GULF COAST – The Washington Post reports that a research team led by University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann is predicting the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season will produce the most named storms on record, fueled by exceptionally warm ocean waters and an expected shift from El Niño to La Niña. The new forecast, issued Wednesday, calls for a range of 27 to 39 named storms, with a best guess of 33. The most on record was 30 named storms in 2020. The forecast is consistent with those recently released by Colorado State University and AccuWeather but is even more aggressive. âThe unprecedented warmth in the tropical Atlantic right now â which we expect to persist through the hurricane season â is the dominant driving factor behind our prediction,â Mann said in an email. âWhile we donât make a specific prediction for landfalling storms ⊠an unusually active season in terms of basin-wide activity is likely to translate to an unusually active season in terms of landfalling storms.â
Ocean temperatures leaped into record-warm territory more than a year ago â linked to a combination of human-caused climate change and El Niño, and have remained there ever since, staying at a record high for 417 straight days. Although El Niño boosts global ocean temperatures, it tends to produce wind patterns in the Atlantic that suppress tropical storm development. But ocean waters were so warm during the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season that there was an above-average number of storms nonetheless. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects a marine heat wave, or sea surface temperatures well above normal, to continue in the tropical Atlantic through at least September. That has forecasters concerned about an active hurricane season because warmer ocean waters typically increase the intensity of storms. Meanwhile, El Niño is forecast to transition to La Niña this summer. La Niña tends to have the opposite impact of El Niño on hurricane season â producing wind patterns that foster storm development in the Atlantic â further increasing the odds of an active season. If La Niña were to weaken toward the latter part of the hurricane season, then the forecast would decrease slightly to a range of 25 to 36 storms and a best guess of 31 storms, Mannâs research group said. A tropical storm earns a name if its winds reach at least 39 mph. When winds climb to at least 74 mph, a tropical storm becomes a hurricane.
(NEW YORK) -- Public health officials are continuing to monitor as an outbreak of avian flu, also known as bird flu, continues to spread across the country.
The strain, known as H5N1, has sickened several mammals this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Several dairy cows have been infected, resulting in milk samples showing inactive remnants of the virus, and one human case has been confirmed.
Health officials say the food supply is safe and the risk to the general public is currently low.
Here's the latest to know on the outbreak:
What is bird flu?
Avian influenza, or bird flu, is an infectious viral disease that primarily spreads among birds and is caused by infection with Influenza A viruses.
These viruses typically spread among wild aquatic birds but can infect domestic poultry and other bird and animal species, according to the CDC.
Although bird flu viruses normally don't infect humans, there have been rare cases of infection. To confirm infection, laboratory testing is required.
Signs and symptoms of infection in humans often include sore throat, cough, fever, runny or stuffy nose, headache, muscle or body aches, fatigue and shortness of breath. Less common symptoms include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and seizures.
Infections can range from no symptoms or mild illness, such as flu-like symptoms, to more severe illness, such as pneumonia that could require hospitalizations, the CDC says.
How did the outbreak begin?
In early March, the USDA announced a bird flu strain that had sickened millions of birds across the U.S was identified in several mammals this year.
At the time, three states had reported cases of bird flu in mammals in 2024, including striped skunks found in Washington state, a mountain lion in Montana and a raccoon in Kentucky.
A few weeks later, federal and state public health officials said they were investigating an illness among primarily older dairy cows in Kansas, New Mexico and Texas and causing symptoms including decreased lactation and low appetite.
The USDA said in a statement at the time that "there is no concern about the safety of the commercial milk supply or that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health."
First human case of bird flu
Earlier this month, the CDC said a human case of bird flu was identified in Texas and linked to cattle. The infected individual worked directly with sick cattle and reported eye redness as their only symptom.
8 years after the National Enquirer's deal with Donald Trump, the iconic tabloid is limping badly This is the second human case of H5N1 ever reported in the U.S. but the first linked to cattle.
However, there have been no reports and no evidence to indicate there is person-to-person transmission, a CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen told ABC News at the time.
The CDC said it considers the health risk assessment to the general public to be low.
Inactive fragments found in milk samples
Earlier this week, reports emerged of bird flu fragments found in samples of pasteurized milk. However, the fragments are inactive remnants of the virus and cannot cause infection as the commercial milk supply undergoes pasteurization.
Federal agencies maintain the U.S. commercial milk supply remains safe because milk is pasteurized and dairy farmers are required to dispose of any milk from sick cows, so it does not enter the supply.
"To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe," the FDA said in an update.
The FDA said in its update that fragments of the virus are likely inactivated by the pasteurization process.
"The discovery of bird flu virus fragments in commercial milk is significant, not because it poses a direct threat to public health, but because it indicates a broader exposure among dairy cattle than we previously understood," said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor. "This calls for an expanded surveillance of both the virus's presence and its potential impact on food safety."
He added, "It's crucial to continue rigorous testing to determine if any live virus can survive the process. Understanding the dynamics of this virus in dairy products will help us refine our risk assessments and ensure public health safety."
The FDA said it is collaborating closely with the CDC's food safety group surveillance team to monitor emergency department data and flu testing data for any unusual trends in flu-like illness, flu or conjunctivitis. There is currently no data showing any unusual trends or activity.
LONGVIEW – The Houston Chronicle reports that business groups, led by a pair of Texas advocacy associations, stepped in quickly Wednesday seeking a halt to a rule issued by the Federal Trade Commission banning employers from using noncompete clauses to keep workers from going to a competitor. The ban was approved Tuesday and is expected to take effect 120 days after it is entered into the Federal Register. It was immediately challenged by U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which was joined by the Texas Association of Business and the Longview (Texas) Chamber of Commerce in filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to block the measure.
Saying âthe burdens of the Noncompete Rule will be immediate and significant,â the organizations argued that âBeyond making virtually all noncompetes illegal going forward, the Noncompete Rule also purports to retroactively invalidate roughly tens of millions of existing agreements. ⊠As a result, businesses that bargained for noncompetes will lose the protections of those agreements â even if they already held up their end of the bargain.â Anticipating a delay in implementation, several Houston labor attorneys were proceeding with business as usual with their noncompete cases. Todd Slobin, a board certified labor and employment partner at Shellist Lazarz Slobin, said he thought the rule was great and it could help the economy in general because people could get better, higher-paying jobs based on their experience and skills. âIn one hand, itâs amazing,â Slobin said. âIn the other hand, itâs kind of like preparing for a hurricane that may never happen. Because, you know, thereâs going to be so many legal challenges from big businesses, industries, who want to enforce these noncompetes and want to have them in place to keep employees where they are.â
(WASHINGTON) -- As the NFL draft kicks off this week, President Joe Biden's campaign is launching a new digital ad on Thursday taking aim at former President Donald Trump's past comments disparaging football and the league, the Biden campaign told ABC News.
The short, 20-second ad, on YouTube, features a montage of Trump previously attacking football, calling it "boring as hell" and saying "nobody cares about football," juxtaposed with Biden greeting and touting his relationship with football players.
The ad -- the latest skirmish in the early part of Biden's general election fight against Trump, which is expected to be close -- ends with the message: "Make the right pick in November."
The ad plays into the longstanding feud between the NFL and Trump, who had once owned rival United States Football League team the New Jersey Generals in the 1980s and reportedly tried to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014 but was unsuccessful after investors doubted the NFL would allow it.
Trump has repeated attacks on football and more specifically the NFL over the years, including during his presidency when he railed against NFL players who kneeled during the national anthem as part of a protest against systematic bias against people of color.
However, Trump has had close ties to some notable figures in football, including quarterback Tom Brady and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
He has also frequented tailgates and college football games on the campaign trail, including attending the famed University of Iowa Hawkeyes versus Iowa State University Cyclones game and the Palmetto Bowl between the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Clemson University Tigers last year as the Republican Party's Iowa caucuses and the South Carolina primary were heating up.
According to the Biden campaign, the new ad will target football fans across battleground states including in Green Bay, Wisconsin; in Detroit; in Phoenix; and in Pittsburgh. The ad will also air in Atlanta, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Las Vegas.
Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, who is attending the NFL draft in Michigan on Thursday night, claimed in a statement that while the rest of the country will be celebrating football, Trump will be "sitting on the sidelines trying to make tonight about himself, rage-posting on his failing social media platform and spewing his extreme, divisive, and historically unpopular agenda."
The first clip used in the ad shows Trump at a rally in Henderson, Nevada, on the first Sunday of the 2020 NFL season, where the then-president urged the audience to sit down and get comfortable before stating they had plenty of time as "football is boring as hell."
He added: "Used to be people would say, 'Hey, could you keep it away from, from a football game?' Now they say, 'Could you possibly do it during a football game?'"
In the second clip, from a 2020 rally in Nevada's capital, Carson City, Trump said, "Nobody cares about football. They ought to get smart because they can't win this war. We want people that love our country."
Trump has repeatedly disparaged NFL players kneeling over the years, claiming they've gotten too "soft" and calling for them to be suspended.
"The NFL players are at it again - taking a knee when they should be standing proudly for the National Anthem," Trump wrote on X, then called Twitter, in 2018. "Numerous players, from different teams, wanted to show their "outrage" at something that most of them are unable to define. They make a fortune doing what they love."
(WASHINGTON) -- The families of victims who died in one of two fatal Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes met with Department of Justice officials Wednesday regarding the looming decision to prosecute or dismiss charges against the company.
The fatal Boeing crashes in October 2018 and March 2019 killed 346 people. Family members of victims of the 2019 crash in Ethiopia met with prosecutors in Washington D.C. Wednesday.
The first crash on Oct. 29, 2018, in Jakarta, Indonesia, killed all 189 passengers and crew.
The second crash, on March 10, 2019, happened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, when a Boeing aircraft crashed minutes after takeoff and killed 157 people onboard.
Both crashes preceded the Alaska Airlines incident earlier this year, when a door plug fell out of the fuselage of a Boeing 737 Max 9, a newer model, after departure.
After a five-hour meeting on Wednesday, lawyers for the families of some of the victims said that they received no additional information about whether the Justice Department will be moving to dismiss charges against Boeing after the deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) it reached with the company.
Lawyers for the families also said they were not given specific information about how prosecutors are investigating the Alaska Airlines blowout.
In 2021, the DOJ charged Boeing with "conspiracy to defraud the United States," after a lengthy investigation that the company knowingly misled regulators while seeking approval for its 737 MAX aircraft.
Boeing entered into the deferred prosecution agreement worth $2.5 billion consisting of a $243 million criminal penalty, $500 million to relatives who lost loved ones and $1.77 billion to global airlines affected by the MAX groundings.
The government has until July 7 to decide whether to move to dismiss the criminal case, to extend the agreement or to proceed with a prosecution.
Attorney Paul G. Cassell told reporters Wednesday, "The meetings with the Department of Justice were what we feared -- all for show and without substance."
"It is clear that they are only interested in seeing through the rigged Deferred Prosecution Agreement they brokered with Boeing without the involvement of the very families whose lives were shattered due to the company's fraud and misconduct," Cassell claimed.
"We will pursue every avenue to continue our challenge of the DPA and ensure Boeing is truly held accountable," he said.
Cassell told ABC News if the DOJ does drop the charges against Boeing, they will "aggressively fight Boeing in the Northern District of Texas and any other court if needed."
"Remember, Boeing has already admitted and committed a crime, their charges have been filed in Texas," Cassell said. "We simply want that case to move forward and let the jury decide whether Boeing is a criminal or not."
8 years after the National Enquirer's deal with Donald Trump, the iconic tabloid is limping badly Boeing declined ABC News' request for comment.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun, who announced he would step down at the end of the year, said after the January incident, "Whatever final conclusions are reached, Boeing is accountable for what happened. An event like this must not happen on an airplane that leaves our factory."
The meeting on Wednesday comes on the same day Boeing announced it lost $355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, signaling further strains on the aerospace company.
(NEW YORK) -- Speaker Mike Johnson, claiming that Hamas supports the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests at Columbia University and other of the U.S. colleges, on Thursday threatened congressional intervention, including pulling federal funding from the institutions.
"The things that have happened at the hands of Hamas are horrific, and yet these protestors are out there waving flags for the very people who committed those crimes. This is not who we are in America," Johnson, the top House Republican, said in a post on X on Thursday morning. ABC News has not documented any cases of protesters waving Hamas flags, as Johnson suggested.
Student protests at Columbia and other schools have primarily denounced Israeli military action in Gaza and expressed support for Palestinian civilians, rather than expressing support for Hamas. School administrators and officials have said the protests on their campuses have been largely peaceful.
Citing a statement Hamas issued Wednesday, Johnson said Hamas "backed" the protests at Columbia specifically, which began April 17. Johnson added in a separate post on X that "taxpayer dollars should not be going to institutions that allow this chaos."
In the Hamas statement, its spokesperson Izzat Al-Risheq blamed President Joe Biden for "violating the individual rights and the right to expression through arresting university students and faculty members for their rejection of the genocide to which our Palestinian people are being subjected in the Gaza Strip at the hands of the neo-Nazi Zionists."
"Today's students are the leaders of the future, and their suppression today means an expensive electoral bill that the Biden administration will pay sooner or later," Al-Risheq wrote in the statement.
In response to Hamas' statement, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates told ABC News that "Hamas perpetrated the deadliest massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust, which makes them the least credible voice that exists on this subject."
"Hamas' disapproval, after their acts of 'unadulterated evil' -- which they've pledged to repeat 'again and again' -- is a testament to President Biden's moral clarity. President Biden has stood against Antisemitism his entire life. And he will never stop," Bates said.
Johnson's comments on Thursday came a day after he visited Columbia University, where he met with Jewish students and joined his New York House Republican colleagues in calling for the school's president, Minouche Shafik, to resign if she can't bring order to the protests. In a speech, during which boos and shouts from protesters often overpowered the speaker's words, Johnson considered the need to send the National Guard to intervene.
In an interview with ABC News' Linsey Davis on Wednesday, Johnson cited the statement and said Hamas sees Columbia's protesters as the future leaders of America.
"We should hope not," Johnson said. "Hamas is a terrorist organization."
Johnson said federal funding should be revoked if universities cannot maintain control of the protests and prevent violence.
"If [school administrators] can't get control of this, we will take the funding away from these universities. The Congress has a responsibility to do that, the power of the purse, and we will use it, and we will hold these administrators accountable," Johnson told Davis.
While Johnson mentioned violence on campus, the New York Police Department said earlier this week that there are no credible threats to any particular group or individual as a result of the protests at Columbia University. The department said it had not received any reports of physical harm toward any students.
Last week, more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested at Columbia as they called for the divestment of college and university funds from Israeli military operations. Other participants in Columbia's ongoing, encampment-style protests were suspended and removed from campus.
The demonstrations followed Shafik's testimony to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about antisemitism on college campuses, during which she said she has taken actions to combat antisemitism on campus since a terror attack on Oct. 7 sparked Israel's war with Hamas.
New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik called for Shafik's resignation days later, writing in a post on X that Columbia "failed to enforce their own campus rules and protect Jewish students on campus."
While there have been some instances of violence and offensive or antisemitic rhetoric during the protests, school administrators, New York police and protesters themselves have largely blamed that activity on individuals not affiliated with the schools.
"... Tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas," Shafik said earlier this week.
Columbia spokesman Ben Chang said the student encampment on campus has raised serious safety concerns. He added that Columbia will not tolerate harassment and discriminatory behavior, and the university will investigate to see if any student protestors violated community rules.
8 years after the National Enquirer's deal with Donald Trump, the iconic tabloid is limping badly In response to some student concerns about safety amid on-campus tension, some universities have responded by opting for remote or hybrid learning options.
ABC News' Michelle Stoddart and Kiara Alfonseca contributed to this report.
NACOGDOCHES â Stephen F. Austin State University Thursday appointed a new athletics director. According to our news partner KETK, Michael McBroom, who is currently the athletics director at West Texas A&M University with be joining the university May 15.
Interim SFA president, Gina Oglesbee said, âWe are excited about the future of Lumberjack athletics under McBroomâs leadership. His proven ability to build championship-worthy programs, both on the playing surfaces and in the classroom, aptly matches the goals of SFA Athletics and the university.â
McBroom, a Southern Methodist University graduate, will be joining SFA with 25 years of athletics administrator experience and 18 of those as athletics director.
(WASHINGTON) -- As various Supreme Court justices themselves acknowledged during a high-stakes hearing on Thursday, they could potentially reshape the contours of presidential power when they rule on whether Donald Trump is entitled to some amount of immunity from prosecution for alleged acts in the White House as he pushed to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Over nearly three hours on Thursday, with demonstrators gathered outside, the justices grappled with arguments from both Trump's attorney and an attorney for special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged Trump in connection with his effort to stay in office after losing to now-President Joe Biden.
Trump denies all wrongdoing and disputes some of what he is accused of doing while he maintains that other actions were part of his presidential authority.
The oral arguments included several notable and important exchanges. Here are 10 of the key moments.
A decision is expected from the court by the end of June.
Could a president assassinate his rival?
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and then Samuel Alito touched on one of the most provocative hypotheticals raised in Trump's battle for "absolute immunity" from charges over what he claims were official acts: Could a commander in chief order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival and not face prosecution?
Sotomayor raised it first while questioning Trump attorney John Sauer. She pointed back to an earlier exchange Sauer had in a lower court proceeding.
"I'm going to give you a chance to say ...if you stay by it: The president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military, or orders someone, to assassinate him -- is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?" she asked.
"It would depend on the hypothetical," Sauer answered. "We could see that could well be an official act."
Sotomayor pressed on that point: "Immunity says even if you did it for personal gain, we won't hold you responsible -- what do you -- how could that be?"
Sauer pointed back to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from the '80s that held a president is immune from civil liability related to this official acts, which Sauer said is a basis for their own argument now about criminal liability.
"That's an extremely strong doctrine in this court's case law in cases like Fitzgerald," he said.
Later, Alito referred back to a president's hypothetical use of the military as elite assassins as he and Sotomayor split on whether "plausibleness" was a useful standard for scrutiny versus "reasonable."
"One might argue that it isn't plausible to order SEAL Team 6 -- and I don't want to slander SEAL Team 6 because they're -- no, seriously -- they're honorable, they're honorable officers and they are bound by the uniform code of military justice not to obey unlawful orders -- [but] I think one could say it's not plausible ... that that action would be legal," Alito said.
To Sauer, he said, "I'm sure you've thought of lots of hypotheticals where a president could say, 'I'm using an official power,' and yet the power uses it in an absolutely outrageous manner."
'What was up with the pardon of President Nixon?'
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pressed Sauer on his contention that without immunity all future presidents would feel paralyzed to take official acts that could put them in criminal jeopardy.
"I mean, I understood that every president from the beginning of time essentially has understood that there was a threat of prosecution [upon leaving office]," Jackson said.
Sauer responded by quoting Ben Franklin from the constitutional convention, to which Jackson seemed skeptical.
"But since Benjamin Franklin everybody has presidents who have held the office [who knew] that they were taking this office subject to potential criminal prosecution, no?" she said.
She cited one well-known example of a former president who came under legal scrutiny.
8 years after the National Enquirer's deal with Donald Trump, the iconic tabloid is limping badly "What was up with the pardon for President [Richard] Nixon? ... If everybody thought that presidents couldn't be prosecuted, then what -- what was that about?" she said.
"He was under investigation for both private and public conduct at the time -- official acts and private conduct," Sauer said, going on to indicate that there had long been established an understanding that presidents could be prosecuted for private acts.
"Counsel on that score, there does seem to be some common ground between you, your colleague on the other side, that no man's above the law and that the president can be prosecuted after he leaves office for his private conduct, is that right?" Justice Neil Gorsuch asked.
"We agree with that," Sauer answered.
"And then the question becomes, as we've been exploring here today, a little bit about how to segregate private from official conduct that may or may not enjoy some immunity," Gorsuch said.
That underscored what could emerge as a key part of the court's ultimate decision: how to separate out Trump's conduct that is protected by the presidency, under a ruling of some executive immunity, and what he is accused of doing outside the bounds of his presidential authority that can be prosecuted.
But Trump's attorney concedes some conduct was private
Not long after, Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned Sauer precisely where some of the described conduct falls, between official and private -- protected or unprotected.
"You concede that private acts don't get immunity," she said.
"We do," Sauer said.
Barrett then specifically cited various alleged acts from Trump's push to overturn the 2020 election, as described by prosecutors.
Barrett, quoting from court filings, said, "I want to know if you agree or disagree about the characterization of these acts as private. Petitioner turned to a private attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims of election fraud to spearhead his challenges to the election results. Private?"
"We dispute the allegation, but that sounds private to me," Sauer said.
Barrett continued: "Petitioner conspired with another private attorney who caused the filing in court of a verification, signed by petitioner, that contained false allegations to support a challenge. Private?"
"Also sounds private," Sauer said.
"Three private actors, two attorneys, including those mentioned above, and a political consultant, helped to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding and petitioner and a co-conspirator attorney directed that had effort." Barrett said.
"I believe that's private," Sauer replied.
"Those acts you would not dispute," Barrett said. "Those were private and you wouldn't raise a claim that they were official."
Sauer said back: "As characterized."
'That's like a one-legged stool, right?'
A notable response came shortly after from Chief Justice Roberts when Sauer pushed the justices to remand the case back down to the lower courts to piece through which allegations in the indictment amount to a protected "official act" under the presidency.
"The official stuff has to be expunged completely from the indictment before the case can go forward," Sauer argued.
"That's like a one-legged stool, right?" Roberts said. "I mean, giving somebody money isn't bribery unless you get something in exchange. If what you get in exchange is to become the ambassador to a particular country, that is official, the appointment, it's within the president's prerogatives. The unofficial part is -- 'I'm going to get a million dollars for it.'"
After this exchange, Justice Clarence Thomas raised unprompted whether Trump's legal team was challenging the legality of the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith, a questionable theory previously pushed by right-wing lawyers like former Attorney General Ed Meese.
Sauer said Trump's legal team was making that argument in his separate Florida federal case, in which he is accused of mishandling classified information while out of office, but they weren't doing so directly in this case, to which Thomas did not follow up.
Justice Alito then asked Sauer if all official acts alleged in the Jan. 6 indictment should be excluded from trial, to which Sauer answered they should.
But Justice Sotomayor pressed back on the notion of remanding the case, arguing that even in the instances of acts that could be considered official, they came in the context of Trump pushing forward in his "private" intent of remaining in office.
"I don't think the indictment is charging that the obstruction occurred solely because of conversations with the Justice Department," she said. "They're saying -- you look at all of the private acts and you look in the context of some of the public acts and you can infer the intent, the private intent from them."
Fear of turning Oval Office into 'seat of criminal activity'
In questioning Sauer about why presidents shouldnât face criminal liability for unlawful actions they take in office, Justice Jackson seemed to warn that, as she sees it, giving presidents absolute immunity could turn the White House into âthe seat of criminal activity in this country.â
In response, Sauer insisted that while a president shouldnât face criminal prosecution, they could face impeachment or other remedies for any unlawful conduct.
The exchange began when Jackson pressed, "If thereâs no threat of criminal prosecution, what prevents the president from just doing whatever he wants?"
Sauer pointed to "impeachment, oversight by Congress, public oversight, thereâs a long series."
"You seem to be worried about the president being chilled. I think that we would have a really significant opposite problem if the president wasn't chilled," Jackson said.
"If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world, with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes -- I'm trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminal activity in this country," Jackson continued.
She asked Sauer, "If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn't there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they're in office?"
But Sauer indicated that such problems hadn't occurred so far.
"I respectfully disagree with that because the regime you described is the regime we operated under for 234 years," he said.
Can a president pardon themselves?
During Sauer's questioning, Gorsuch asked him to explain the Trump team's position on whether a president hypothetically has the power to pardon themselves, which he said could happen if presidents feared that their successors could prosecute them for actions they took while in office.
"I didn't think of that until your honor asked it. That is certainly incentive that might be created," Sauer answered.
"We've never answered whether a president can do that. Happily it's never been presented to us," Gorsuch said in response.
Later in the hearing, Michael Dreeben, arguing for the government, was asked for his view on whether the president has such authority.
"I don't believe the department of justice has taken a position," Dreeben said. The only authority that I'm aware of is a member of the Office of Legal Counsel wrote on a memorandum that there is no self-pardon authority. As far as I know, the department has not addressed it further and the court had not addressed it either."
Will the case be remanded -- delaying it until next year?
Roberts began his line of questioning of Dreeben, in the second half of the haring, by raising concerns about the opinion issued by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in their sweeping rejection of Trump's claims of immunity.
Roberts said the statement that "a former president can be prosecuted for his official acts because the fact of the prosecution means that the former president has allegedly acted in defiance of the laws" concerned him because "as I read it, it says a former president can be prosecuted because he's being prosecuted."
Roberts said such a position could put too much faith in the justice system to act non-politically and out of good faith -- and he asked whether the Supreme Court should send the opinion back down to make clear to the circuit court that that is not the law.
Dreeben responded there are "layered safeguards" that protect against malicious prosecution.
"We are not endorsing a regime that we think would expose former presidents to criminal prosecution in bad faith, for political animus, without adequate evidence, or politically driven prosecution that would violate the Constitution," Dreeben said.
Near the end of the hearing, Barrett also noted that the justices could send the case back to the lower court to decide which of the actions in the indictment against Trump was official -- and therefore not prosecutable -- versus which were done in his private capacity.
Such an outcome could rule out a trial before the end of the year and before the November election.
Dreeben emphasized that the Department of Justice would prefer to tell a jury all of it: "There's an integrated conspiracy here that had different components, as alleged in the indictment. Working with private lawyers to achieve the goals of the fraud and ... the petitioner reaching for his official powers to try to make the conspiracies more likely to succeed.
"We would like to present that as an integrated picture to the jury so that it sees ... [the] gravity of the conduct."
However, Dreeben indicated that even if some of the alleged actions in indictment were deemed official in nature and not subject to prosecution, prosecutors would still want to present some of those actions to the jury to show Trump's state of mind when he engaged in actions deemed private.
Presidents can make mistakes without charges
Dreeben faced questions from Alito on whether or not presidents can make a "mistake" given the many competing pressures they are under in their day to day duties.
"Presidents have to make a lot of tough decisions about enforcing the law and they have to make decisions about questions that are unsettled," Alito said, then asking if a "mistake" makes a commander in chief criminally liable.
"Making a mistake is not what lands you in a criminal prosecution," Dreeben said.
Later he raised some of the specific accusations in the charges against Trump: "It is difficult for me to understand how there could be a serious constitutional question about saying, 'You can't use fraud to defeat the [certification of the winner of the presidential election], you can't obstruct it through deception, you can't deprive millions of voters of their right to have their vote counted for the candidate who they chose.'"
Charging FDR for internment camps?
Much of the justices' questioning of the attorneys on Thursday turned on hypotheticals to probe at the limits of each of their arguments about whether presidents should or should not be immune from prosecution.
Beyond Sotomayor asking about a potential assassination using the military, Justice Elana Kagan asked how immunity would apply if a president ordered soldiers "to stage a coup."
Sauer said in that potential case, it "may well be an official act" that would require impeachment and conviction before he is prosecuted.
He said something similar when Sotomayor asked if Trump's backing of "fraudulent" alternate electors in 2020, to try and overturn the results, as described in the indictment, was also part of his official duties. "Absolutely, your honor," Sauer said.
Alito added his own what-if as he questioned Dreeben, with the government.
"Mr. Sauer and others have identified events in the past where presidents have engaged in conduct that might have been charged as a federal crime, and you say, 'Well, no, that's not really true.' ... So, what about president Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision to inter Japanese Americans during World War II. Couldn't that have been charged under conspiracy against civil rights?" Alito asked.
Dreeben raised a number of concerns with hypothetically trying to bring charges but demurred on a straightforward answer beyond noting the controversy and complexity.
Worry of a vicious cycle of prosecutions -- and what happens next
In line with many of his questions during today's arguments, Justice Brett Kavanaugh focused at one point on what the impact of prosecution could be on the office of the presidency and his worries of what he called a vicious cycle of malicious prosecutions hampering presidents for years and years to come -- in the absence of immunity.
He likened the current moment to a controversial post-Watergate Supreme Court decision involving the powers of independent counsels, in which the late Justice Antonin Scalia penned one of his most famous dissents in defense of the presidency.
"That's the concern going forward is that the system will -- when former presidents are subject to prosecution in the history of Morrison v. Olsen tells us, it's going to cycle back and be used against the current president or the next president or and the next president and after that," Kavanaugh said.
He further claimed in the exchange that while President Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon was "very controversial in the moment" it is "now looked upon as one of the better decisions in presidential history I think by most people."
Notably, however, both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch said their concerns about overreaching prosecutions didn't extend to the facts of the Jan. 6 case against Trump.
Throughout arguments, justices made clear they were looking past the immediate example of Trump to what their decision will mean for the future of the presidency.
"We're writing a rule for the ages," Gorsuch said.
Kavanuagh echoed that: "This case has huge implications for the presidency, for the future of the presidency and for the future of the country, in my view."
And Alito said, "Whatever we decide is going to apply to all future presidents."
(NEW YORK) -- A federal judge in New York on Thursday rejected former President Donald Trump's bid for a new trial in a defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. The ruling upheld the jury's $83.3 million damage award.
"Contrary to the defendant's arguments, Ms. Carroll's compensatory damages were not awarded solely for her emotional distress; they were not for garden variety harms; and they were not excessive," Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote.
"Mr. Trump's malicious and unceasing attacks on Ms. Carroll were disseminated to more than 100 million people," he added. "They included public threats and personal attacks, and they endangered Ms. Carroll's health and safety."
Robbie Kaplan, Carroll's attorney, celebrated the ruling.
"We are pleased with though not surprised by the Court's decision today denying Donald Trump's motions for a new trial and judgment as a matter of law," she said in a statement. "As the Court explained, it was entirely reasonable for the jury to award E. Jean Carroll $83 million in damages given Donald Trump's continued defamation of Ms. Carroll during the trial itself, as well as his conduct in the courtroom where his 'hatred and disdain [were] on full display.'"
At the end of a five-day trial in February, Trump was ordered to pay $83.3 million to Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her allegations of sexual abuse.
Carroll was awarded $17.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages.
In May 2023, Trump was found liable in a separate trial for sexually abusing Carroll in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s, and defaming her in a 2022 social media post by calling her allegations "a Hoax and a lie" and saying, "This woman is not my type!"
While he was found liable for sexual abuse, jury members found that Trump did not rape Carroll as she claimed.
Trump rejected all accusations of wrongdoing and claimed he had not even heard of Carroll.
The ruling Thursday from Kaplan rejected each of Trump's lawyer's claims, ultimately deciding, "In short, the argument -- which Mr. Trump previously made to the jury, conspicuously without success, and which defies common sense -- does not warrant dismissal as a matter of law."
ABC News' Peter Charalambous and Olivia Rubin contributed to this report.
Student protesters block the media from entering a tent camp on the campus of Columbia University in New York on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
Some good comes from everything â even the worst of things.
In support of that assertion, I offer the anti-Jewish, anti-American, pro-idiot protests now happening on elite college campuses such as Columbia University. The good that I see is the growing awareness â particularly among the parents of college-aged kids â that something has gone terribly wrong in American higher education.
It has been a long time coming. Those of us that are old enough remember the campus protests of the 1960s. We have, in a way, come full circle. Columbia University was the site of the first of a series of demonstrations against the Vietnam War on college campuses that began in the spring of 1968.
At Columbia, militant students staged protests that included taking over Hamilton Hall, a building that housed both classrooms and administration offices. Administrators at Columbia were eventually forced to call in the NYPD to restore order. (Give them credit. At least those kids understood what they were protesting.)
The March 1968 Columbia University protest is credited with starting the campus protest movement. Itâs also credited by some scholars with pushing American higher education sharply to the left. In his book, The Closing of the American Mind,â University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom said, âAmerican universities were no longer places of intellectual and academic debate, but rather places of ‘political correctness’ and liberalism.â
So, here we are, 56 years later back at Columbia, and that leftward push now has American higher education on the edge of the Marxist abyss. Examples abound. Hereâs one.
Thanks to the reporting of Cal Thomas at Townhall.com, we are introduced to Professor Mohamed Abdou, who is described on Columbiaâs website as, ââŠa North African-Egyptian Muslim anarchist interdisciplinary activist-scholar of Indigenous, Black, critical race and Islamic studies, as well as gender, sexuality, abolition and decolonization.â
Said professor Abdou on his social media feed, âYes, Iâm with Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic jihad.â
(And to think you can get this for your kid for just 90 grand a year.)
The good that comes from this is that even the casual observer can now see the leftist rot in American higher education in its full flower.
That clarity has parents asking very pointed questions about what a lifetime spent saving up is going to pay for at the colleges their sons and daughters want to attend. Wealthy alums are closing their checkbooks. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is one such alum. He made that announcement this week, saying, âThe school I love so much â the one that welcomed me and provided me with so much opportunity â is no longer an institution I recognize.â
It took a long time for the higher education pendulum to swing so far to the left. It will take time for it to swing back. But perhaps that swing has begun. If so, good for Bob Kraft and others like him. And good for the parents who are asking the tough questions. Perhaps we are seeing a long overdue awakening and a critical first step on the long road to restoring sanity to American higher education.
On Thursday, Netflix dropped all eight episodes of the supernatural series Dead Boy Detectives, based on the beloved comic series from The Sandman's Neil Gaiman.
Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri) are best friends â and as the title suggests, they're dead. However, as ghosts, they're tasked with solving paranormal mysteries.
One of their allies in their quests is Tragic Mick, sort of the Q to the specter sleuths' James Bond.
The actor who plays him, Michael Beach, says there's more to the eccentric character, however.
"He's a man who used to be a walrus, but because of some mystical thing â and it will come up in the show âhe has been a human for 200 years," Beach says. "And he spent that time, all of that time trying to find potions and spells ... to turn him back into a walrus, because he misses living in the sea."
Beach explains, "He's developed this shop where people can come and get potions and spells to help themselves out of whatever. So, the two main characters, the dead boys, they often come to him because they are trying to help other dead people move on to whatever the next realm is that they're going."
The actor adds with a laugh, "You know, I spent some time on YouTube looking up ... video of these huge, hulking walruses hanging out. And, you know, how they sounded, how they moved and tried to incorporate that into who Tragic Mick was."
He adds, "That's part of the joy about being an actor, right? If the writing is good and the people are open to ... you trying crazy stuff sometimes, then that's the real fun of it."
On Thursday, the Board of Jurors of the Peabody Awards announced the 27 nominees for the organization's 84th annual honors in the categories of Arts, Entertainment, Children's/Youth and Interactive & Immersive.
More than 1,100 entries from TV shows to podcasts were in the running; this year, FX's Emmy-winning The Bear was among those singled out as "the most compelling and empowering stories" released in 2023.
Other shows that were singled out in the Entertainment category included FX's Reservation Dogs; HBO's dramedy Somebody Somewhere and its hit video game adaptation The Last of Us; Netflix's Lupin, Blue Eyed Samurai and The Fall of the House of Usher; and Amazon Freevee's Jury Duty.
In the Children's/Youth category, Bluey on Disney+ was singled out, as was Disney Channel's animated Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, executive produced by and starring the voice of Laurence Fishburne.
The winners of the 84th annual Peabody Awards will be announced on May 9 and then celebrated on June 9 at a ceremony in Los Angeles.
Here are the nominees in the Entertainment, Arts and Children's/Youth categories; the full list can be found here:
ENTERTAINMENT
The Bear - (FX) Blue Eye Samurai - (Netflix) Dead Ringers - (Prime Video) The Fall of the House of Usher - (Netflix) Fellow Travelers - (Showtime) Jury Duty - (Amazon Freevee) The Last of Us - (HBO | Max) Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Israel-Hamas War - (HBO | Max) Lupin - (Netflix) Poker Face - (Peacock) Reality - (HBO | Max) Reservation Dogs - (FX) Somebody Somewhere - (HBO | Max)
CHILDRENâS/YOUTH
Bluey - (Disney+) Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur - (Disney Channel) Summer Camp Island - (Cartoon Network)
ARTS
Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters - (World Channel and APT) Judy Blume Forever - (Prime Video) Little Richard: I Am Everything - (CNN Films, MAX and Magnolia Pictures)
ARLINGTON (AP) â Police say a 17-year-old has been arrested on a murder warrant after fatally shooting a schoolmate on the campus of an Arlington, Texas, high school.
The slain student was identified as 18-year-old Etavian Barnes by the Tarrant County Medical Examinerâs Office.
Barnes was found unresponsive with multiple gunshot wounds Wednesday afternoon outside portable buildings on the campus of Bowie High School, according to Arlington Police Chief Al Jones.
No other injuries were reported.
The suspect, who was also a student at the school, was arrested a short time later near the campus, according to Jones, who said the two apparently knew each other.
âWeâre still early on in our investigation, our detectives are working to determine a motive,â Jones said.
Jones said the shooting was reported about 2:50 p.m., shortly before classes were scheduled to be dismissed, and the school was placed on lockdown for about two hours before students were allowed to leave.
Arlington Independent School District Superintendent Matt Smith said classes at the school are canceled for Thursday.
âHonestly, Iâm at a loss for words by this tragedy,â Smith said. âSchools are supposed to be a place of learning and growthâ but that was interrupted by what he called âsenseless violence.â
Smith said counselors will be available to students and staff when classes resume.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) â Kansasâ governor is blocking an attempt by Republican legislators to give the stateâs National Guard a âborder missionâ of helping Texas in its partisan fight with the Biden administration over illegal immigration.
Top Republicans in the Kansas House were considering Thursday whether their chamber can muster the two-thirds majority necessary to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kellyâs veto of immigration provisions in the next state budget. The Senateâs top Republican promised to mount an override effort, but the House would vote first.
Kelly on Wednesday vetoed a budget provision that would have directed her administration to confer with Texasâ Republican governor, Greg Abbott, and send Kansas National Guard personnel or equipment to the border. The GOP proposal would have helped Texas enforce a state law allowing its officials to arrest migrants suspected of crossing into the U.S. illegally. She also vetoed a provision setting aside $15.7 million for the effort.
Abbott is in a legal battle with Democratic President Joe Bidenâs administration, which insists the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government control of border security. In her veto message, Kelly said border security is a federal issue and suggested that the budget provisions improperly encroached on her power as the Kansas National Guardâs commander in chief.
âIt is not the Legislatureâs role to direct the operations or call out the National Guard,â she wrote. âWhen a governor deploys soldiers as part of a federal mission, it is done intentionally and in a manner that ensures we are able to protect our communities.â
Kansas legislators reconvened Thursday after a spring break and are scheduled to wrap up their work for the year Tuesday.
Republicans nationwide have expressed support for Texas, and Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson acknowledged Thursday that the $15.7 million in spending by Kansas would represent mostly âmoral supportâ for Texasâ much larger effort.
Masterson, a Wichita-area Republican, said the state constitution gives legislators the authority to pass laws to give directions to agencies under Kellyâs control.
âSheâs tied in with the Biden administration, so sheâs not motivated to help solve that problem,â he said.
Earlier this year, the Kansas House and Senate approved separate resolutions expressing support for Texas. Democrats said the Texas governorâs stance is constitutionally suspect and has created a humanitarian crisis.
Masterson said Republicans would try to override the veto. However, because the provisions were tucked into a budget bill, itâs not clear that GOP leaders have the necessary two-thirds majorities in both chambers â though they would if all Republicans were present and voted yes.
âWe try to give all options available to support our border, support our fellow states and make sure our nationâs safe,â said House Majority Leader Chris Croft, a Kansas City-area Republican.
FORT WORTH (AP) â Prosecutors in Texas asked the stateâs highest criminal appeals court on Thursday to reverse a ruling that overturned a Fort Worth womanâs voter fraud conviction and five-year prison term for casting an illegal provisional ballot.
Last month, Crystal Masonâs illegal voting conviction was overturned by the Second Court of Appeals. Now the Tarrant County District Attorneyâs Office is asking the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to reverse that ruling.
Mason was convicted in 2018 of illegal voting in district court. Prosecutors maintained that Mason read and signed an affidavit accompanying the provisional ballot affirming that she had âfully completedâ her sentence if convicted of a felony.
But the Second Court of Appeals ruled that even if she read the words on the affidavit, she may not have known that being on probation for a previous felony conviction left her ineligible to vote in 2016.
Tommy Buser-Clancy, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, which has been one of Masonâs representatives in the case, said in a statement that the request for further review of Masonâs case was âdisappointing,â but they were âconfident that justice will ultimately prevail.â
âThe court of appealsâ decision was well reasoned and correct. It is time to give Ms. Mason peace with her family,â Buser-Clancy said.
The ACLU of Texas said Mason wasnât doing interviews on Thursday.
Mason, a former tax preparer, had been convicted in 2012 on charges related to inflating refunds for clients and served nearly three years of a five-year sentence in prison. Then she was placed on a three-year term of supervised release and had to pay $4.2 million in restitution, according to court documents.
Masonâs long sentence made both state Republican and Democratic lawmakers uneasy. In 2021, after passing a new voting law measure over Democratsâ objections, the GOP-controlled state House approved a resolution stating that âa person should not be criminally incarcerated for making an innocent mistake.â
Texas is among dozens of states that prevent felons from voting even after they leave prison.
