Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh dies at 70
The broadcaster who was known as a pioneer of modern right-wing talk radio passed away after a battle with lung cancer.
The broadcaster who was known as a pioneer of modern right-wing talk radio passed away after a battle with lung cancer.
Chris Harrison is speaking out for the first time since stepping aside from the franchise last month. In an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America" co-host Michael Strahan, the embattled "Bachelor" host addressed the comments he made defending current "Bachelor" contestant and front-runner Rachael Kirkconnell, whose past racist social media posts showed her "liking" a photo containing a Confederate flag and attending an "Old South" plantation-themed party in 2018. "I am an imperfect man, I made a mistake and I own that," Harrison told "Good Morning America."
Motor vehicle deaths jumped 8% in 2020, despite fewer people on the roads amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to preliminary data from the National Safety Council. "We believe that the open roads really gave drivers an open invitation marked open season on reckless driving," Maureen Vogel, director of communications at NSC, said in an interview with ABC News. While the final data will determine causation, Vogel said states saw increases in speeding, increases in distraction and, in some cases, increases in impaired driving.
As Congress debates the latest coronavirus relief bill, many await their much-needed aid, while others, desperate for help, will never see the benefits. "I have not received any benefits," Rosa Arelvo, an essential worker, said. Arelvo immigrated to the United States from El Salvador and works as a restaurant cook.
Thursday will be a quiet day in the House of Representatives. It's all tied to March 4 -- the original inauguration date set by the Constitution, and now the focus of QAnon conspiracy theories that falsely believe that to be the date that former President Donald Trump will come back to power. A series of hearings on Capitol Hill have only raised more questions about who was behind the attempted insurrection, and why and how authorities were as ill-prepared as they were.
At least 38 protesters were killed by authorities in Myanmar on Wednesday, marking the bloodiest day since the military seized power in an apparent coup last month, according to the United Nations' special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener. Demonstrations have been taking place in cities across the Southeast Asian country since its de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and other members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party were detained by the military on Feb. 1. The protest movement has been growing and the military junta, which calls itself the State Administration Council, has become increasingly violent in its response as weeks of internet shutdowns, threats and mass arrests have not stopped thousands of people from voicing their opposition.
Last week, numerous athletes trained by Olympic coach John Geddert felt a fleeting moment of victory when he was charged with abusing young gymnasts. Geddert, a notoriously tough coach who worked with convicted sex offender Larry Nassar and trained the Fierce Five team that won Olympic gold in 2012, was charged Thursday with 24 felonies, including counts of human trafficking and forced labor causing injury as well as criminal sexual conduct. For Lindsey Lemke, a former Michigan State gymnast who accused Nassar of sexual abuse and trained with Geddert at his Dimondale, Michigan, gym, there's no closure in his death.
An international team of researchers from institutions including Boston Children's Hospital and the University of Oxford has partnered with Google to release Global.health, a platform that contains information about almost 10 million COVID-19 cases from over 100 countries. There are many databases tracking COVID information, such as the ones run by Johns Hopkins University and The COVID Tracking Project, but most of those track what's known as aggregate data, which includes case and death counts in particular regions. "What's different about ours is its detailed line-list information," said Dr. John Brownstein, a Global.health researcher and a professor of pediatrics and biomedical informatics at Boston Children's Hospital.
More than six months after Lesia Phillips' only daughter died from COVID-19, the grief and sorrow are still raw. Shanta Batchelor, an administrative assistant at Arkansas Children's Hospital who was beloved by her mother, grandmother, friends and fiancé, spent nearly one month battling the virus before her death in August 2020. Phillips is now left wading through the pain -- and anger.
Fewer people will qualify for direct payments as part of the new COVID-19 relief bill under an agreement by Senate Democrats. The agreement more narrowly tailors who qualifies for those $1,400 direct checks that President Joe Biden has touted as part of his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief legislation. The Senate is expected to begin debate on the plan Thursday.
Former White House physician Ronny Jackson "bullied" subordinates and made sexual comments about female colleagues while serving as President Barack Obama's official doctor, according to a new report from the Defense Department inspector general. The Pentagon watchdog's investigation into Jackson's behavior in the White House Medical Unit stemmed from a referral from the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee in 2018, when Jackson was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
A Florida nurse has given both her 80-year-old grandmothers coronavirus vaccines roughly one year after the start of the pandemic. Megan Patterson, 32, is a neurology nurse at Bayfront Health St. Petersburg. Last summer, she volunteered in the COVID-19 unit and is now administering vaccines.
New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith has asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to investigate after at least 30 New Jersey National Guard members allegedly got sick over the last month from eating the food they were provided while deployed to protect the U.S. Capitol. In a letter Wednesday, Smith told Pelosi that several National Guard members in various states, including New Jersey, "have become ill due to tainted and unhealthy food from a private-sector vendor."
The House late Wednesday night passed a sweeping ethics and voting rights package, first introduced in 2019. The "For the People Act of 2021" is something Democrats say is urgently needed as Republican-controlled state legislatures scramble to change voting laws in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. The House passed the election reform bill in a 220-210 vote.
A former Maryland police chief is facing more than a dozen attempted murder charges after he allegedly targeted a series of enemies in at least 12 arson cases going back a decade, officials said. David M. Crawford, the former police chief of Laurel, Maryland, was charged and arrested on Wednesday. The 12 fires took place in Prince George’s, Montgomery, Howard, Frederick and Charles counties from 2011 until late last year.
Mississippi legislators have passed a bill that would ban transgender athletes from competing on female sports teams in schools and universities -- one of over two dozen similar measures proposed by state lawmakers nationwide this year. The state House voted 81-28 Wednesday to pass the so-called Mississippi Fairness Act. The bill now heads to Gov. Tate Reeves for approval.
At a dinner with Black business leaders in October 2019, former President Barack Obama praised Elizabeth Warren, dismissed Pete Buttigieg as a candidate -- and forgot to mention now President Joe Biden, according to a new book on the 2020 election. "It's sort of a metaphor for where Obama's head was from the beginning of the campaign," Jonathan Allen, co-author of "Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency," told Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl and Political Director Rick Klein on ABC’s “Powerhouse Politics” podcast Wednesday. "Lucky," which was released Tuesday, is a deep dive into the inner workings of Biden's campaign from Allen, a senior political reporter for NBC News Digital, and senior correspondent for The Hill Amie Parnes.
The 13 people killed in a crash between their SUV and a big rig in Southern California on Tuesday are suspected to have entered the U.S. illegally that morning, breaching a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border in a likely human smuggling attempt, according to Customs and Border Patrol. "A 10-foot breach" in a fence between the two countries was reported Tuesday morning, and agents reviewed surveillance video which showed two "vehicles leaving the area in proximity of the fence breach," border patrol said on Wednesday. Twelve people, including the SUV driver, died at the scene, and another person from the SUV died at a hospital, the highway patrol said.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday addressed the sexual harassment scandal he's facing and apologized for his actions. “I want New Yorkers to hear from me directly on this: First, I fully support a woman’s right to come forward and I think it should be encouraged in every way," Cuomo said. Cuomo pledged his full cooperation with the state attorney general’s investigation and urged New Yorkers to "wait for the facts to come out."
Gov. Greg Abbott's announcement that Texas would end a statewide mask mandate and allow businesses to reopen at full capacity has been met with harsh criticism. "Absolutely reckless," California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on Twitter shortly after the press conference Tuesday in which Abbott announced that it was "time to open Texas 100%." Abbott pointed to small business owners hurt by the pandemic.
Serena Williams and her 3-year-old daughter Alexis "Olympia" Ohanian Jr. made their modeling debut together for Stuart Weitzman Spring 2021 collection. The mother-daughter duo posed, twirled and laughed in matching looks for the shoe company's "Footsteps to Follow" ad campaign.. "The adventures of Serena and Olympia continue," Williams wrote in a caption alongside a heartwarming video of the two of them together.