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(NEW YORK) — The trial of Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran charged in the May 2023 choking death of a homeless man in a New York City subway car, is set to begin Monday with jury selection.
The trial is expected to last between four and six weeks, according to Judge Max Wiley.
Penny, 25, has pleaded not guilty to the charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in connection with Jordan Neely’s death.
Wiley denied Penny’s bid to dismiss his involuntary manslaughter case in January.
Penny put Neely, 30, in a fatal chokehold “that lasted approximately 6 minutes and continued well past the point at which Mr. Neely had stopped purposeful movement,” prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have said.
Penny’s attorneys have said that they were “saddened at the loss of human life” but that Penny saw “a genuine threat and took action to protect the lives of others,” arguing that Neely was “insanely threatening” to passengers aboard the F train in Manhattan.
Witness accounts differ on Neely’s behavior in the train, prosecutors say.
They note that many witnesses relayed that Neely expressed that he was homeless, hungry and thirsty, and most of the witnesses recount that Neely indicated a willingness to go to jail or prison.
Some witnesses report that Neely threatened to hurt people on the train, while others did not report hearing those threats.
Some witnesses told police that Neely was yelling and harassing passengers on the train; however, others have said though Neely had exhibited erratic behavior, he had not been threatening anyone in particular and had not become violent.
Some passengers on the train that day said they didn’t feel threatened — one “wasn’t really worried about what was going on” and another called it “like another day typically in New York. That’s what I’m used to seeing. I wasn’t really looking at it if I was going to be threatened or anything to that nature, but it was a little different because, you know, you don’t really hear anybody saying anything like that,” according to court filings by the prosecution.
Other passengers described their fear in court filings. One passenger said they “have encountered many things, but nothing that put fear into me like that.” Another said Neely was making “half-lunge movements” and coming within a “half a foot of people.”
Neely, who was homeless at the time of his death, had a documented mental health history and a history of arrests, including alleged instances of disorderly conduct, fare evasion and assault, according to police sources.
Less than 30 seconds after Penny allegedly put Neely into a chokehold, the train arrived at the Broadway-Lafayette Station: “Passengers who had felt fearful on account of being trapped on the train were now free to exit the train. The defendant continued holding Mr. Neely around the neck,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass in a court filing against Penny’s dismissal request. Wiley denied all motions to suppress evidence on Oct. 4.
Footage of the interaction, which began about 2 minutes after the incident started, captures Penny holding Neely for about 4 minutes and 57 seconds on a relatively empty train with a couple of male passengers nearby.
Prosecutors said that about 3 minutes and 10 seconds into the video, Neely ceases all purposeful movement.
“After that moment, Mr. Neely’s movements are best described as ‘twitching and the kind of agonal movement that you see around death,'” the prosecutor said.
The defense argued Penny had no intent to kill, but Steinglass noted that the second-degree manslaughter charge only requires prosecutors to prove Penny acted recklessly, not intentionally.
“We are confident that a jury, aware of Danny’s actions in putting aside his own safety to protect the lives of his fellow riders, will deliver a just verdict,” said Penny’s lawyers, Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff, after Penny’s request to dismiss the charge was denied.
“Danny is grateful for the continued prayers and support through this difficult process.”
Penny has raised more than $3 million for his legal defense fund ahead of the trial.
(NEW YORK) — General Motors is “very serious about making Cadillac a premium brand again,” Michael Simcoe — the company’s senior vice president of global design — told ABC News in an interview about the “engineering and design tour de force” that is the new Celestiq.
The interview below has been edited for clarity.
Q: A huge trend in the industry now is customization, coachbuilding, bespoke vehicles. Why is Cadillac going in that direction and what has the response been like? And are you trying to appeal to customers who have Bentleys and Rolls-Royces?
A: With the Celestiq, we’re offering customers the ability to truly customize everything. The tyranny of choices is there and we try to help them. Customers have the ability to touch every color and finish on the exterior and interior of the car to give it their own personality. Yes, there are a few competitors, but people at this level are looking for something very unique and very specific to them.
Q: How long does it take to build a Celestiq?
A: We can build two a day. We are building cars right now and a number of people have gone through the design process and selected their interior, their exterior with our designers. So their cars are now in line to be built.
Q: How many orders have you received?
A: I can’t tell you that.
Q: Are customers coming to the Cadillac House in Michigan or are your designers flying all over the world to meet with clients?
A: They have a choice. We can do it online with them, they can come to Cadillac House and go through the samples with us. Or we’ll send designers to customers if we need to.
Q: When did Cadillac make the decision to go ultra luxe and offer a product that starts at $350,000?
A: Cadillac has tried a number of times to reestablish its position. It was and is becoming again the standard of the world. That’s the way we have always thought about it. Certainly for our customers we haven’t delivered that, at least delivered what they expected. We have tried a number of times to through vision products and concept flagships to spark a rebirth of Cadillac.
The only way to prove internally and externally that we were very serious about making Cadillac a premium brand again was to do a vehicle like the Celestiq. It’s an engineering and design tour de force and it’s hand built. It’s proof we can actually can take Cadillac back to the position it had in the past.
The Celestiq is new and represents the current generation. We really are predicting and showing people where we are going and I think that’s very important. Cadillac will no longer be something static that people get a chance to ignore and forget. We will be out there with beautiful designs and vehicles that people fall in love with.
Q: Celestiq, Lyriq, Optiq, Escalade IQ — why do all Cadillac EVs end in IQ?
A: We could have gone with our venerable names from the past, but that didn’t seem right when we were moving the brand to an all EV-based architecture. It was a signal that these vehicles were our new generation of Cadillacs.
Q: When you were overseeing the design of these new EVs, particularly the Celestiq, what was important to include?
A: We wanted a vehicle that was different to some of the high-end competition. We feel like we did our own thing in proportion to the vehicle. It still has a long hood. It has a hint of Cadillac heritage in the way the interior was designed. These long, horizontal architecture lines with metallic finishes and detail inside the car — that hints back to Cadillacs in the early 60s and 70s.
Q: Are customers actually going to drive the Celestiq or is it a vehicle to be chauffeured in?
A: This won’t be their daily driver but it could be. It has 300-ish miles of range, lots of power, lots of performance. It’s a very easy car to drive and control. It has four-wheel steering, so it drives like a small car. It has ride control and air suspension and all of the technical marvels like a large screen.
It is a spirited drive and it feels good. Jay Leno drove it and I think he enjoyed himself. But you can sit back here, in the second row, and it’s a premium experience as well. We’re not dictating where you should be.
Q: I want to ask about the CT5-V Blackwing and CT4-V Blackwing, two high-performance sedans that have received top praise from the enthusiast community. Are they going away now that the brand’s direction is electric? What’s the future for them?
A: I can’t tell you in detail but they’ll be around. We recognize the value of the cars so they”ll be around.
(ROSWELL, NM) — Roswell, New Mexico, experienced an overnight “Flash Flood Emergency” on Saturday, the National Weather Service reported — the highest tier of flash flood warning.
Between 4 and 9 inches of rain fell in parts of the state, prompting the NWS to declare a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” alert — a warning issued when a Flash Flood Emergency occurs in an area of significant population.
The NWS issued a flood warning for east central, northeast, and southeast New Mexico through to the early hours of Monday. A flash flood watch remains in effect for eastern New Mexico through Sunday night.
Additional rain is expected through Sunday, falling on ground already saturated by Saturday’s downpours and thus raising the risk of further flash flooding.
Roswell was inundated with an all-time record daily rainfall of 5.78 inches — higher than the previous record of 5.65 inches set on Nov. 1, 1901.
Emergency services reported that numerous rescues were ongoing throughout the Roswell area, with water entering homes and cutting off numerous roads.
The Chaves County Sheriff’s Office shared an emergency alert on its Facebook page warning of “an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation.”
The Sheriff’s Office later shared videos of people being brought to safety through floodwaters and of roads being cut off by rising water.
The Spring River in the Cahoon area rose rapidly, stranding several vehicles under bridges along the river.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — With just 16 days until Election Day, the Democratic governors of the three “Blue Wall” battleground states touted the strength of Vice President Kamala Harris’ ground game, and predicted she would prevail in their states but acknowledged how close the presidential race is.
“I think Kamala Harris wins, but make no mistake, it’s close,” Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “We’re not afraid of that… It causes us to get out and work, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Shapiro, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers sat down with Raddatz in the Pittsburgh area for an exclusive interview that aired Sunday. The interview came during the governors’ bus tour through the critical battlegrounds that some pundits say represent Harris’ best path to the presidency.
The three so-called “Blue Wall” swing states are key to a Democratic victory. All three voted for Donald Trump in 2016 — the first time since 1992 that they backed the Republican candidate. Four years later, President Joe Biden won them back.
If Harris wins Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — plus the single electoral vote in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District — she would hit the 270-electoral vote threshold needed to win the White House, even if she lost the other four battleground states.
The race is statistically tied in all three “Blue Wall” states, according to 538 polling averages.
“Listen, the only people that are not surprised about these polls are us three. We all expect this. We are not upset about it, we’re not scared. We’re determined to make sure we do everything in our power to win this thing,” Whitmer said.
Evers said he believes the race is still “undecided” at this point because many voters simply aren’t paying much attention yet.
“I talk to people just about every day that are, are torn about what to… how they’re going to vote. And so I think there are people that can be convinced, absolutely,” Evers said. “There are people that, frankly, don’t follow this on a daily basis.”
With 19 electoral votes up for grabs — the most of the battleground states — Pennsylvania is the prize both campaigns want to win. The margins have been exceedingly close in recent presidential elections, with Trump taking the state by 0.7 of a percentage point in 2016 and Biden winning by 1.2 points in 2020.
No Democrat has won the presidency without Pennsylvania since 1948. Both campaigns have invested heavily in the Keystone State, pouring in more than $500 million collectively in TV ad spending and reservations through the end of the year, the New York Times reported.
“I think it’s a must-win, and we want to win here,” Shapiro said. “I think both candidates believe that Pennsylvania is critical. I just think we’ve got a better candidate. We got a better message.”
But Trump’s message resonates with about half of the voters in their states, polls show. Asked to explain Trump’s appeal, Shapiro acknowledged that people are frustrated with government.
“I think what people are craving are leaders who know how to get stuff done for them,” Shapiro said. “Donald Trump talks a good game about that. Now he has a history of failing to deliver over and over and over again. And I think part of our responsibility here is to make sure we’re letting folks know that … when he had the keys to the White House before, he failed the American people time and time again.”
“He’s a charlatan,” Whitmer added. “He’s convinced people that he is strong when he’s actually very weak.”
In all three states, Democrats need to see high turnout among the voting blocs that traditionally back their candidates, like Black voters concentrated in the metropolitan areas.
In Wisconsin, the decline in Black voter turnout since 2012 has been steep, dropping from 78% in 2012 to 43% in 2020, according to Census data.
But Evers said his state is in “a much better place this time” and pointed to an improved ground game to reach voters.
“I feel confident that it’s going to be much larger than the last time. And it’s important to make sure that all people in Wisconsin feel that this election means something to them, and so we’ve upped the ground game in all our areas around the state, whether it’s rural, whether it’s in the Milwaukee area,” he said.
In neighboring Michigan, Democrats remain concerned that Arab and Muslim American voters will not turn out for Harris due to frustrations with the Biden administration’s support for Israel as the war and suffering in Gaza continue a year after Hamas’ brutal attack against the U.S. ally.
Michigan is home to nearly 400,000 Arab Americans, according to the Arab American Institute. The Uncommitted Movement decided not to endorse a candidate in the presidential race, and the Abandon Harris campaign put its support behind Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s bid.
Pressed on how to convince these voters to support Harris, Whitmer said that dialogue is important. She also argued that Harris is the only candidate committed to finding solutions.
“At the end of the day, do you want a leader who’s going to throw gas on the fire to keep you angry so that you tune out?” asked Whitmer. “Or do you want one who’s going to try to get in there and solve problems?… That’s what Kamala Harris offers.”
Given what happened after Trump lost the 2020 election, whether he concedes defeat if he loses to Harris remains an open question. Trump has already started to cast doubt on the integrity of the election, baselessly claiming last week in a podcast interview, “If the election is not rigged, we’re going to win. If it is rigged, I guess that’s a different story.”
All three governors voiced confidence in the citizens of their states to lawfully administer election law and count the votes, while raising concerns about Trump.
“He’s already laying the groundwork to undermine the outcome of this election,” Whitmer said. “They are trying to pull the wool over the American public’s eyes once again, and we’re anticipating that they’ll continue to try to do that when they lose this election, assuming they lose this election. But I’m going to make sure every vote gets counted.”
“I’ve got great confidence in the good people in Pennsylvania to count the votes accurately and to respect the will of the people. I do not have confidence that Donald Trump won’t whine about it, won’t put out dangerous rhetoric and mis- and disinformation,” Shapiro added. “We’re prepared for anything Donald Trump throws at us, and we’re going to make sure the will of the people is protected.”
(WASHINGTON) — Politicos in Washoe County, Nevada, proudly refer to their home as “the swingiest county in the swingiest state,” where voters in the sprawling and sparsely populated swath of desert might very well tilt the scales of a deadlocked presidential election in November.
But Washoe has also carved out a reputation as the epicenter of a troubling nationwide trend: County officials refusing, for one reason or another, to certify election results.
Despite a legal requirement to accept the vote tally and pass the results along to state election officials, county supervisors in at least eight states have bucked this ministerial duty in recent election cycles, according to one watchdog group, prompting concern among democracy experts that it could upend voters’ faith in the election process.
“What was a sort of wild and desperate idea in 2020 has caught on with certifying officials in the last couple of elections,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, a voting rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit think tank. “It won’t be a successful tactic to overturn the outcome of our election, or to stop certification. But it will cause chaos and distrust in the meantime.”
In Washoe County, two members of the county board of commissioners have emerged as symbols of the broader dispute over vote certification: Alexis Hill, the Democratic chair of the board, and Michael Clark, a Republican commissioner. During board meetings, the two sit less than ten feet from each other on the dais. But when it comes to just about everything else — including the role of the commission in certifying election results — they are miles apart.
Hill, 41, lives just blocks from downtown Reno, the county’s most populous city, with her husband and 3-year-old daughter. Most days, she commutes to the county offices on her e-bike. Clark, 73, decamps each day to his ranch near Washoe Lake, where he tends to his horses, mules and dogs. On weekends, he rides his Harley.
‘A dark afternoon’
In the commissioners’ chambers, Hill and Clark regularly tangle over budgets and policy. But no issue fires them up more than election integrity. And in July, Clark and two Republican colleagues made national headlines when they refused to certify the outcome of two local races — prompting fears of what might come to pass in November.
“It was a dark afternoon,” Hill told ABC News’ Senior National Correspondent Terry Moran. “Decisions like that, they break institutions … they make people believe that we don’t have a fair and free election.”
Clark relented a week later under “extreme duress,” he explained at a commission meeting in July. The state’s attorney general had threatened him with felony prosecution for failing to execute a duty of his office.
In an interview with ABC News’ Terry Moran, Clark said he is not an election denier, but believes county election officials have failed to properly maintain the voter rolls. Clark pointed to thousands of mail-in ballots that were sent out to registered voters but returned to the county as undeliverable, which he characterized as evidence of poor recordkeeping by the registrar of voters.
“I believe that the people that are running the registrar of voters office can’t keep accurate records,” Clark said in the interview. “When I see sloppy bookkeeping, I don’t trust it.”
Washoe County Manager Eric Brown has acknowledged that the returned ballots might represent voters who had moved, thereby complicating their ability to vote — but he said at a recent meeting that the county had upgraded its voter registration system, which he said “has enhanced tracking and certification capabilities.”
“Moving forward, keeping track of voter records is going to be — we’ll be able to do that much more accurately,” Brown said.
Clark also said his vote to not certify results in July — which was the third time in his two-year tenure on the commission that he did so — was precipitated by what election experts have called erroneous legal advice from a county attorney who told commissioners to vote their conscience.
Clark’s vote “shocked” the state’s elections chief, Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar.
“It is a ministerial duty to certify the election,” Aguilar, a Democratic, told ABC News’ Terry Moran. “If there are concerns and questions about the election — about the election process, about the election administration — [the commission has] the power to schedule an agenda item to have a conversation about how elections work.”
‘That’s just not their job’
All fifty states make election-certification by county officials a mandatory duty of their job to prevent local partisan politicians from meddling in election results. Election disputes, which frequently arise, are typically resolved through audits, recounts, and the courts.
“It may seem odd to people that [the county officials] who are certifying the election aren’t necessarily the ones that investigate all the things that happened in the election,” Morales-Doyle said. “But that’s just not their job.”
But in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, when former President Donald Trump sought to challenge the outcome of the vote, some county officials have refused to certify results.
It began in Wayne County, Michigan, where Trump reportedly pressured two county officials to not certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to the Detroit News. In the intervening election seasons, more than two dozen officials in eight states, including key swing states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, have followed suit, according to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
In Arizona, two Republican supervisors in Cochise County were charged with felonies for delaying certification of the 2022 midterm election until a court ordered them to do so. Both have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to go to trial next year. Both also remain in their seats on the county board.
And in Georgia, a state judge this week issued a directive that county officials cannot block the certification of votes due to allegations of fraud or error, ruling that officials “have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results.”
‘How you undermine democracy’
Back in Nevada, election officials say they are preparing for any possible challenge to the upcoming election results.
“So is this a contagion?” Moran asked Aguilar. “Do you see this happening in other counties this time around?”
“It may, but I think we are prepared, and we have been preparing for the last 18 months to address any issue that comes up. This was one of them,” Aguilar said. “I’ve been working extremely hard with the attorney general to anticipate some of these situations.”
“We have pre-drafted legal filings — kind of like a Mad Libs, right?” Aguilar said. “You know the county, you fill in the county name, you fill in the date, you fill in the facts. And you file that thing as soon as you can before the Nevada Supreme Court.”
Experts say the failure of county officials to certify results is unlikely to succeed in delaying or altering the outcome of the presidential election. But that does not mean it should not alarm American voters.
“Every time this has been tried before, courts have put a quick end to it. And they will again this year,” Morales-Doyle said. “But what it might do is undermine the public’s faith in our process. And that’s really damaging in and of itself.”
“That’s really harmful,” he said. “Democracy works because people have faith in the outcome of their elections. If you undermine that enough, that’s how you undermine democracy.”
In Washoe County, Hill said she would “absolutely” certify the results, regardless of the outcome in the presidential race or in her own reelection race for commissioner.
“I feel like we are ready to go for this general election. And I have no concerns,” she said. “I do believe that there are really good people who are trying to hold the house together.”
Clark, for his part, offered a more reserved commitment.
“Are you going to certify an election in November?” Moran asked him.
“Well, I guess I’m going to have to,” Clark said. “I don’t want to have an argument with the attorney general. The attorney general and the state of Nevada have much deeper pockets than I have.”
ABC News’ Hannah Prince contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Documents purported to show classified U.S. intelligence gathering on Israel’s preparations for a potential retaliatory strike on Iran appeared on social media platforms this week. It is unclear what impact the potential leak may have on any Israeli military planning for a possible strike on Iran, or Israeli-American relations.
U.S. officials declined to provide comment when contacted by ABC News about the possible leak of highly-sensitive material.
ABC News could not independently verify the authenticity of the documents, which appear to show specific details about the types and number of munitions that Israel may be readying for a potentially large-scale strike on Iran in retaliation for the regime’s late September barrage of almost 200 ballistic missiles aimed at Israel.
The documents posted on social media have markings that would indicate that they originated from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the U.S. agency that collects, analyzes and distributes intelligence gleaned from satellite and aerial imagery. ABC News is not quoting directly from or showing the documents.
Analysis of overhead satellite imagery is just one of multiple intelligence collection tools that the U.S. intelligence community uses to make strategic assessments or risk evaluations.
“We are looking into these reports,” a senior U.S. defense official told ABC News when asked about the purported intelligence documents.
The Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation and a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence all declined to provide any comment when contacted by ABC News.
If the posts prove authentic, it would signify a major intelligence breach, one reminiscent of the massive leak discovered last year after hundreds of classified documents were shared on the Discord social media platform.
Earlier this year U.S. Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira pleaded guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information relating to the Discord leaks.
Axios first reported on the leaked documents.
“If it is true that Israel tactical plans to respond to Iran’s attack on October 1st have been leaked, it is a serious breach,” said Mick Mulroy, an ABC News national security and defense contributor, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East.
“Everyone that has access to this information has an obligation to keep it secure,” said Mulroy. “The men and women of the IDF that would carry out this mission could be compromised because of this, the future coordination between the U.S. and Israel could be challenged as well.”
“Trust is a key component in the relationship and depending on how this was leaked that trust could be eroded,” he added.
Libby Bush/Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community
(ASHEVILLE, NC) — More than three weeks ago, Hurricane Helene knocked out the power and running water at James Greene’s nursing home in Asheville, North Carolina.
Today, Greene, 84, and his fellow residents at Brooks-Howell Home still do not have regular access to safe, running water for their daily activities.
“For two weeks we’ve been unable to shower or wash hands,” Greene wrote in a letter to family and friends, which was shared with ABC News. “Maintaining hygiene with hand sanitizers is a constant must.”
“Another example is having to pour a bucket of water into the tank of the toilet in order to flush. And keep in mind that our residents are old and not used to such physical activity,” wrote Greene.
Greene’s nursing home is not the only one in North Carolina affected by the ongoing water crisis in Asheville. While bottled water is adequate for cooking and drinking, the lack of municipal running water places severe restrictions on activities like handwashing, showering and laundry.
In nursing homes particularly, infections can travel quickly, making access to clean running water an even more urgent necessity.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), floodwater from hurricanes can contaminate local water sources with “germs, dangerous chemicals, human and livestock waste” and other contaminants that can cause disease.
On Oct. 16, the City of Asheville Water Resource Department issued a Boil Water Notice for all water customers that is still in effect, meaning “there is contamination due to impacts from Hurricane Helene including the potential for untreated water in the distribution system,” according to the notice.
The elderly are particularly at risk of infection due to many factors, including reduced immunity, existing chronic illness, and exposure to pathogens in hospitals and nursing homes.
Kimberly Smith is the vice president of operations for Ascent Healthcare Management, a company that runs six retirement facilities in Western North Carolina. As of Oct. 18, three of the company’s Asheville locations still do not have running water, Smith told ABC News.
Even after running water returns, Smith said that she anticipates her facilities will be under the Boil Water Notice for quite some time.
Libby Bush, president and CEO of Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community, located in Asheville, said her facility is also currently under the Boil Water Notice.
“It has been challenging to keep up with the current and most accurate information,” she told ABC News.
Greene said he and other nursing home residents are deeply appreciative of the nursing home staff and government assistance in the wake of Hurricane Helene. While he now understands the scale of Helene’s destruction, Greene said in his letter that his initial days during and immediately after the storm were spent in seclusion, with the initial lack of internet, landline, and cell phone service contributing to “an utter sense of isolation.”
“The fact that no [one] called in, or could call out, made it worse,” he told ABC News.
Smith added that many nursing home residents suffered “an emotional toll” because they weren’t able to get in touch with their families.
Phone and internet services have been largely restored, Smith and Bush separately told ABC News.
Smith is also grateful for the shower trailers, portable toilets, hand washing stations and extra generators provided by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the state’s Office of Emergency Medical Services, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
They brought “a lot of things that we tried to get on our own and couldn’t,” Smith said. “All the regulatory people have kind of come together to help the nursing homes.”
Still, there’s a long road to recovery ahead for senior care facilities in Asheville.
Greene visited a Red Cross/FEMA disaster assistance center in Asheville and was impressed by the resources provided.
“It distresses me and others to see the negative reporting on FEMA and the Red Cross,” he said.
“The senior citizens here, many of them retired deaconesses and missionaries, dealt well with the hardship conditions,” Greene added of his fellow nursing home residents. “No doubt we are a bit traumatized, but God was good to us.”
Sejal Parekh, M.D. is a board-certified practicing pediatrician and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(WASHINGTON) — Some ex-pats living abroad, including active-duty service members and their family members, are sounding the alarm after Republicans in three swing states have tried to delay accepting and counting overseas absentee ballots.
And there is already fear among Americans at home and abroad that no matter what the result, the damage has already been done, according to Sarah Streyder, the executive director of Secure Families Initiative, a nonpartisan non-profit that advocates for military families’ rights.
“We are already hearing military voters from all states who feel discouraged from participating, if they have concern that their ballot won’t even be counted,” Streyder, who is stationed in England with her husband a Space Force member, told reporters in a video news conference with other advocates Friday.
Election officials and other political science experts say the suits filed in Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina in the last couple of weeks have no merit. The Republican plaintiffs, however, claim state election offices created loopholes that could allow ineligible people to vote through overseas absentee ballots.
GOP casts doubt on absentee ballots, election officials push back
On Sept. 30, five Pennsylvania GOP House members running for re-election — Guy Reschenthaler, Dan Meuser, Glenn Thompson, Lloyd Smucker and Mike Kelly — filed a suit against Al Schmidt, the secretary of the Commonwealth and Deputy Secretary for Elections Johnathan Ivlarks accusing them of providing guidance to local election offices to not allow ID requirements for their foreign absentee voters.
“The Commonwealth’s practice is an illegally structured election process which makes Pennsylvania’s elections vulnerable to ineligible votes by individuals or entities who could purport to be…eligible, register to vote without verification of identity or eligibility but receive a ballot by email and then vote a ballot without providing identification at any step of the process,” the plaintiffs in the Pennsylvania suit alleged.
Reschenthaler is the only member of the five plaintiffs with military experience as he previously served as a United States Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps attorney from 2009 to 2012, according to his bio. He was deployed to Iraq during his tenure with JAG.
The Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s office said in a statement that the lawsuit is “nothing more than an attempt to confuse and frighten people ahead of an important election,” and the state law ensures that all overseas ballots that are sent out are eligible.
“Ballots cast by ineligible voters occur at extremely low rates and are routinely investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate authorities when they occur. Individuals registering to vote must affirm that the information they submit is accurate, with any false statement subjecting them to a potential felony conviction, prison sentence and substantial fine,” the office said in a statement.
Pennsylvania election officials could not immediately provide ABC News data on how many absentee ballots have currently been sent overseas and how many of those ballots have been returned.
The Republican National Committee filed a pair of lawsuits in North Carolina and Michigan last week arguing their state rules are violating federal law and allowing ex-pats to vote despite never residing in their state.
In both suits, the RNC officials allege that the states’ election officials have not created a secure system to verify that an overseas voter is an American and have specifically called out provisions in their election laws that permit spouses or dependents of military or overseas voters to vote in elections based on the residency of the military or overseas voter.
“As a result, certain people who have never resided in Michigan (or perhaps anywhere else in this country) are registering to vote and voting in Michigan elections,” the plaintiffs in the Michigan case claim in their filing.
Similar language was used in the North Carolina lawsuit.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed amicus briefs this week seeking to dismiss her state’s case, contending that the plaintiffs have no standing in their claims.
“Challenging a decades-old statute in this frivolous manner is both irresponsible and abusive. Their actions are a clear attempt to sow doubt about the integrity of the election and suppress the legitimate votes of American citizens,” she said in a statement.
Nessel noted that absentee ballots have already been sent out to Michigan voters living overseas, and the RNC failed to file a timely notice of intent to sue under the Michigan Court of Claims Act.
Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, echoed that sentiment and maintained the state law allowing military family members to vote in the state is valid.
“North Carolina lawmakers adopted this law more than 13 years ago, as a way to implement a federal law that required states to make voting more accessible for military families and other citizens living abroad. It has been part of our state’s law for every election since then,” he said in a statement.
As of Friday afternoon, over 22,000 Michigan military and overseas voters have requested ballots for the general election, according to data from the Michigan Secretary of State’s office. Of that number, almost 8,000 voters have already completed and submitted their ballots to be counted, the data showed.
As of Friday afternoon, 8,451 North Carolina absentee ballots have been requested by military members and 20,571 ballots have been requested by civilians living overseas, according to data from the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Of those requests, 8,331 ballots were sent to the military members and 2,434 of those have been returned and accepted, the board said. There have been 20,449 absentee ballots sent to other ex-pats, and 10,481 of those ballots have been returned and accepted, according to the data.
Veterans, ex-pats furious over the move
Ray Kimball, a veteran who serves as an Arizona volunteer for the nonpartisan advocacy group Veterans for All Voters, told reporters on Friday he was furious about allegations made by officials who questioned the validity of absentee ballots back in 2020.
Kimball, a former Pennsylvania voter who said he mostly voted by mail when he was deployed overseas, said he was appalled that “partisan actors are doubling down,” despite the lack of evidence to their claims.
“I took that as a personal insult to what I and tens of thousands of Americans including service members and civilians abroad have been doing for years prior to this narrative,” he said.
One of the biggest concerns from legal experts and overseas voters is the request in all three lawsuits to segregate the foreign absentee ballots and stop counting them until the person can be verified.
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, the president and CEO, of U.S. Vote Foundation, a nonprofit group that provides ex-pats with resources to help cast their vote, told reporters that this move was done to “just reduce the number of ballots counted overall.”
“It is a complete disenfranchisement of U.S. citizens,” Dzieduszycka-Suinat, who lives in Munich, said. “We are U.S. citizens. We do have a secure voting process.”
Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley told reporters that she has concerns that if the request is granted, it would put extra unnecessary work on the already overtaxed election workers.
“All that time, energy and effort doing that, that further chips away at people’s confidence in the election,” she said.
Lawsuits are just the beginning: Expert
Michael Traugott, research professor emeritus in the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan, told ABC News that the three suits are part of a strategy by Republican leaders aimed at sowing doubt in the election results in the months to come.
He predicted the three suits will be dismissed, especially in Michigan where he said the secretary of state’s office has been efficient for determining voter eligibility.
“They do this in a very careful and systematic way and it’s worked,” he said.
Traugott said that election offices will be prepared for these attacks but they may not be able to control the public relations damage that the suits cause.
Kimball, however, said he believed that the majority of voters want more access to their right to cast a ballot.
“Bottom line this should not be a partisan issue. We should get behind the idea of Americans voting wherever they are all over the world,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Another dazzling display of the wonders of outer space will be visible from Earth in the coming days.
The annual Orionid meteor shower, which originates from Halley’s Comet, is expected light up the night sky starting this weekend.
Considered by NASA as “one of the most beautiful showers of the year,” the Orionids are the latest astronomical event this month, which already has included a strong solar storm that led to widespread northern lights, the Tsuchinshan-Atlas comet, and the brightest supermoon of the year.
“There’s been a lot of great celestial events this year alone,” Shawn Dahl, coordinator for NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, told ABC News, describing them as “a lot of glorious things to see in the sky.”
The Orionid meteor shower is produced every year when Earth passes through the debris – composed of ice and dust – left behind by Halley’s Comet, according to NASA.
When the debris trail intersects Earth’s atmosphere, the debris disintegrates and creates streaks in the sky, according to NASA.
The intensity of the peak activity tends to vary, but they are “much higher than usual” this year, Elizabeth Macdonald, a space physicist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told ABC News.
In a normal year, the Orionids produce 10 to 20 showers per hour, but during exceptional years, such as 2006 to 2009, the peak rates were on par with the Perseids, at about 50 to 75 per hour, according to the American Meteorological Society (AMS).
The Orionids can be seen from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres without a telescope, according to NASA. In the Northern Hemisphere, face southeast, and if in the Southern hemisphere, face northeast.
However, the light from the supermoon, which began to wane on Friday, is expected to limit a lot of visibility, Macdonald said.
“The moon is going to bleach out a lot of meteors,” she said.
But even with the full moon, “relatively bright” meteors from Orionid tend to streak across the sky, said Dahl, who does backyard astronomy as a hobby.
Traveling to the darkest spot possible will likely increase the chances of seeing the shower, Macdonald said. It is also important for stargazers to keep their eyes dark-adapted in order to see the meteors, which includes avoiding constant interaction with the bright screen of a cell phone, Dahl said.
“In less than 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you will begin to see meteors,” NASA advised. “Be patient – the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.”
Awareness of the direction to look toward is important as well, Dahl said. The meteors tend to be “pointing back” as they’re streaking through the sky, so looking toward the radiant in the sky – that is, the point where the paths of meteors appear to meet – will increase the chances of seeing them, Dahl said.
“You have to be kind of know the general area of the sky to look,” Dahl said. “That’s why [meteors] have a name.”
The radiant of meteors is the constellation from which they appear to originate, according to NASA. For the Orionids, the radiant is the constellation Orion.
But it is not necessary to only look toward the radiant, as the Orionids are visible across the night sky, according to NASA, which advised viewing the Orionids from 45 to 90 degrees away from the radiant.
The Orionids tend to peak during mid-October every year, according to NASA, with the hours after midnight typically the best viewing times.
The meteor shower is expected to peak on Sunday and Monday, at which point the moon will be 83% full, according to the AMS.
The best time to see the meteor shower will probably be Monday night, once the supermoon has waned, Macdonald said.
A new take on Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 novel American Psycho is in the works, with Variety reporting that Challengers director Luca Guadagnino in talks to helm the project.
The trade notes that the film won’t be a remake of the 2000 dark comedy starring Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman and instead will be a new adaption of the novel.
“We are thrilled to add another elite filmmaker to our upcoming slate,” Lionsgate Motion Picture Group chair Adam Fogelson said. “Luca is a brilliant artist, and the perfect visionary to create a whole new interpretation of this potent and classic IP.”
American Psycho follows a New York City investment banker who leads a double life as a serial killer. The 2000 film also starred Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto and Chloë Sevigny.
The film’s soundtrack was filled with ’80s hits from artists like David Bowie, Phil Collins, New Order and more. Huey Lewis and the News‘“Hip To Be Square” played a prominent role in the film, but was removed from the soundtrack because it was included without getting the band’s permission.
