Vice President Harris marks 6 years since “unspeakable” Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
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(PITTSBURG,, P.A.) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday commemorated six years since the deadly shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue.
“This unspeakable act – fueled by antisemitic hate – was the deadliest attack on the American Jewish community in our Nation’s history,” Harris said in a statement, in part.
On Oct. 27, 2018, a white supremacist gunman opened fire inside the synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, killing 11 people and wounding six others during Shabbat services.
In her statement Sunday, Harris mourned the lives that were taken that day and also hailed the resiliency and enduring strength of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community. She also noted the rise in antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and vowed to continue to combat antisemitism.
“I will always work to ensure the safety and security of Jewish people in the United States and around the world, and will always call out antisemitism whenever and wherever we see it,” Harris said. “Doug and I are proud to have worked alongside President Biden to combat antisemitism, including through the National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.”
“Today, Doug and I stand in solidarity with the survivors of this attack, the families who lost loved ones, and the entire Jewish community,” Harris added, referring to her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Earlier Sunday, President Joe Biden also marked the anniversary of the Tree of Life attack, saying in a statement that the shootings “shattered families, pierced the heart of the Jewish community, and struck the soul of our nation.”
“For the families of the victims and the survivors, this difficult day of remembrance brings it all back like it just happened – and our country holds them and their loved ones close in our hearts,” Biden added.
Biden said his administration remains committed to aggressively implementing the National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.
“As the Talmud says, ‘It is not your duty to finish the work but neither are you at liberty to neglect it,'” Biden said in the statement. “On this solemn day of remembrance for the attack in the Tree of Life Synagogue, let us come together as Americans to ensure antisemitism and hate in all its forms have no safe harbor in America – for all the lives we have lost and all those we can still save.”
(ATLANTA) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump, did not appear Friday at a hearing held by a Republican-led state Senate committee that has been investigating her.
Willis has challenged the legality of the subpoenas she received from the committee, a spokesperson for her office previously told ABC News.
The hearing today was set to include “sworn testimony” from Willis, according to a press release from the committee.
Willis’ attorney, former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that Willis “will not appear until there has been a judicial determination of the validity of the subpoena.”
Barnes did not respond Friday to a request for comment from ABC News.
Republican State Sen. Bill Cowsert, the chairman of the committee, said at the beginning of the hearing that “we have subpoenaed Fani Willis to testify … she is defying her subpoena and not appearing.”
“But we will welcome her if she appears at some point during the meeting,” Cowsert said, before continuing the hearing with other issues and witnesses.
Willis charged Trump and 18 others in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia. All defendants, including Trump, pleaded not guilty, then four defendants subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against the others.
The judge in the case, Scott McAfee, ruled in March that either Willis or prosecutor Nathan Wade must step aside from the case due to a “significant appearance of impropriety” stemming from a previous romantic relationship between Wade and Willis. Wade subsequently stepped down.
The Georgia Senate Special Committee on Investigations was established earlier this year with a stated goal to “thoroughly investigate the allegations of misconduct” by Willis.
It said it would look to “enact new or amend existing laws and/or change state appropriations to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system.”
Cowsert previously said it was not within the committee’s authority to seek to disqualify Willis from the election case or to criminally prosecute her, but rather to “investigate many of these troubling allegations.”
A Georgia court of appeals paused the election interference case in June, pending the resolution of a court battle over Willis’ being allowed to remain on the case..
Oral arguments in that matter are currently scheduled for Dec. 5, a month after the presidential election.
In a separate case, a Georgia state prosecutor said in a statement Friday that he would not pursue criminal charges against Lt. Gov. Burt Jones for acting as one of Trump’s so-called “fake electors” in the 2020 election.
Pete Skandalakis, the head of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, was tasked with investigating Jones after Willis was disqualified from investigating him in 2022 by a Fulton County judge after Willis held a fundraiser for Jones’ political opponent.
Skandalakis, in his decision Friday, wrote that the case against Jones “does not warrant further consideration” and that Jones “did not act with criminal intent” when he served as an alternate elector and aided Trump’s efforts in the state in other ways.
Jones was not indicted in Willis’ election interference probe.
(NEW YORK) — A former OceanGate employee got emotional while remembering the people killed in the catastrophic implosion of the company’s Titan submersible during a hearing on the incident Tuesday.
“I had the privilege of knowing the explorers whose lives were lost,” Amber Bay, former OceanGate director of administration, said during the U.S. Coast Guard hearing. “There’s not a day that passes that I don’t think of them, their families and their loss. It’s been a difficult year for them, for all of us.”
OceanGate co-founder and CEO Stockton Rush, French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet, British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, were killed when the Titan imploded during a deep-sea voyage to the Titanic wreckage in June 2023.
Bay said she believes the teenager was the youngest person to ever dive on the Titan, and that there were “no true misgivings” about his age ahead of the dive.
“Stockton had spoke to the family directly on a few occasions and met with them personally,” she said. “So there was no concerns once they had been spoken with and understood. Everyone understood and was ready and excited to dive.”
Bay started working for OceanGate in December 2018. She said part of her duties included the care of the “mission specialists” — what the company called those who paid to go on dives — during expeditions.
She described a mission specialist, who paid $250,000 for the Titan dive, as someone who was “curious about deep-sea exploration” and understood that “this wasn’t a luxury trip.”
“As Stockton put it, there was no chocolate on the pillow,” she said. “They were invited to be involved and take an active role as much as possible as they wanted to.”
Towing concerns
Bay said she was present for all Titan missions in 2021 and 2022, as well as the first three in 2023 — missing the fourth and fifth, which would turn out to be the last, due to a family obligation.
OceanGate utilized the Horizon Arctic as its support ship in 2021 and 2022, though the vessel was no longer available in 2023 so they started utilizing the Polar Prince, she said. The 2023 missions started earlier in the year than previous missions due to the Polar Prince’s availability, she said.
Asked if she had any concerns about towing the Titan the 370 nautical miles to the Titanic wreck site, she said, “Certainly.”
“I think anybody would have, you know, concerns that this was going to be more challenging and more difficult in some aspects,” she said. “Stockton assured us that he was up for the challenge and the team was up for the challenge.”
She noted differences in the weather and water conditions on the 2023 missions compared to previous years.
“The seas were much higher than earlier on, than I remember being on the Horizon Arctic,” she said. “It was much colder. There’s a lot of rain.”
Asked if the Titan was ever damaged during the towing that year, she said she believed the vessel lost or damaged a fairing — a plastic cover that goes over the sub, “just like a car bumper.” She said on one or two occasions the platform also took on water and started to list.
Bay refutes prior witness testimony
A former OceanGate contractor who testified during the hearing last week, Antonella Wilby, told investigators about a conversation she had with Bay about a 2022 dive, during which passengers heard a loud bang as the Titan was ascending.
Wilby testified that when she brought up a customer’s concerns about the loud bang to Bay, Bay told her, “You have a bad attitude. You don’t have an explorer mindset. You know, we’re innovative and we’re cowboys, and a lot of people can’t handle that.”
Asked to explain those remarks on Tuesday, Bay refuted the testimony.
“I don’t believe that either of those statements is exactly what I had said,” she said.
She said Wilby’s concerns were “looked into and notated,” though she had no knowledge of what she was specifically referencing.
Bay said she did not deal with safety concerns and would refer people to the head of engineering, the director of operations and Rush.
“I did ask her if she did have concerns, to bring those up to those particular people,” Bay said.
She said she believed OceanGate staff felt comfortable raising safety concerns with Rush.
“I wasn’t witness to those types of meetings, but I was witness to people saying, ‘Oh yeah, I talked to Stockton about that today,'” she said.
OceanGate’s financial problems
At the beginning of 2023, OceanGate’s finances were “getting very tight,” and employees were asked to have their paychecks deferred once, Bay said.
“We were looking to make ends meet, and if we were able to defer our paychecks, there was an offer that Stockton had derived — I believe with an attorney or whomever — that we could delay our paychecks and be paid a small amount of interest and recaptured at a specific time,” she said.
She said she and Rush delayed their paychecks once.
Phil Brooks, the former engineering director of OceanGate, testified on Monday that he left the company in February 2023 in part due to the financial issues.
“It was clear that the company was economically very stressed,” he said.
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the deadly implosion.
The two-week hearing on the incident is scheduled to run through Friday.
(NEW YORK) — New York City police are searching for five suspects wanted in a “gang assault” on former New York Gov. David Paterson and his 20-year-old stepson on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, according to officials.
The attack, which unfolded around 8:35 p.m. Friday by 96th Street and 2nd Avenue, began as a “verbal altercation” between the suspects and the 70-year-old former governor and his stepson, the NYPD said.
The suspects had had “a previous interaction” with the stepson, Paterson’s spokesperson told ABC New York station WABC, noting that the attack took place near the victims’ home.
The suspects hit the victims in the face and body, police said.
Paterson and his stepson managed fight off the attackers, the spokesperson said, and the suspects fled on foot, according to police.
Paterson and his stepson were both taken to the hospital in stable condition, police said, and they’ve since been released, the spokesperson said.
Paterson, a Democrat, served as governor of New York from 2008 to 2010. Paterson was New York’s first African American governor and the nation’s first legally blind governor.
Paterson and his wife “are thankful for the quick response time from the police and the outpouring of support they have received,” Paterson’s spokesperson said, adding, “The Governor’s only request is that people refrain from attempting to use an unfortunate act of violence for their own personal or political gain.”
“Governor Paterson’s main concern today is Kodai Senga and the New York Mets, but we will provide any additional updates as necessary,” the spokesperson added.
The NYPD asks anyone with information to call the Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS or submit information online at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org.
