Month: October 2024

Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, held a rally on Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York City MSG, which seats 19,500 people, opened its doors around noon EDT to Trump supporters, many of whom camped outside overnight Saturday, with the event beginning around 5 p.m.

The Trump campaign described the Madison Square Garden rally as “historic” with a star-studded list of speakers including SpaceX’s Elon Musk, retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, TV personality Dr. Phil McGraw, and UFC chief executive Dana White; with additional speakers including former Democrats Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., House Speaker Mike Johnson, former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Senior Trump advisors Dan Scavino and Stephen Miller, as well as several of Mr. Trump’s children.

In a surprise appearance, Trump’s wife Melania Trump introduced her husband, marking her first public political speech of this campaign cycle. Mrs. Trump has largely stayed away from campaigning this year, appearing with her husband only a handful of times throughout his latest presidential run. Trump’s speech included topics regarding immigration, his deportation plans, crime and the border.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris campaigned in Philadelphia, making stops in the western and northern parts of the city included speaking at a church service, visiting a barbershop and stopping at a Puerto Rican restaurant.

A new CBS News poll has the two presidential candidates neck and neck with nine days until Election Day, with Vice President Kamala Harris at 50% and Trump at 49% among likely voters. In battleground states, both are polling at 50%.

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On Sunday, a federal appeals court refused to throw out a lower court order that ordered recently purged voters restored in Virginia, setting up a possible U.S. Supreme Court appeal.  In a court filing Friday, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and state Attorney General Jason Miyares, also a Republican, indicated in their motion the state planned to ask the Supreme Court to lift the injunction this week if the appeals court did not do so. U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles ruled on that motion that the move would be too disruptive to administer with just over a week until Election Day.

The decision by the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals (comprised of Democratic Fourth Circuit Judges Albert Diaz, Toby Heyten and Stephanie Thacker) said they are “unpersuaded” by lawyers for Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin seeking to block an injunction obtained by U.S. Justice Department and civil rights groups.

According to court filings, about 1,600 people were removed from voter rolls in an Aug. 7 executive order from Youngkin. The appeals judges said neither the court nor the parties knew whether the people removed from the rolls “were in fact non-citizens” with at least some “eligible voters” had their registration canceled and didn’t know this was done. The three-judge panel’s order stressed that Virginia officials “remain able to prevent noncitizens from voting by canceling registrations on an individualized basis or prosecuting any noncitizen who votes.”

The ruling now sets up a Supreme Court fight over the purge program with early voting already underway in Virginia. Another federal court on Aug. 16 issued a similar ruling blocking a voter removal program in Alabama.

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Officials confirmed that 46 people were taken to the hospital for food poisoning in Maryland after an employee brought and shared a homemade meal at work.

According to NAFCO Wholesale Seafood Distributors, where the incident took place, the workers reportedly became ill roughly an hour after eating a noodle dish (per NBC News affiliate WBAL of Baltimore.). The parent company of NAFCO, Stanley Pearlman Enterprises, told the outlet that the food that caused the illness did not come from the facility: “NAFCO operates under the highest health and safety standards in the industry. Our headquarters and facilities are regularly inspected and monitored by the relevant health authorities to ensure compliance with all health and safety regulations.

The Howard County Fire & Rescue said in a press release that it responded Monday at 3:45 p.m. to the 7700 block of Chesapeake Bay Court in Jessup, about 15 miles southwest of Baltimore, on a report of multiple patients with food poisoning after allegedly eating the same food. The 46 adults were evaluated and taken to different area hospitals with noncritical health conditions, and stated: “preliminary indications are that the illness was related to outside food prepared by an employee and shared with others at the facility. At this time, we are not aware of any further illness connected to this incident and believe there is little risk to the larger community.”

The Howard County Health Department said it was working with the Maryland Department of Health to investigate the exact cause of the incident. All 46 who were hospitalized have been released. The Maryland Health Department later posted on X it was “not currently aware of any risk of further illnesses connected to this incident.”

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Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced on Thursday, Oct. 24, that his office will recommended that Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are serving life sentences for the murders of their parents Jose and Kitty more than 30 years ago, be resentenced.

The announcement from Gascón came shortly after nearly two dozen family members of brothers Lyle, 56, and Erik, 53 called for their release from prison; the family also joined Gascón for the announcement at the Hall of Justice in downtown L.A. Gascón, who noted that the brothers have been behind bars for nearly 35 years, said at the news conference: “We are going to recommend to the court that the life without the possibility of parole be removed and they would be sentenced for murder. I believe that they have paid their debt to society. The final decision will be made by the judge.”

A murder sentence would 50 years to life; but because they brothers were both under 26 years old at the time of the crimes they would be eligible for parole immediately. The judge will need to make a final determination if the Menendez brothers should be resentenced, which could possibly lead to their release after decades in prison. The judge is expected to make that determination within 30 days.

Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18 when they fatally shot their parents in their Beverly Hills, Calif., home on Aug. 20, 1989.  According to the brothers, the killings were a result of years of sexual abuse by Jose, which they also claimed was ignored by their mother, Kitty. Three years after their first trial ended in a deadlock, the siblings were convicted in 1996 of the first-degree murders and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The case again gained momentum in May 2023 when attorneys for the brothers filed a habeas corpus petition with the Los Angeles County Superior Court, citing new evidence — a newly discovered letter Erik wrote to his now-deceased cousin Andy Cano describing his father’s alleged sexual abuse months before the killings; as well as sexual abuse allegations against Jose Menendez by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the boy band Menudo. Rosselló claims that Jose Menendez raped him in the 1980s.

The brothers’ attorney, Mark Geragos, told ABC News that the brothers were model prisoners who worked tirelessly while incarcerated to reform themselves with no expectation they’d be released. Gascón said that the brothers focused on “creating groups to deal with how to address untreated trauma, creating groups to deal with other inmates that have physical disabilities and may be treated differently, even in one case, Lyle negotiating for other inmates as to the conditions that they live under during prison. All this was done by two young people. Now they’re not as young. They had no hopes of ever getting out of prison.”

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