95.1 The Bee

The Associated Press reports that Former President Donald Trump has defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to win the 2024 presidential election.

Early Wednesday morning, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency with a win in Wisconsin. The former president ended up with at least 279 electoral votes after clinching wins in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin, with Harris winning at least 219 votes. The race was marked by literal history, including two assassination attempts and 34 felony convictions against Trump, already having been impeached twice and faulted for mismanaging the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Trump 78m will be the oldest person to take the oath of office at his inauguration on Jan. 20. His running mate, freshman Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, 40, will preside over the Senate as the country’s first millennial vice president. Harris, 60, underwent a historic bid to become the nation’s first female president, first Asian American president and second Black president.

Trump said in his victory speech at his election headquarters in Florida: “I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president. And every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family and for your future. Every single day, I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body.” 

Harris didn’t speak on Election Night, forgoing her planned event at Howard University. Cedric Richmond, Harris’ campaign co-chair, said she will address her supporters and the nation later Wednesday.

Editorial credit: QubixStudio / Shutterstock.com

Tropical Storm Rafael gaining strength Tuesday morning after forming in the Caribbean Sea, with forecasters saying it will strengthen into a hurricane with predictions the storm is headed for the U.S. Gulf Coast later this week. Rafael is the 17th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, and it will be the 11th hurricane if it strengthens further. The National Hurricane Center said Tuesday: “Rafael is expected to become a hurricane as it passes near the Cayman Islands with further strengthening before it makes landfall in Cuba.”

NHC forecasters said Tuesday that Rafael was located about 80 miles south-southwest of Montego Bay, Jamaica and 230 miles southeast of Grand Cayman, carrying maximum sustained winds of 60 mph and moving northwest at 13 mph. Forecasters warn that “heavy rainfall” will hit the western Caribbean with heaviest rainfall occurring over Jamaica and portions of Cuba through mid-week.

NHC forecasters said Rafael is “getting better organized” as its center passes Jamaica, and is expected to undergo “steady to rapid intensification” to become a Category 1 hurricane as it passes near the Cayman Islands by Wednesday before weakening to a tropical storm again. The hurricane center’s latest forecast cone, which comes with some uncertainty, has Rafael passing over the western reaches of Cuba on Wednesday afternoon or evening.

The NWS station in Mobile, Ala., says there seems to be an “unusually large amount of uncertainty with the movement of this system later in the week.” Texas does not appear to be in Rafael’s track to see direct landfall, but by mid- to late week, “heavy” rainfall is expected to spread north into Florida and adjacent areas of the Southeast United State. A tropical storm watch was issued Monday afternoon for the lower and middle Florida Keys and for the Dry Tortugas, which was later upgraded Tuesday to a tropical storm warning.

Rafael could potentially bring tropical storm winds to portions of the northern Gulf Coast, including the Florida Keys and south Florida on Wednesday afternoon. Heavy rainfall was expected to spread north into Florida and elsewhere in the southeast U.S. by the middle or end of the week, with as much as 3 inches forecast for the lower and middle Florida Keys.

Editorial credit: forestpath / Shutterstock.com

A former Ohio police officer was convicted of murder Monday in the shooting of Andre Hill, a Black man who was holding a cellphone and keys when he was killed. Adam Coy, who served nearly 20 years with the Columbus police force, shot Hill four times in a garage nearly four years ago. Coy, who is White, was fired after the shooting.

Franklin County Judge Stephen McIntosh set a sentencing date of Nov. 25 for Coy, who is undergoing cancer treatments for Hodgkin lymphoma. Coy faces at least 15 years in prison, with the jury also finding him guilty of reckless homicide and felonious assault. Defense attorney Mark Collin later said they would be appealing the verdict.

Police body camera footage showed Hill, 47, coming out of the garage of a friend’s house holding up a cellphone in his left hand, his right hand not visible, seconds before he was fatally shot by Coy. Almost 10 minutes passed before officers at the scene began to aid Hill; he was pronounced dead at a hospital. Coy told jurors that he thought Hill was holding a silver revolver that turned out to be keys, testifying: “I thought I was going to die.”  However, after he rolled over Hill’s body and saw the keys that he realized there was no gun: “I knew at that point I made a mistake. I was horrified.”

Weeks after the December 2020 shooting, the city of Columbus reached a $10 million settlement with Hill’s family, the largest in city history. The Columbus City Council also passed Andre’s Law, which requires police officers to render immediate medical attention to an injured suspect.

Brian Steel, president of the police union in Columbus, said he was shocked by the murder conviction: “Your split-second decision can now be led to murder. It is absolutely insane. Officers are willing to die for their community, they are willing to die for this job. They do not want to go to prison for this job.”

Editorial credit: Eric Glenn / Shutterstock.com

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to to decide the ongoing legal redistricting dispute in Louisiana that could determine whether the state maintains a congressional map that includes two majority-Black districts after the 2024 election. The court’s decision to hear the appeal from a group of Black voters and the state marks at least the third time it will be involved in the legal battle over voting lines for Louisiana’s U.S. House districts that were drawn after the 2020 Census. The high court is expected to begin hearing oral arguments before the end of its current term in June; it will have no impact on this year’s election.

According to court filings on behalf of Phillip Callais and 11 other plaintiffs, Louisiana “should be ashamed” of using race in order to draw congressional district lines that “over-represents Black voters” which could result in the loss of GOP control in the House of Representatives.  However, state’s Solicitor General Benjamin Aguinaga wrote in court documents that Louisiana is “stuck in an endless game of ping-pong .. and the State is the ball, not a player, the state will be sued again no matter what it does.”

Louisiana’s Republican-controlled legislature had overridden a veto by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards over the state’s new congressional map. However after state officials and voting rights advocates had made an emergency judicial request in efforts to finalize the state’s congressional district map in order to meet required legal deadlines, in May the supreme court cleared the way for Louisiana to use its current map with two majority-Black districts for this year’s election.

In January, Louisiana lawmakers approved a new congressional map to increase the number of majority-Black districts to represent the state’s population (which is nearly 1/3 Black). The approval came after a 2022 Supreme Court ruling reinstated Louisiana’s Republican-drawn congressional map, which froze a lower court ruling that says the Republican map violated the Voting Rights Act. Currently, the map leans towards Republicans in districts held by House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise.

Editorial credit: Aashish Kiphayet / Shutterstock.com