Oh, yes, hello. Hello, friends.
It's time to wake up with chatter, live from
New York City. I'm Baker Beat at Aba.
Today. It's Monday. June 19th. Of course
, here at Cheddar, we're Commemorating Juneteenth today.
It's the third year since the date became a federal
holiday in 2021. And our Ari Hickson, we'll
talk more about it in a live report from Washington
DC in a few moments, huge show coming up
for you guys. Plus our Shannon Lanier is going
to be telling us about smash their. Yes,
definitely a way to sort of get out all that
again. What I think it is or you just
smash. I don't know. All the more reason
I cannot wait. All right, let's get to
this morning, headlines storms and extreme weather in the
south left at least five people dead over 640,000 without
power. Yesterday, the outages affected Louisiana, Texas
and Oklahoma. According to the tracking website, power
outage dot us, many airlines experienced delays and cancellations
over this holiday weekend as intense thunderstorms swept across the
country. Meanwhile many southern cities experienced heat advisories over
the weekend. Cities like Houston, San Antonio and
New Orleans all were under heat warning the second day
of the Beyond Wonderland Festival in Washington State was canceled
yesterday after two people were killed, another three hurt
in a shooting Saturday night. The shooting happened at
the festival's campgrounds near the Gorge amphitheater. That's about
150 miles east of Seattle. Police say a gunman
moved through the campground shooting randomly into the crowd.
Police eventually shot the suspect and took him into custody
. Meanwhile, there were a spate of other shootings
around the country this weekend in Illinois, one person
died, 22 people were hurt after a shooting in
the parking lot of a strip mall in Willow Brook
. Police say it happened just after midnight Sunday during
a Juneteenth celebration over in ST Louis, a 17
year old boy was killed, nine other teenagers were
hurt in a shooting that happened at a party downtown
just after 1 a.m. yesterday. Police have a 17
year old suspect in custody. Police are now investigating
what happened after a man fell 4000 ft to his
death from a grand Canyon tourist attraction earlier in the
month, authorities say the 33 year old man was
killed on June 5. The Mojave County Sheriff's Office
said a rescue team used a helicopter to retrieve his
body. His body was later taken to a federally
recognized Indian tribe located in northwestern Arizona. The FBI
and multiple agencies are launching investigations after dozens of letters
with white powder were sent to state lawmakers and public
officials in Kansas on Friday. The Kansas Bureau of
Investigation reported yesterday that more than 90 letters had been
received across the state. According to ABC news,
a source says the substances found in the letters were
not explosive and they were not biohazardous. One lawmaker
who received an envelope said it contained a quote cryptic
message. This investigation is ongoing beach goers saw an
unfamiliar sight over the weekend after a damaged hover craft
was deliberately run aground on a new Hampshire beach.
Look at that thing. The hovercraft was traveling from
Cape Cod to Nova Scotia. It was brought ashore
on Hampton Beach about 50 miles north of Boston on
Saturday. The owner of the vessel which was a
retired Canadian coast Guard craft decided to bring it ashore
after it suffered a 3 ft tear, no injuries
during the landing and the repairs were made yesterday.
That's good to hear and be sure to stick with
us here at chatter news. More headlines you need
to know. All right. Thank you so much
. And let's move to your big political stories of
the day and it's a big one overseas US.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in China that on
a two day trip seeking to diffuse the escalating tensions
between the US and China. Earlier today, Blinken
met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The 35 minute
meeting took place in the Great Hall of the people
in Beijing. Now over the weekend, Blinken met
his counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister, Quin Gang and
the two discussed several topics including the war in Ukraine
, the future of Taiwan and climate change. B
Lincoln also met with the top foreign policy official in
China as well. Now Blinken is the highest ranking
American official to travel to China since President Biden took
office. And of course, we'll have more on
this from Washington in a little bit later in our
show elsewhere. Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said he
could see the possibility of Donald Trump attempting to pardon
himself if he's convicted of criminal charges and re elected
as president in 2024. In an interview with ABC
this week, Hutchinson said that pursuing the GOP nomination
, he said he believes that Trump might pursue a
self pardon saying, quote, I could certainly see
Donald Trump doing that. Hutchinson also criticized Republican presidential
candidates who have vowed to pardon the former president if
he is re elected, the former president has pleaded
not guilty to two cases. A federal case involving
allegations of retaining classified documents after leaving office and a
New York state case involving hush money paid to adult
film actress Stormy Daniels stick with Republican candidate Chris Christie
also voicing his opposition to an NC pledge to support
the party's eventual nominee. During an interview with cnn's
Jake Tapper on State of the Union yesterday. Christie
called the concept quote a useless idea He also said
that Trump didn't even take the pledge seriously. Back
in 2016, there were 10 of us on the
stage, nine of us raised our hands. The
one who didn't was Donald Trump. And so I'll
take the pledge in 2024 just as seriously as Donald
Trump took the pledge in 2016. Now, the
RN CS first presidential primary debate is scheduled to take
place August the 23rd in Milwaukee. Right. Let's
switch gears and go. You need to know business
headlines. Ford Motor executive Chairman, Bill Ford Junior
. Now voicing his concern with how ready the US
is to compete with China in the electric vehicle space
. In an interview yesterday on CNN and Ford Junior
said the US is not quite yet ready to compete
with China in the electric vehicle market. He also
pointed to China's ability to quickly produce electric vehicles on
a larger scale. Back in February, Ford announced
a$3.5 billion investment in electric vehicle battery plants located
in Michigan.