been ongoing since March.

    Ukraine’s largest private energy firm, DTEK said that two of its power plants had been seriously damaged in what it said was the sixth attack on the company’s plants in two and a half months.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Energy Minister, Herman Halushchenko, said in a statement on social media that energy infrastructure in the Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kirovohrad and Ivano-Frankivsk regions had also been targeted.

    Damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks has forced leaders of the war-ravaged country to institute nationwide rolling blackouts. Without adequate air defenses to counter assaults and allow for repairs, the shortages could still worsen as need spikes in late summer and the bitter-cold winter.

    In response to the strikes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated Kyiv’s need for additional air defense systems from its Western allies.

    “Civilians, infrastructure and energy facilities. This is what Russia is constantly at war with,” he said in a post Saturday on X, formerly Twitter. “Our partners know exactly what is needed for this. Additional Patriot and other modern air defense systems for Ukraine. Accelerating and expanding the delivery of F-16s to Ukraine. Providing our warriors with all the necessary capabilities.”

    Elsewhere, five civilians died amid Ukrainian shelling in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region, said the area’s Moscow-installed leader Denis Pushilin. Another three people were injured, he said.

    The Russian Defense Ministry also said that it had shot down two Ukrainian drones on Saturday morning over Russia’s Belgorod region. No casualties were reported.

    Associated Press

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  • Where to expect tropical activity in June

    Where to expect tropical activity in June

    The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1.

    With above normal activity expected, it’s important to know where tropical systems could form.

    What You Need To Know

    • June tropical activity is most likely in the Gulf of Mexico

    • Storms that develop typically move northeastward

    • Only four June hurricanes have made landfall in the U.S. since 1950

    Even though systems can form before hurricane season, June is still very early in hurricane season. Tropical systems typically struggle to develop, and those that do usually only strengthen into a disorganized system or weak hurricane.

    The most favorable areas for tropical development in June are the Gulf of Mexico, the northern Caribbean Sea and the southwestern Atlantic Ocean, just off the southeastern coast.

    Systems that develop typically take a northeastward track. 

    Since 1950, only four hurricanes have made landfall in the U.S. during June, all of them along the Gulf Coast. Bonnie and Agnes made landfall as Category 1 hurricanes, while Audrey and Alma strengthened into major hurricanes. 

    Development zones expand and tropical activity increases as we get further into summer. 

    Read More About Hurricanes

    Our team of meteorologists dives deep into the science of weather and breaks down timely weather data and information. To view more weather and climate stories, check out our weather blogs section.

    Meteorologist Reid Lybarger

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  • 10 times tropical systems devastated the U.S. in June

    10 times tropical systems devastated the U.S. in June

    It’s the first official month of hurricane season.

    In June, most tropical systems only form into depressions or storms because we don’t have the right ingredients for stronger storms, such as warmer ocean water.

    Let’s look back at some of the top June systems.

    What You Need To Know

    • 120 tropical systems categorized as a tropical storm or higher have occurred in June since 1850

    • 87 of those tropical systems brought impacts to the U.S.

    • Only three major hurricanes have occurred in June

    The 2000s

    Tropical Storm Debby in 2012: An area of low pressure in the Gulf developed into Tropical Storm Debby on June 23. Curving northeast, Debby made landfall as a weak tropical storm near Steinhatchee, Florida.

    Extreme rainfall fell over Florida, with Curtis Mill receiving the most at 28.78 inches. The Sopchoppy River reached a record-high flood stage and flooded 400 structures in Wakulla County.

    River and creek flooding in Pasco and Clay Counties inundated around 700 homes. Central and South Florida saw damage from several tornadoes.

    In the end, Debby caused around $210 million in losses and 10 deaths.

    Rainfall from Debby caused massive flooding for areas like Live Oak, Fla. in 2012. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

    Tropical Storm Allison in 2001: An interesting storm, Allison first made landfall as a tropical storm near Freeport, Texas, on June 5. It drifted northward but quickly made a U-turn and re-entered the Gulf of Mexico on June 10.

    After moving back into the Gulf, Allison tracked northeastward and made a second landfall in Louisiana on June 11, and continued northeast towards the Atlantic.

    Texas saw a major flood disaster when Allison stalled over the state, dumping over 35 inches of rain. The storm damaged over 65,000 homes and 95,000 vehicles. Allison killed 41 people, most died from drowning.

    Allison became the costliest and second-deadliest tropical storm on record in the United States, with around $8.5 billion in damage.

    The 1900s

    Tropical Storm Alberto in 1994: Initially forming near the western tip of Cuba on June 30, this storm tracked north, making landfall near Destin, Florida. It quickly weakened but stalled over Georgia and continued to stream in moisture across the Southeast.

    This storm triggered devastating flooding across Georgia, Alabama and Florida. Twenty-seven inches of rain fell in some locations.

    Thirty-three people died from flash flooding alone, and the storm damaged over 18,000 homes. Alberto also affected about 900,000 acres of crops and caused 218 dams to fail.

    There was a total of $1.03 billion in damage, and Alberto became one of the worst natural disasters in Georgia’s history.

    Hurricane Agnes in 1972: One of the worst hurricanes in history, killing 131 people, Agnes first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane near Panama City, Florida, on June 19.

    It then moved northeastward towards the Carolinas before it moved into the Atlantic and then drifted towards New York City, where it made landfall as a tropical storm on June 22.

    Agnes caused a significant tornado outbreak in Florida and Georgia. There were 26 confirmed tornadoes, 24 of them in Florida. Agnes damaged or destroyed over 2,000 structures in Florida.

    The rest of the Southeast felt minor impacts, but once Agnes moved into the Northeast, it devastated Pennsylvania and New York.

    Pennsylvania experienced extreme flooding because of heavy rainfall. One area in Schuylkill County saw 18 inches of rain. Creeks and rivers ran out of their banks, and the damage from flooding left 220,000 people homeless.

    New York suffered similar damage. Flooding damaged or destroyed over 32,000 homes and 1,500 businesses.

    A large boat was tossed from the ocean in Cameron, La. when Hurricane Audrey ripped through in 1957. (AP Photo/Randy Taylor)

    Hurricane Audrey in 1957: The first major hurricane to make our list, Audrey made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane in southwestern Louisiana on June 27. The impacts were devastating.

    The storm surge inundated much of the Louisiana coast and killed much of the local wildlife. Heavy rainfall led to flooding.

    In Texas, strong winds caused $8 million in damage.

    The hurricane spawned many tornadoes inland, and people felt the effects of the storm as north as Canada, killing 15 people.

    It was the earliest major hurricane at the time and one of the deadliest, with over 400 people killed.

    The Gulf Coast Hurricane of 1916: The second major hurricane to make the list, this system first formed into a tropical storm on June 29 in the Caribbean Sea.

    It moved north, and once it reached the Gulf of Mexico, warm waters allowed this system to intensify into a Category 3 hurricane.

    It made landfall near Gulfport, Mississippi, on July 5, and winds caused about $3 million in damage. In Florida, it peeled roofs off houses, and chimneys and trees toppled. Heavy rainfall severely damaged crops in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.

    Overall, this hurricane killed 34 people. The remnants from this storm would combine with another system in the Atlantic and cause massive flooding in North Carolina.

    A steamer sunk in Mobile Bay, Ala. when The Gulf Coast Hurricane of 1916 tore through. (NOAA/Steve Nicklas)

    The 1800s

    An unnamed tropical storm in 1899: Although it is unknown when this storm first formed, weather maps indicate a tropical storm in the northwestern Gulf on June 26.

    This storm made landfall on Galveston Island, Texas, on June 27 and caused major devastation, mainly because many people did not have ways of receiving warnings.

    This tropical storm flooded 12,000 square miles of land, and it left thousands of people homeless. It’s estimated that 284 people died in the storm.

    3 back-to-back-to-back hurricanes in 1886: The end of our list takes us to 1886 when three hurricanes devastated the South and Southeast.

    The first made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane near High Island, Texas on June 14. The hurricane damaged boats, waterfront structures and a railroad. Winds tore roofs from houses, and saltwater from the ocean impacted livestock.

    Areas in Louisiana even saw major crop damage and heavy rainfall, peaking at 21.4 inches.

    The second hurricane made landfall near St. Marks, Florida as a Category 2 on June 21 after traveling from Cuba and the Yucatán Peninsula. Flooding happened across low-lying streets, and it pushed ships onshore. The most damage occurred near Apalachicola and Tallahassee.

    The third and final hurricane of the month (and this list) also developed in the Caribbean Sea, moved northward and made landfall near the same area as the second hurricane. It made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane near Indian Pass in Florida.

    Homes lost their roofs, buildings collapsed and several ships sunk. It destroyed crops in Florida and Georgia, and even areas in North Carolina and Virginia saw wind and flood damage.

    Our team of meteorologists dives deep into the science of weather and breaks down timely weather data and information. To view more weather and climate stories, check out our weather blogs section.

    Meteorologist Shelly Lindblade

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  • Planets on parade: Rare 6 planets line up in the sky

    Planets on parade: Rare 6 planets line up in the sky

    2024 has gifted us with some spectacular celestial views from the total solar eclipse in April to the northern lights seen throughout most of the U.S. in May. June brings another astronomical phenomenon known as “planets on parade.” 

    What You Need To Know

    • Six planets will align on the morning of June 3

    • Planets lining up happens a couples times per year

    • Three of the six planets will rise just before 6 a.m. making them faint in the sunlight

    It’s nicknamed as such because several planets appear to form into a straight line in the early morning sky. However, Spectrum News Space Expert Anthony Leone says it’s all about perspective. “In reality (and out in space), they are not lined up. It only appears that way to us.”

    This ‘parade’ is unique because six planets, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, will align. He recommends waking up early and finding a location with minimal light pollution for optimal viewing. “Saturn is expected to rise from the east to southeast of the horizon at 2 a.m. ET on June 3.”

    And bring binoculars or a telescope. “With the naked eye, you can see planets Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn as stars. The more distant planets like Uranus and Neptune will need binoculars or a telescope to view.”

    Adding, “Free astronomy apps like ‘Sky Guide,’ ‘Planets’ and ‘SkyPortal’ are great at helping people see when and where the planets will rise.” 

    With three out of the six planets expected to rise just before 6 a.m., the sun may end up obscuring the view of the “parade.”

    As for how common is this event?

    “Believe it or not, planet alignments are not too rare, and they happen a couple of times each year. It just depends on how many planets will be in alignment for a parade,” explains Leone. 

    “The last time people saw most planets line up was this year’s total solar eclipse in April.” 

    And if the weather doesn’t permit you for the viewing in June, there will be another opportunity in August. “The next one will be Aug. 28 with Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all aligning.”

    2025 will have three chances to witness planets on parades, Jan. 18, Feb. 28 and Aug. 29.

    Our team of meteorologists dives deep into the science of weather and breaks down timely weather data and information. To view more weather and climate stories, check out our weather blogs section.

    Meteorologist Stacy Lynn

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  • Analysis finds 2023 set record for U.S. heat deaths

    Analysis finds 2023 set record for U.S. heat deaths

    David Hom suffered from diabetes and felt nauseated before he went out to hang his laundry in 108-degree weather, another day in Arizona’s record-smashing, unrelenting July heat wave.

    His family found the 73-year-old lying on the ground, his lower body burned. Hom died at the hospital, his core body temperature at 107 degrees.

    What You Need To Know

    • An Associated Press analysis of federal data shows that about 2,300 people in the United States died in the summer of 2023 with their death certificates mentioning the effects of excessive heat

    • That’s the highest in 45 years of records. More than two dozen doctors, public health experts, meteorologists and other experts tell The AP the real death toll was higher

    • Coroner, hospital, ambulance and weather records show that last summer amped up America’s heat and health problem to a new level

    • The relentless warmth unusually killed more people in the South, which had been less prone to mass deaths

    The death certificates of more than 2,300 people who died in the United States last summer mention the effects of excessive heat, the highest number in 45 years of records, according to an Associated Press analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. With May already breaking heat records, 2024 could be even deadlier.

    And more than two dozen doctors, public health experts, and meteorologists told the AP that last year’s figure was only a fraction of the real death toll. Coroner, hospital, ambulance and weather records show America’s heat and health problem at an entirely new level.

    “We can be confident saying that 2023 was the worst year we’ve had from since … we’ve started having reliable reporting on that,” said Dr. John Balbus, director of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Last year, ambulances were dispatched tens of thousands of times after people dropped from the heat. It was relentless and didn’t give people a break, especially at night. The heat of 2023 kept coming, and people kept dying.

    “It’s people that live the hot life. These are the ones who are dying. People who work outside, people that can’t air-condition their house,” said Texas A&M climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who was in hard-hit southern Texas. “It’s really quite, quite grim.”

    Dallas postal worker Eugene Gates Jr., loved working outdoors and at 7:30 a.m. June 20, the 66-year-old texted his wife that it was close to 90 degrees. He kept working in the heat that felt like 119 degrees with the humidity factored in and finally passed out in somebody’s yard. He ran a fever of 104.6 degrees and died, with the medical examiner saying heat contributed to his death.

    “The way that my husband died, it could have been prevented,” said Carla Gates.

    “There’s just very low awareness that heat kills. It’s the silent killer,” said University of Washington public health scientist Kristie Ebi, who helped write a United Nations special report on extreme weather. That 2012 report warned of future dangerous heat waves.

    Ebi said in the last few years, the heat “seems like it’s coming faster. It seems like it’s more severe than we expected.”

    Deaths down south

    Last summer’s heat wave killed differently than past ones that triggered mass deaths in northern cities where people weren’t used to the high temperatures and air conditioning wasn’t common. Several hundreds died in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, in Philadelphia in 1998 and in Chicago in 1995.

    Nearly three-quarters of the heat deaths last summer were in five southern states that were supposed to be used to the heat and planned for it. Except this time they couldn’t handle it, and it killed 874 people in Arizona, 450 in Texas, 226 in Nevada, 84 in Florida and 83 in Louisiana.

    Those five states accounted for 61% of the nation’s heat deaths in the last five years, skyrocketing past their 18% share of U.S. deaths from 1979 to 1999.

    At least 645 people were killed by the heat in Maricopa County, Arizona, alone, according to the medical examiner’s office. People were dying in their cars and especially on the streets, where homelessness, drug abuse and mental illness made matters worse.

    Three months after being evicted from her home, 64-year-old Diana Smith was found dead in the back of her car. Her cause of death was methamphetamine and fentanyl, worsened by heat exposure, Phoenix’s medical examiner ruled.

    “In the last five years, we are seeing this consistent and record kind of unprecedented upward trend. And I think it’s because the levels of heat that we have seen in the last several years have exceeded what we had seen in the last 20 or 30,” said Balbus, of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Unrelenting heat

    Phoenix saw 20 consecutive days of extreme heat stress in July, the longest run of such dangerously hot days in the city since at least 1940, according to the data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

    Phoenix wasn’t alone.

    Last year the U.S. had the most heat waves since 1936. In the South and Southwest, Last year was the worst on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    “It was crazy,” said University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher Brian McNoldy, who spent the summer documenting how Miami broke its daily heat index record 40% of the days between mid-June and mid-October.

    Houston’s Hobby airport broke daily high temperature marks 43 times, meteorologists said. Nighttime lows set records for heat 57 times, they said. That didn’t give people’s bodies chances to recover.

    Across five southern states, the average rate of emergency department visits for heat illness in the summer of 2023 was over double that of the previous five summers, according to an analysis of data from the CDC.

    The deaths

    Experts warned that counting heat mortality based on death certificates leads to underestimates. Heat illness can be missed, or might not be mentioned.

    They pointed to “excess death” studies for a more realistic count. These are the type of long-accepted epidemiological studies that look at grand totals of deaths during unusual conditions — such as hot days, high air pollution or a spreading COVID-19 pandemic — and compare them to normal times, creating an expected trend line.

    Texas A&M’s Dessler and his colleague Jangho Lee published one such study early last year. According to their methods, Lee said, about 11,000 heat deaths likely occurred in 2023 in the U.S. — a figure that would represent a record since at least 1987 and is about five times the number reported on death certificates.

    Deaths are also up because of better reporting, and because Americans are getting older and more vulnerable to heat, Lee said. The population is also slowly shifting to cities, which are more exposed to heat.

    The future

    In some places, last year’s heat already rivals the worst on record. As of late May, Miami was on track to be 1.5 degrees warmer than the hottest May on record, according to McNoldy. Dallas’ Murphy pointed to maps saying conditions with a broiling Mexico are “eerily similar to what we saw last June” so he is worried about “a very brutal summer.”

    Texas A&M’s Dessler said last year’s heat was “a taste of the future.”

    “I just think in 20 years, you know, 2040 rolls around … we’re going to look back at 2023 and say, man, that was cool,” Dessler said. “The problem with climate change is if if it hasn’t pushed you over the edge yet, just wait.”

    Associated Press

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  • Analysis finds 2023 set record for U.S. heat deaths

    Analysis finds 2023 set record for U.S. heat deaths

    David Hom suffered from diabetes and felt nauseated before he went out to hang his laundry in 108-degree weather, another day in Arizona’s record-smashing, unrelenting July heat wave.

    His family found the 73-year-old lying on the ground, his lower body burned. Hom died at the hospital, his core body temperature at 107 degrees.

    What You Need To Know

    • An Associated Press analysis of federal data shows that about 2,300 people in the United States died in the summer of 2023 with their death certificates mentioning the effects of excessive heat

    • That’s the highest in 45 years of records. More than two dozen doctors, public health experts, meteorologists and other experts tell The AP the real death toll was higher

    • Coroner, hospital, ambulance and weather records show that last summer amped up America’s heat and health problem to a new level

    • The relentless warmth unusually killed more people in the South, which had been less prone to mass deaths

    The death certificates of more than 2,300 people who died in the United States last summer mention the effects of excessive heat, the highest number in 45 years of records, according to an Associated Press analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. With May already breaking heat records, 2024 could be even deadlier.

    And more than two dozen doctors, public health experts, and meteorologists told the AP that last year’s figure was only a fraction of the real death toll. Coroner, hospital, ambulance and weather records show America’s heat and health problem at an entirely new level.

    “We can be confident saying that 2023 was the worst year we’ve had from since … we’ve started having reliable reporting on that,” said Dr. John Balbus, director of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Last year, ambulances were dispatched tens of thousands of times after people dropped from the heat. It was relentless and didn’t give people a break, especially at night. The heat of 2023 kept coming, and people kept dying.

    “It’s people that live the hot life. These are the ones who are dying. People who work outside, people that can’t air-condition their house,” said Texas A&M climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who was in hard-hit southern Texas. “It’s really quite, quite grim.”

    Dallas postal worker Eugene Gates Jr., loved working outdoors and at 7:30 a.m. June 20, the 66-year-old texted his wife that it was close to 90 degrees. He kept working in the heat that felt like 119 degrees with the humidity factored in and finally passed out in somebody’s yard. He ran a fever of 104.6 degrees and died, with the medical examiner saying heat contributed to his death.

    “The way that my husband died, it could have been prevented,” said Carla Gates.

    “There’s just very low awareness that heat kills. It’s the silent killer,” said University of Washington public health scientist Kristie Ebi, who helped write a United Nations special report on extreme weather. That 2012 report warned of future dangerous heat waves.

    Ebi said in the last few years, the heat “seems like it’s coming faster. It seems like it’s more severe than we expected.”

    Deaths down south

    Last summer’s heat wave killed differently than past ones that triggered mass deaths in northern cities where people weren’t used to the high temperatures and air conditioning wasn’t common. Several hundreds died in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, in Philadelphia in 1998 and in Chicago in 1995.

    Nearly three-quarters of the heat deaths last summer were in five southern states that were supposed to be used to the heat and planned for it. Except this time they couldn’t handle it, and it killed 874 people in Arizona, 450 in Texas, 226 in Nevada, 84 in Florida and 83 in Louisiana.

    Those five states accounted for 61% of the nation’s heat deaths in the last five years, skyrocketing past their 18% share of U.S. deaths from 1979 to 1999.

    At least 645 people were killed by the heat in Maricopa County, Arizona, alone, according to the medical examiner’s office. People were dying in their cars and especially on the streets, where homelessness, drug abuse and mental illness made matters worse.

    Three months after being evicted from her home, 64-year-old Diana Smith was found dead in the back of her car. Her cause of death was methamphetamine and fentanyl, worsened by heat exposure, Phoenix’s medical examiner ruled.

    “In the last five years, we are seeing this consistent and record kind of unprecedented upward trend. And I think it’s because the levels of heat that we have seen in the last several years have exceeded what we had seen in the last 20 or 30,” said Balbus, of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Unrelenting heat

    Phoenix saw 20 consecutive days of extreme heat stress in July, the longest run of such dangerously hot days in the city since at least 1940, according to the data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

    Phoenix wasn’t alone.

    Last year the U.S. had the most heat waves since 1936. In the South and Southwest, Last year was the worst on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    “It was crazy,” said University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher Brian McNoldy, who spent the summer documenting how Miami broke its daily heat index record 40% of the days between mid-June and mid-October.

    Houston’s Hobby airport broke daily high temperature marks 43 times, meteorologists said. Nighttime lows set records for heat 57 times, they said. That didn’t give people’s bodies chances to recover.

    Across five southern states, the average rate of emergency department visits for heat illness in the summer of 2023 was over double that of the previous five summers, according to an analysis of data from the CDC.

    The deaths

    Experts warned that counting heat mortality based on death certificates leads to underestimates. Heat illness can be missed, or might not be mentioned.

    They pointed to “excess death” studies for a more realistic count. These are the type of long-accepted epidemiological studies that look at grand totals of deaths during unusual conditions — such as hot days, high air pollution or a spreading COVID-19 pandemic — and compare them to normal times, creating an expected trend line.

    Texas A&M’s Dessler and his colleague Jangho Lee published one such study early last year. According to their methods, Lee said, about 11,000 heat deaths likely occurred in 2023 in the U.S. — a figure that would represent a record since at least 1987 and is about five times the number reported on death certificates.

    Deaths are also up because of better reporting, and because Americans are getting older and more vulnerable to heat, Lee said. The population is also slowly shifting to cities, which are more exposed to heat.

    The future

    In some places, last year’s heat already rivals the worst on record. As of late May, Miami was on track to be 1.5 degrees warmer than the hottest May on record, according to McNoldy. Dallas’ Murphy pointed to maps saying conditions with a broiling Mexico are “eerily similar to what we saw last June” so he is worried about “a very brutal summer.”

    Texas A&M’s Dessler said last year’s heat was “a taste of the future.”

    “I just think in 20 years, you know, 2040 rolls around … we’re going to look back at 2023 and say, man, that was cool,” Dessler said. “The problem with climate change is if if it hasn’t pushed you over the edge yet, just wait.”

    Associated Press

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  • Clinton said 2016 was tainted, but didn’t try to change it

    Clinton said 2016 was tainted, but didn’t try to change it

    As Election Day looms, many Republican politicians are facing the same question from reporters on the campaign trail: Will they accept the results of the 2024 election? 

    Amid former President Donald Trump’s repeated false claims that he won the 2020 election, including in Wisconsin, some Republicans took up his case, casting doubt on the results and advocating for probes and policy changes they say were aimed at making elections more secure. 

    Today, their answers to that question are mixed. 

    In a May 2 interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Trump did not commit to accepting the results of November’s election in Wisconsin if he lost, saying he would only do so “if everything’s honest.” The Cap Times reported that U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said May 19 that he would reject the outcome if he believes it’s not “honest.” 

    Republican businessman Eric Hovde, who is running to oust Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin from office, has struck a different tone. 

    Appearing May 19 on WISN-TV’s “Upfront,” Hovde said he would accept the results of his election in November and that he believes “everybody should.” He also asserted it’s not just his party that deserves scrutiny on the issue. 

    “I love how this has been framed recently that this is just a Republican issue,” he said. “Let’s not forget, in 2016, Hillary Clinton said the election was stolen – Russian interference.” 

    It’s not the first time that a politician has sought to link the voter fraud claims Republicans pushed in 2020 to statements Clinton made in 2016.

    But the comparison isn’t quite apples to apples. 

    Here’s what to know about the issue. 

    Clinton has said 2016 election was tainted

    In 2016, Trump bested Clinton with 306 Electoral College votes to Clinton’s 232. However, Clinton won the popular vote, a scenario that has happened just a handful of times in American history. 

    Clinton has said on several occasions that election was tainted, including in 2019, when she said, “You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you.” 

    The 2019 comment was part of a speech in Los Angeles, where she said she’d been telling candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination that even if they ran a perfect campaign, the election could be stolen from them. 

    She said she’d been reading the report on Russian election interference from special counsel Robert Mueller, and warned the same tactics could be “alive and well” in 2020. 

    (The report and a bipartisan investigation conducted later by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee found that Russia did run a campaign to help Trump win, but did not draw a conclusion on whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.)

    In a CBS News interview later that year, Clinton referred to Trump as an “illegitimate president” and said “he knows” about “the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories.” 

    And in a 2017 interview with National Public Radio, she said she would not rule out questioning the 2016 election’s legitimacy if it was learned that Russia interfered more deeply than currently known. 

    Unlike Trump, Clinton didn’t take steps to change election results

    In 2020, President Joe Biden beat Trump with 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232, and in the popular vote, getting more than 81 million votes to Trump’s 74 million. In some states, the vote totals were much closer — as in Wisconsin, where Biden won by about 20,000 votes. 

    Trump refused to concede to Biden’s 2020 win, repeating unfounded conspiracy theories and launching legal battles across the country to try to overturn the results – many of which were thrown out because no widespread fraud was found. His insistence that he won the election, and Republican support of his claims, drove the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

    Trump maintains he won Wisconsin in 2020, but his loss has been confirmed by recounts he paid for in Dane and Milwaukee counties, court rulings, a nonpartisan state audit and a study by a prominent conservative group.

    Clinton — and other Democrats — have been plain about calling the 2016 election fishy due to events during the campaign leading up to it. But even when Clinton said she wouldn’t rule out questioning the legitimacy of the results, she never took steps to do so. She conceded Trump’s win immediately after the election. 

    In the 2017 NPR interview, she noted challenging the results of her election loss would be unprecedented and said, “I just don’t think we have a mechanism” for it. That’s where the comparison with Republicans’ claims of election fraud breaks down. 

    As such, while both of them raised questions about their election losses, what each decided to do about it was pretty different. Trying to equate the two responses is a stretch. 

    Our conclusion 

    It’s not hard to find proof that Clinton did have questions and theories that led her to believe her loss in 2016 wasn’t fair. She even used the term “stolen” to describe it. 

    But equating her response to that election with the Republican response to the 2020 election leaves out key context. Unlike Trump, Clinton immediately conceded, and her statements questioning the legitimacy of the 2016 election weren’t followed by action to change the results. 

    It makes the two responses not so similar after all. 

     

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  • Man with suspended license appears for virtual court hearing while driving

    Man with suspended license appears for virtual court hearing while driving

    A judge in Michigan appeared to be stunned when a man attended a virtual court hearing over a suspended license while driving.

    The incident happened at a Washtenaw County court hearing earlier this month. When Corey Harris, 44, dialed into the hearing virtually, it was clear that he was wearing a seatbelt and behind the wheel of a car.

    “Mr. Harris, are you driving?” asked Washtenaw County district court Judge J. Cedric Simpson.

    “Actually, I’m pulling into my doctor’s office actually, so just give me one second, I’m parking right now,” Harris replied.

    The judge was silent and appeared to shake his head before asking Harris if he was stationary.

    “I’m pulling in right now at this second — yes I am,” the defendant said, as the judge smiled.

    Afterwards, Natalie Pate, Harris’ attorney, requested an adjournment of three-to-four weeks.

    The judge pause briefly before saying: “So maybe I don’t understand something. This is a driver with a license suspended?”

    “Yes, your honor,” she replied.

    “And he was just driving?” Judge Simpson continued. “And he didn’t have a license?”

    “Uh,” Harris interjects, before Pate replies: “Those are the charges, your honor, yes.”

    “I’m looking at his record, he doesn’t have a license,” the judge says. “He’s suspended and he’s just driving.”

    “That is correct, your honor,” she said.

    “I don’t even know why he would do that,” Judge Simpson says, before revoking Harris’ bond and ordering him to report to the Washtenaw County jail by 6 p.m. that evening. “Failure to turn himself in will result in a bench warrant with no bond.”

    “Oh, my God,” Harris said, leaning his head back.

    According to The New York Times, citing court records, Harris booked himself into jail on the evening of May 15 and was released on bond. Another hearing is set for June, per the Times.

    Justin Tasolides

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  • Schools in basketball-centric leagues face challenges with NCAA settlement

    Schools in basketball-centric leagues face challenges with NCAA settlement

    Bernadette McGlade leads an Atlantic 10 Conference built around basketball and focused on getting multiple bids to the NCAA men’s tournament much more than anything tied to big-time football. 

      What You Need To Know

    • The NCAA and major college conferences approving a $2.8 billion settlement of federal antitrust claims

    • The settlement includes the NCAA and conferences paying $2.77 billion over 10 years to more than 14,000 former and current college athletes

    •  Coming up with money to pay for the settlement will hit hundreds of other Division I member schools in the form of smaller annual payouts 

    Yet her league is among dozens of conferences and scores of schools that will feel the impact from the NCAA and major college conferences approving a $2.8 billion settlement of federal antitrust claims that calls for paying athletes with a plan framed in a football-driven college sports landscape.

    “We’ve got to move forward, we want to continue to preserve our rich history in basketball,” McGlade told The Associated Press. “So we have to get to the strategy table and start doing analysis.”

    Schools that lean on basketball in leagues like the A-10, Big East — home to UConn, the two-time reigning men’s national champion — and the West Coast Conference face the prospect of directing millions to their athletes every year. But they have to figure out the best way to do that without streams of football money flowing in.

    “With the opportunity that football brings, there’s a lot of (financial) obligation that football brings, too,” said Gonzaga athletic director Chris Standiford, whose WCC basketball program has gone from mid-major to national power over the past quarter-century. “So it cuts both ways. We don’t have the obligation of the operations and new expenses associated with the compensation of football players. But we don’t have the benefit of the revenues that come with it, particularly the TV revenues.”

    The settlement includes the NCAA and conferences paying $2.77 billion over 10 years to more than 14,000 former and current college athletes who say now-defunct rules prevented them from earning money or endorsement deals dating to 2016. Under the plan, each school would be allowed to set aside up to around $21 million to pay athletes, a cap that could change. It could start as soon as the 2025 fall semester.

    The lawsuit targeted the so-called Power Five conferences – Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Southeastern – as well as Notre Dame. But coming up with money to pay for the settlement will hit hundreds of other Division I member schools in the form of smaller annual payouts from the organization. That revenue flows largely from the NCAA’s lucrative TV contract for the men’s basketball tournament and its other championship events.

    The NCAA has no role in the College Football Playoff or bowl games and TV deals for football are struck at the conference level. Yet schools with smaller or even no football program will be shouldering a piece of the settlement before even getting into paying future athletes.

    “I think the real interesting angle here is: Why does men’s basketball pay for the entire overhead of college athletics and college football doesn’t contribute?” Standiford asked.

    McGlade went a step further, noting that the projected CFP per-school payouts alone to the Big Ten and SEC (around $22 million) largely covers the estimated annual amount a school can pay to athletes. McGlade estimated the focus for the basketball-focused schools in her league could be generating $3 million to $5 million in annual payments by comparison.

    “We knew the settlement was being discussed and I think everyone across D-I was supportive of that for this whole year,” McGlade said. “We didn’t know the gory details of what the payment model would be. The disproportionality is a real concern, and it wouldn’t have taken that much for that proportionality to get balanced a little bit more and everyone be a little bit more respectful of each other.”

    Jay Bilas, a former Duke player and attorney who is also an ESPN basketball broadcaster, said NCAA member schools put themselves in this position by voting “in lockstep to restrict athletes from making money all these years.”

    “So there’s no difference in culpability from the University of Georgia to Marquette,” Bilas said. “They’re all equally culpable in violating federal antitrust law. So that to me should not be lost in all this, that all of them were of like mind in saying the athletes get nothing but scholarship or stipend or whatever it is.”

    It will take a lot of work to find the best answer for each school within what amounts to a vastly different economic model.

    At Gonzaga, for example, the men’s basketball program generated about $19.2 million in revenue for the 2022-23 season, according to Education Department figures. That represented nearly 45% of that year’s overall athletics revenues ($42.9 million).

    That was similar to the Atlantic 10’s Dayton, which was ranked No. 24 in the final AP Top 25 of the season. The Flyers men’s basketball program accounted for 44% of athletics revenue ($40.1 million). In the Big East, men’s basketball accounted for north of 48% of total revenues at football-free schools like Marquette ($42.6 million) and Creighton ($35 million).

    By comparison, blueblood names like Duke and North Carolina (ACC), Kentucky (SEC) and Kansas (Big 12) from football-driven power conferences had men’s basketball programs accounting for no more than 29% of total revenue that exceeded roughly $138 million in each case.

    At football-crazy Alabama, a men’s basketball program that was the No. 1 overall seed in the 2023 NCAA Tournament and reached this year’s Final Four accounted for just 10.8% of total revenue ($191.2 million) for the 2022-23 season.

    “I think everybody would identify that Villanova’s investment in basketball is important at Villanova, or UConn, or whoever, and they’re going to continue to do everything they can to compete at that level,” Standiford said. “And we’ll do the same. But where does that money come from?

    “I don’t think it benefits us,” Standiford added. “But I also think we’re a very unique group of schools. I don’t know how you would ever attain our status if you didn’t have it already. I think that’s what it’s going to change.”

    Bilas, however, remained confident that basketball-centric programs will “make it work,” noting that athletics success can fuel school-changing growth and improvements beyond sports.

    “These revenue streams are growing and they’re going to continue to grow because live sports is very valuable,” Bilas said. “It’s not just valuable on the football side, that’s the most valuable. But basketball’s really valuable. Women’s basketball, some of these other sports. So we’ll see how it comes out.

    “I see all these different institutions continuing to compete at a high level, but now they’ll have to compete for talent in the economic realm.”

    Associated Press

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  • Amazon gets FAA approval to expand drone deliveries for online orders

    Amazon gets FAA approval to expand drone deliveries for online orders

    Federal regulators have given Amazon key permission that will allow it to expand its drone delivery program, the company announced Thursday.

    In a blog post posted on its website, Amazon said that the Federal Aviation Administration has given its Prime Air delivery service the OK to operate drones “beyond visual line of sight,” removing a barrier that has prevented its drones from traveling longer distances. With the approval, Amazon pilots can now operate drones remotely without seeing it with their own eyes.

    What You Need To Know

    • Federal regulators have given Amazon key permission that will allow it to expand its drone delivery program

    • The company said Thursday the Federal Aviation Administration is now allowing its Prime Air delivery service approval to operate drones “beyond visual line of sight”

    • That removes a barrier that has prevented Amazon’s drones from traveling longer distances

    • Amazon has sought the approval for years

    Amazon, which has sought this permission for years, said it received permission from regulators after developing a strategy that ensures its drones could “detect and avoid obstacles in the air.”

    Furthermore, the company said it submitted other engineering information to the FAA and conducted flight demonstrations in front of federal inspectors. Those demonstrations were also done “in the presence of real planes, helicopters, and a hot air balloon to demonstrate how the drone safely navigated away from each of them,” Amazon said.

    The FAA’s approval marks a key step for the company, which has had ambitions to deliver online orders through drones for more than a decade. During a TV interview in 2013, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said drones would be flying to customer’s homes within five years. However, the company’s progress was delayed amid regulatory setbacks.

    In 2022, Amazon started performing a limited number of drone deliveries to customers in College Station, Texas and Lockeford, California. Last month, it said it would close its drone delivery site in Lockeford and open another one late this year in Tolleson, Arizona, a city located west of Phoenix.

    Businesses have wanted simpler rules that could open neighborhood’s skies to new commercial applications of drones, but privacy advocates and some airplane and balloon pilots remain wary.

    With the new authorization, Amazon says it will “immediately” scale its operations in College Station in an effort to reach customers in more densely populated areas. By the end of the decade, the company has a goal of delivering 500 million packages by drone every year.

    Associated Press

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  • Inflation pressures lingering from pandemic are keeping Fed rate cuts on pause

    Inflation pressures lingering from pandemic are keeping Fed rate cuts on pause

    Hopes for interest rate cuts this year by the Federal Reserve are steadily fading, with a stream of recent remarks by Fed officials underscoring their intention to keep borrowing costs high as long as needed to curb persistently elevated inflation.

    What You Need To Know

    • A stream of recent remarks by Fed officials underscore their intention to keep borrowing costs high as long as needed to curb persistently elevated inflation

    • A key reason for the delay in rate cuts is that the inflation pressures that are bedeviling the economy are being driven largely by lingering forces from the pandemic

    • Apartment rents, auto insurance and hospital prices remain high

    • Fed officials say they expect inflation in those areas to eventually cool, but they’ve signaled that they’re prepared to wait as long as it takes

    A key reason for the delay in rate cuts is that the inflation pressures that are bedeviling the economy are being driven largely by lingering forces from the pandemic — for items ranging from apartment rents to auto insurance to hospital prices. Though Fed officials say they expect inflation in those areas to eventually cool, they’ve signaled that they’re prepared to wait as long as it takes.

    Yet the policymakers’ willingness to keep their key rate at a two-decade peak — thereby keeping costs painfully high for mortgages, auto loans and other forms of consumer borrowing — carries its own risks.

    The Fed’s mandate is to strike a balance between keeping rates high enough to control inflation yet not so high as to damage the job market. While most measures show that growth and hiring remain healthy, some gauges of the economy have begun to reveal signs of weakness. The longer the Fed keeps its benchmark rate elevated, the greater the risk of causing a downturn.

    At the same time, with polls showing that costlier rents, groceries and gasoline are angering voters as the presidential campaign intensifies, Donald Trump has sought to pin the blame for higher prices squarely on President Joe Biden.

    The Fed, led by Chair Jerome Powell, raised its benchmark rate by 5 percentage points from March 2022 through June 2023 — the fastest such increase in four decades — to try to drive inflation back down to its 2% target. According to the Fed’s preferred measure, inflation has tumbled from 7.1% in June 2022 to 2.7% in March.

    That same gauge showed, though, that prices accelerated in the first three months of 2024, disrupting last year’s steady slowdown. On Friday, economists expect the government to report that this measure rose 2.7% in April from a year earlier.

    A separate inflation indicator that the government reported this month suggested that prices cooled slightly in April. But with inflation remaining stubbornly above the Fed’s target level, Wall Street traders now expect just one rate cut this year, in November. And even that is hardly a slam-dunk, with investors placing the likelihood of a cut in November at 63%, down from 77% a week ago.

    Last week, economists at Goldman Sachs became the latest analysts to give up on a rate cut in July, pushing back their forecast for the first of two cuts they expect this year to September. Oxford Economics made a similar call last month. Bank of America foresees just one Fed rate cut this year, in December. Just months ago, many economists had forecast the first rate cut for March of this year.

    “We will need to accumulate further data over the coming months to have a clearer picture of the inflation outlook,” Loretta Mester, president of Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said this month. “I now believe that it will take longer to reach our 2% goal than I previously thought.” (Mester is among 12 officials who are voting on the Fed’s rate policy this year.)

    As further data accumulates, so do some signs that the economy is cooling a bit. More Americans, particularly younger adults, are falling behind on their credit card bills, for example, with the share of card debt 90 days or more overdue reaching 10.7% in the first quarter, according to the Fed’s New York branch. That’s the highest proportion in 14 years.

    Hiring is also slowing, with businesses posting fewer open jobs, though job advertisements remain high.

    And more companies, including Target, McDonalds and Burger King, are highlighting price cuts or cheaper deals to try to attract financially squeezed consumers. Their actions could help lower inflation in the coming months. But they also underscore the struggles that lower-income Americans face.

    “There’s a lot of signs that consumers are kind of losing some steam and hiring demand is cooling,” said Julia Coronado, a former Fed economist who is president of MacroPolicy Perspectives. “You could see more of a slowdown.”

    But Coronado and other economists also regard the latest trends as a sign that the economy may simply be normalizing after a period of rapid growth. Companies are still hiring, though at a more modest pace than at the start of the year. And data suggests that Americans traveled in record numbers over the Memorial Day weekend, a sign they’re confident in their finances.

    One reason why inflation remains above the Fed’s target is that distortions stemming from the pandemic are still keeping prices elevated in several areas even as much of the rest of the economy has moved past the pandemic.

    Housing costs, led by apartment rents, jumped two years ago after many Americans sought additional living space during the pandemic. Rental costs are now slowing: They rose 5.4% in April on an annual basis, down from 8.8% a year earlier. But they’re still rising faster than before the pandemic.

    Last month, rent and homeownership, along with hotel prices, accounted for two-thirds of the annual rise in “core” inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs. Powell and other Fed officials have acknowledged that they had expected rents to fall more quickly than they have.

    The cost of a new lease, though, has tumbled since mid-2022. A gauge of newly leased apartment rents calculated by the government shows that they rose just 0.4% in the first three months of 2024 compared with a year earlier. Yet it takes time for newer, lower-priced rents to feed into the government’s inflation measure.

    “Market rents adjust more quickly to economic conditions than what landlords charge their existing tenants,” Philip Jefferson, the Fed’s vice chair and a top lieutenant to Powell, said last week. “This lag suggests that the large increase in market rents during the pandemic is still being passed through to existing rents and may keep housing services inflation elevated for a while longer.”

    The cost of auto insurance has soared nearly 23% from a year earlier, a huge jump that reflects the surge in prices of new and used cars during the pandemic. Insurance companies now must pay more to replace totaled cars and as a result are charging their customers more.

    “This is about stuff that happened in 2021,” said Claudia Sahm, chief economist at New Century Advisors and a former Fed economist. “You cannot go back and change that.”

    Associated Press

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  • Inflation pressures lingering from pandemic are keeping Fed rate cuts on pause

    Inflation pressures lingering from pandemic are keeping Fed rate cuts on pause

    Hopes for interest rate cuts this year by the Federal Reserve are steadily fading, with a stream of recent remarks by Fed officials underscoring their intention to keep borrowing costs high as long as needed to curb persistently elevated inflation.

    What You Need To Know

    • A stream of recent remarks by Fed officials underscore their intention to keep borrowing costs high as long as needed to curb persistently elevated inflation

    • A key reason for the delay in rate cuts is that the inflation pressures that are bedeviling the economy are being driven largely by lingering forces from the pandemic

    • Apartment rents, auto insurance and hospital prices remain high

    • Fed officials say they expect inflation in those areas to eventually cool, but they’ve signaled that they’re prepared to wait as long as it takes

    A key reason for the delay in rate cuts is that the inflation pressures that are bedeviling the economy are being driven largely by lingering forces from the pandemic — for items ranging from apartment rents to auto insurance to hospital prices. Though Fed officials say they expect inflation in those areas to eventually cool, they’ve signaled that they’re prepared to wait as long as it takes.

    Yet the policymakers’ willingness to keep their key rate at a two-decade peak — thereby keeping costs painfully high for mortgages, auto loans and other forms of consumer borrowing — carries its own risks.

    The Fed’s mandate is to strike a balance between keeping rates high enough to control inflation yet not so high as to damage the job market. While most measures show that growth and hiring remain healthy, some gauges of the economy have begun to reveal signs of weakness. The longer the Fed keeps its benchmark rate elevated, the greater the risk of causing a downturn.

    At the same time, with polls showing that costlier rents, groceries and gasoline are angering voters as the presidential campaign intensifies, Donald Trump has sought to pin the blame for higher prices squarely on President Joe Biden.

    The Fed, led by Chair Jerome Powell, raised its benchmark rate by 5 percentage points from March 2022 through June 2023 — the fastest such increase in four decades — to try to drive inflation back down to its 2% target. According to the Fed’s preferred measure, inflation has tumbled from 7.1% in June 2022 to 2.7% in March.

    That same gauge showed, though, that prices accelerated in the first three months of 2024, disrupting last year’s steady slowdown. On Friday, economists expect the government to report that this measure rose 2.7% in April from a year earlier.

    A separate inflation indicator that the government reported this month suggested that prices cooled slightly in April. But with inflation remaining stubbornly above the Fed’s target level, Wall Street traders now expect just one rate cut this year, in November. And even that is hardly a slam-dunk, with investors placing the likelihood of a cut in November at 63%, down from 77% a week ago.

    Last week, economists at Goldman Sachs became the latest analysts to give up on a rate cut in July, pushing back their forecast for the first of two cuts they expect this year to September. Oxford Economics made a similar call last month. Bank of America foresees just one Fed rate cut this year, in December. Just months ago, many economists had forecast the first rate cut for March of this year.

    “We will need to accumulate further data over the coming months to have a clearer picture of the inflation outlook,” Loretta Mester, president of Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said this month. “I now believe that it will take longer to reach our 2% goal than I previously thought.” (Mester is among 12 officials who are voting on the Fed’s rate policy this year.)

    As further data accumulates, so do some signs that the economy is cooling a bit. More Americans, particularly younger adults, are falling behind on their credit card bills, for example, with the share of card debt 90 days or more overdue reaching 10.7% in the first quarter, according to the Fed’s New York branch. That’s the highest proportion in 14 years.

    Hiring is also slowing, with businesses posting fewer open jobs, though job advertisements remain high.

    And more companies, including Target, McDonalds and Burger King, are highlighting price cuts or cheaper deals to try to attract financially squeezed consumers. Their actions could help lower inflation in the coming months. But they also underscore the struggles that lower-income Americans face.

    “There’s a lot of signs that consumers are kind of losing some steam and hiring demand is cooling,” said Julia Coronado, a former Fed economist who is president of MacroPolicy Perspectives. “You could see more of a slowdown.”

    But Coronado and other economists also regard the latest trends as a sign that the economy may simply be normalizing after a period of rapid growth. Companies are still hiring, though at a more modest pace than at the start of the year. And data suggests that Americans traveled in record numbers over the Memorial Day weekend, a sign they’re confident in their finances.

    One reason why inflation remains above the Fed’s target is that distortions stemming from the pandemic are still keeping prices elevated in several areas even as much of the rest of the economy has moved past the pandemic.

    Housing costs, led by apartment rents, jumped two years ago after many Americans sought additional living space during the pandemic. Rental costs are now slowing: They rose 5.4% in April on an annual basis, down from 8.8% a year earlier. But they’re still rising faster than before the pandemic.

    Last month, rent and homeownership, along with hotel prices, accounted for two-thirds of the annual rise in “core” inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs. Powell and other Fed officials have acknowledged that they had expected rents to fall more quickly than they have.

    The cost of a new lease, though, has tumbled since mid-2022. A gauge of newly leased apartment rents calculated by the government shows that they rose just 0.4% in the first three months of 2024 compared with a year earlier. Yet it takes time for newer, lower-priced rents to feed into the government’s inflation measure.

    “Market rents adjust more quickly to economic conditions than what landlords charge their existing tenants,” Philip Jefferson, the Fed’s vice chair and a top lieutenant to Powell, said last week. “This lag suggests that the large increase in market rents during the pandemic is still being passed through to existing rents and may keep housing services inflation elevated for a while longer.”

    The cost of auto insurance has soared nearly 23% from a year earlier, a huge jump that reflects the surge in prices of new and used cars during the pandemic. Insurance companies now must pay more to replace totaled cars and as a result are charging their customers more.

    “This is about stuff that happened in 2021,” said Claudia Sahm, chief economist at New Century Advisors and a former Fed economist. “You cannot go back and change that.”

    Associated Press

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  • Melinda French Gates to donate $1 billion over next 2 years in support of women

    Melinda French Gates to donate $1 billion over next 2 years in support of women

    Melinda French Gates says she will be donating $1 billion over the next two years to individuals and organizations working on behalf of women and families globally, including on reproductive rights in the United States.

    French Gates earlier this month announced she would step down from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and vowed to focus on women and families. As a part of leaving the Gates Foundation, French Gates received $12 billion from Bill Gates for her philanthropy going forward.

    What You Need To Know

    • Melinda French Gates will donate $1 billion over the next two years to individuals and organizations working on behalf of women and families globally

    • Earlier this month, she said she planned to step down from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

    • French Gates received $12 billion from Bill Gates for her philanthropy after leaving the Gates Foundation

    • She has already started directing new grants through her organization Pivotal Ventures

    French Gates, one of the biggest philanthropic supporters of gender equity in the U.S., said Tuesday in a guest essay for The New York Times that she’s been frustrated over the years by people who say it’s not the right time to talk about gender equality.

    “Decades of research on economics, well-being and governance make it clear that investing in women and girls benefits everyone,” she wrote.

    French Gates said over the last few weeks she’s started directing new grants through her organization, Pivotal Ventures, to groups working in the U.S. to protect women’s rights and advance their power and influence. The grants are for general operating support, meaning they are not earmarked for specific projects. The groups include the National Women’s Law Center, the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

    Teresa Younger, the president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, who also received a grant, has long called on donors to give unrestricted, multi-year funding to organizations. She praised French Gates’ new commitment as a part of a larger trend of major women donors giving generously to nonprofits.

    “If philanthropy took lessons from the way that women are moving money, we would see more money in the field having greater impact,” Younger said.

    Her organization learned of the grant, which is the first they’ve received from Pivotal Ventures last week, and Younger said there was no application process. She declined to disclose the amount of the grant but said it would help expand their work with organizations in the South and Midwest.

    In addition, she also pledged to give 12 individuals $20 million each to distribute to nonprofit organizations of their choice before the end of 2026. Those funds will be managed by the National Philanthropic Trust, one of the largest public charities that offers donor-advised funds, a spokesperson for Pivotal Ventures said.

    In total, French Gates announced $690 million in commitments out of the promised $1 billion, which also include an “open call” for applications that the organization Lever for Change will administer this fall. French Gates said $250 million will be awarded through that process to fund organizations working to improve women’s mental and physical health globally.

    French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures is a limited liability company that also manages investments for profit ventures, so there is little public information about its grantmaking or the assets it manages. Pivotal Ventures has focused on a number of avenues to increase women’s economic and political participation and power, like closing the wage gap, compensating care work often done by women, and encouraging women to run for political office.

    In her essay Tuesday, French Gates touched upon the high maternal mortality rates in the U.S., noting that Black and Native American mothers are at the highest risk.

    “Women in 14 states have lost the right to terminate a pregnancy under almost any circumstances. We remain the only advanced economy without any form of national paid family leave. And the number of teenage girls experiencing suicidal thoughts and persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness is at a decade high,” she said.

    French Gates will be leaving the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation next week. She helped co-found the organization nearly 25 years ago.

    The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and for news coverage of women in the workforce and state governments from Pivotal Ventures.

    The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will change its name to the Gates Foundation. It is one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world. As of December 2023, its endowment was $75.2 billion, thanks to donations from Gates and the billionaire investor Warren Buffett. While it works across many issues, global health remains its largest area of work, and most of its funding is meant to address issues internationally rather than in the U.S.

    Associated Press

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  • Bill Walton loved his bike and his hometown of San Diego

    Bill Walton loved his bike and his hometown of San Diego

    SAN DIEGO — Bill Walton might have been the ultimate San Diegan.

    What You Need To Know

    • Walton died of cancer at 71 on Monday, the NBA announced

    • Social media was filled with posts Monday from people who remembered seeing Walton at games, concerts or in airports, and getting a smile and an autograph, and sometimes long conversations

    • There’s a life-size bronze sculpture of Walton and his bike at Ski Beach Park in Mission Bay

    • At 6-foot-11, he was believed to be the world’s tallest Deadhead

    While he went away to play basketball at UCLA and the bulk of his NBA career, he never missed a chance to celebrate his hometown.

    Long after his playing days ended, the Hall of Famer was an unofficial goodwill ambassador for San Diego, with his disposition matching the perennial sunny weather.

    While most people around the country knew Walton for his off-the-wall broadcasting style, many San Diegans knew him as the really tall guy who often rode his bike around town and once provided some unintentional comedic relief at a Padres game.

    “I love my bike, I love San Diego and I love solar power,” Walton was fond of saying at the many appearances he made for various causes.

    Walton died of cancer at 71 on Monday, the NBA announced. The Big Redhead, as he was called then, won two NCAA championships under John Wooden at UCLA before an NBA career that included winning league MVP in the 1977-78 season and championships with Portland and Boston. He played parts of four seasons with the Clippers in San Diego and Los Angeles.

    Social media was filled with posts Monday from people who remembered seeing Walton at games, concerts or in airports, and getting a smile and an autograph, and sometimes long conversations.

    The foot and back injuries that marred his NBA career didn’t slow him down later in life even as he began to show a touch of gray. He loved riding his bike and brought a custom high-backed chair with him to some concerts and basketball games.

    In 2016, he was so stoked to hear that the Amgen Tour of California would start in San Diego that he rode his custom bike — with a Grateful Dead paint job — from his home near Balboa Park to the news conference on the waterfront.

    He described himself as a “joyrider,” and one year rode the entire tour, completing as much of each leg as possible before dark.

    There’s a life-size bronze sculpture of Walton and his bike at Ski Beach Park in Mission Bay.

    At 6-foot-11, he was believed to be the world’s tallest Deadhead. He once stated that he had seen his beloved Grateful Dead 849 times. The house where he lived for more than four decades near Balboa Park was practically a tie-dyed shrine to the Dead and had a teepee in the backyard.

    Some Padres fans will probably never forget Grateful Dead Night on Aug. 8, 2019. Walton played bongos with local tribute band Electric Waste Band on a stage beyond center field at Petco Park and then threw out a ceremonial first pitch that was wide left by several feet. He asked for a second chance and made a nice throw to reliever Trey Wingenter.

    Wearing a Padres-themed Grateful Dead shirt, Walton then joined managers Bud Black of the Colorado Rockies and Andy Green of the Padres for the lineup card exchange at home plate. His fist-bumped the umpires and chatted them up to the point that the game was delayed for four minutes.

    Walton grew up in suburban La Mesa and was a phenom at Helix High. All four of Walton’s sons played college basketball, including Chris at San Diego State for Steve Fisher. Luke Walton played at Arizona and both played and was a head coach in the NBA.

    Walton’s older brother, Bruce, who died in 2019, had a brief career with the Dallas Cowboys.

    Associated Press

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  • Bill Walton loved his bike and his hometown of San Diego

    Bill Walton loved his bike and his hometown of San Diego

    SAN DIEGO — Bill Walton might have been the ultimate San Diegan.

    What You Need To Know

    • Walton died of cancer at 71 on Monday, the NBA announced

    • Social media was filled with posts Monday from people who remembered seeing Walton at games, concerts or in airports, and getting a smile and an autograph, and sometimes long conversations

    • There’s a life-size bronze sculpture of Walton and his bike at Ski Beach Park in Mission Bay

    • At 6-foot-11, he was believed to be the world’s tallest Deadhead

    While he went away to play basketball at UCLA and the bulk of his NBA career, he never missed a chance to celebrate his hometown.

    Long after his playing days ended, the Hall of Famer was an unofficial goodwill ambassador for San Diego, with his disposition matching the perennial sunny weather.

    While most people around the country knew Walton for his off-the-wall broadcasting style, many San Diegans knew him as the really tall guy who often rode his bike around town and once provided some unintentional comedic relief at a Padres game.

    “I love my bike, I love San Diego and I love solar power,” Walton was fond of saying at the many appearances he made for various causes.

    Walton died of cancer at 71 on Monday, the NBA announced. The Big Redhead, as he was called then, won two NCAA championships under John Wooden at UCLA before an NBA career that included winning league MVP in the 1977-78 season and championships with Portland and Boston. He played parts of four seasons with the Clippers in San Diego and Los Angeles.

    Social media was filled with posts Monday from people who remembered seeing Walton at games, concerts or in airports, and getting a smile and an autograph, and sometimes long conversations.

    The foot and back injuries that marred his NBA career didn’t slow him down later in life even as he began to show a touch of gray. He loved riding his bike and brought a custom high-backed chair with him to some concerts and basketball games.

    In 2016, he was so stoked to hear that the Amgen Tour of California would start in San Diego that he rode his custom bike — with a Grateful Dead paint job — from his home near Balboa Park to the news conference on the waterfront.

    He described himself as a “joyrider,” and one year rode the entire tour, completing as much of each leg as possible before dark.

    There’s a life-size bronze sculpture of Walton and his bike at Ski Beach Park in Mission Bay.

    At 6-foot-11, he was believed to be the world’s tallest Deadhead. He once stated that he had seen his beloved Grateful Dead 849 times. The house where he lived for more than four decades near Balboa Park was practically a tie-dyed shrine to the Dead and had a teepee in the backyard.

    Some Padres fans will probably never forget Grateful Dead Night on Aug. 8, 2019. Walton played bongos with local tribute band Electric Waste Band on a stage beyond center field at Petco Park and then threw out a ceremonial first pitch that was wide left by several feet. He asked for a second chance and made a nice throw to reliever Trey Wingenter.

    Wearing a Padres-themed Grateful Dead shirt, Walton then joined managers Bud Black of the Colorado Rockies and Andy Green of the Padres for the lineup card exchange at home plate. His fist-bumped the umpires and chatted them up to the point that the game was delayed for four minutes.

    Walton grew up in suburban La Mesa and was a phenom at Helix High. All four of Walton’s sons played college basketball, including Chris at San Diego State for Steve Fisher. Luke Walton played at Arizona and both played and was a head coach in the NBA.

    Walton’s older brother, Bruce, who died in 2019, had a brief career with the Dallas Cowboys.

    Associated Press

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  • Netanyahu acknowledges ‘tragic mistake’ after Rafah strike kills dozens

    Netanyahu acknowledges ‘tragic mistake’ after Rafah strike kills dozens

    TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Monday that a “tragic mistake” had been made after an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah set fire to a tent camp housing displaced Palestinians and killed at least 45 people, according to local officials.

    What You Need To Know

    • Israel has faced surging international criticism over its war with Hamas, with even some of its closest allies, particularly the United States, expressing outrage at civilian deaths

    • Sunday night’s attack, which appeared to be one of the war’s deadliest, helped push the overall Palestinian death toll in the war above 36,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry

    • At least 45 people were killed. The ministry said the dead included at least 12 women, eight children and three older adults, with another three bodies burned beyond recognition

    • The Israeli military’s top legal official said authorities were examining the strikes and that the military regrets the loss of civilian life

    Israel has faced surging international criticism over its war with Hamas, with even some of its closest allies, particularly the United States, expressing outrage at civilian deaths. Israel insists it adheres to international law even as it faces scrutiny in the world’s top courts, one of which last week demanded that it halt the offensive in Rafah.

    Israel’s military had earlier said that it launched an investigation into civilian deaths after it struck a Hamas installation and killed two senior militants. Sunday night’s attack, which appeared to be one of the war’s deadliest, helped push the overall Palestinian death toll in the war above 36,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and noncombatants in its tally.

    “Despite our utmost efforts not to harm innocent civilians, last night, there was a tragic mistake,” Netanyahu said Monday in an address to Israel’s parliament. “We are investigating the incident and will obtain a conclusion because this is our policy.”

    Mohammed Abuassa, who rushed to the scene in the northwestern neighborhood of Tel al-Sultan, said rescuers “pulled out people who were in an unbearable state.”

    “We pulled out children who were in pieces. We pulled out young and elderly people. The fire in the camp was unreal,” he said.

    At least 45 people were killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service. The ministry said the dead included at least 12 women, eight children and three older adults, with another three bodies burned beyond recognition.

    In a separate development, Egypt’s military said one of its soldiers was shot dead during an exchange of fire in the Rafah area, without providing further details. Israel said it was in contact with Egyptian authorities, and both sides said they were investigating.

    Rafah, the southernmost Gaza city on the border with Egypt, had housed more than a million people — about half of Gaza’s population — displaced from other parts of the territory. Most have fled once again since Israel launched what it called a limited incursion there earlier this month. Hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid tent camps in and around the city.

    Netanyahu says Israel must destroy what he calls Hamas’ last remaining battalions in Rafah. The militant group launched a barrage of rockets Sunday from the city toward heavily populated central Israel, setting off air raid sirens but causing no injuries.

    The strike on Rafah brought a new wave of condemnation, even from some of Israel’s close allies.

    “These operations must stop. There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians. I call for full respect for international law and an immediate ceasefire,” French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X. Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, in a TV interview, said such bombings are “spreading hatred, rooting hatred that will involve their children and grandchildren.”

    Qatar, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas in attempts to secure a cease-fire and the release of hostages held by Hamas, said the Rafah strike could “complicate” talks, Negotiations, which appear to be restarting, have faltered repeatedly over Hamas’ demand for a lasting truce and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, terms Israeli leaders have publicly rejected.

    Neighboring Egypt and Jordan, which made peace with Israel decades ago, also condemned the Rafah strike. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry called it a “new and blatant violation of the rules of humanitarian international law.” Jordan’s Foreign Ministry called it a “war crime.”

    The Israeli military’s top legal official said authorities were examining the strikes and that the military regrets the loss of civilian life. Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi said such incidents occur “in a war of such scope and intensity.”

    Speaking to an Israeli lawyers’ conference, Tomer-Yerushalmi said Israel has launched 70 criminal investigations into incidents that aroused suspicions of international law violations, including the deaths of civilians, the conditions at a detention facility holding suspected Palestinian militants and the deaths of some inmates in Israeli custody. She said incidents of “violence, property crimes and looting” were also being examined.

    Israel has long maintained it has an independent judiciary capable of investigating and prosecuting abuses. But rights groups say Israeli authorities routinely fail to fully investigate violence against Palestinians and that even when soldiers are held accountable, the punishment is usually light.

    Israel has denied allegations of genocide brought against it by South Africa at the International Court of Justice. Last week, the court ordered Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah, a ruling that it has no power to enforce.

    Separately, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders, over alleged crimes linked to the war.

    Israel says it does its best to adhere to the laws of war and says it faces an enemy that makes no such commitment, embeds itself in civilian areas and refuses to release Israeli hostages unconditionally.

    Hamas triggered the war with its Oct. 7 attack into Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seized some 250 hostages. Hamas still holds about 100 hostages and the remains of around 30 others after most of the rest were released during a cease-fire last year.

    Around 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, severe hunger is widespread and U.N. officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.

    Associated Press

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  • ‘Furiosa’ sneaks past ‘Garfield’ to claim No. 1 spot over Memorial Day weekend

    ‘Furiosa’ sneaks past ‘Garfield’ to claim No. 1 spot over Memorial Day weekend

    Movie theaters are looking more and more like a wasteland this summer.

    Associated Press

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