Newspaper Page Text
8A Midweek Edition-April 5-6, 2023
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
NATION
Dangerous storms again hitting Midwest, South
Volunteers clean up at Wynne High School, Saturday, April 1, near the front entrance of the
school on E. Jackson Avenue in Wynne, Ark., following severe weather the previous night.
BY SCOTT MCFETRIDGE
AND SEAN MURPHY
Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa —
People still sorting through
the wreckage of their homes
after deadly weather hit
over the weekend braced
for another wave of strong
storms, including tornadoes,
that began rolling into parts
of the Midwest and South
beginning Tuesday evening.
Officials warned residents
to have shelter ready before
going to sleep.
“This could be a night to
just set up down in the base
ment to be safe,” said Tom
Philip, a meteorologist in
Davenport, Iowa.
The National Weather
Service on Tuesday evening
began issuing tornado warn
ings in Iowa and Illinois and
said a confirmed twister
was spotted southwest of
Chicago near Bryant, Illi
nois. No damage was imme
diately reported.
The storms were
expected to hammer some
areas hit by severe weather
and possibly dozens of tor
nadoes just days ago that
killed at least 32 people,
meaning more misery for
those whose homes were
destroyed in Arkansas,
Iowa and Illinois. Danger
ous conditions Tuesday
also could stretch into parts
of Missouri, southwestern
Oklahoma and northeastern
Texas. Farther south and
west, fire danger remained
high.
When a tornado hit Little
Rock, Arkansas, last Fri
day, Kimberly Shaw peeked
outside to film the storm,
then suffered a painful foot
injury that required stiches
when a glass door behind
her shattered and wind
nearly sucked her away.
With another storm coming,
Shaw said she intends to be
far more cautious this time
and will rush to an under
ground shelter at her home.
“The original plan was
NENA ZIMMER I Associated Press
just, ‘If we see a tornado
coming, we’ll get in the shel
ter,’” Shaw said. “But now
it’s like you’re not going to
see it coming. You’re not
going to hear it coming. You
just need to get (inside the
shelter) as soon as the warn
ing goes out or if you just
feel unsafe.”
Shaw added: “And there
will be no videotaping.”
Ryan Bunker, a meteo
rologist with the National
Weather Center in Norman,
Oklahoma, predicted that
Tuesday’s storm system
could start as isolated super
cells — with possible torna
does, wind and hail — and
“form into a line (of thun
derstorms) and continue
moving eastward.”
Earlier Tuesday, strong
thunderstorms swept
through the Quad Cities
area of Iowa and Illinois
with winds up to 90 mph and
baseball size hail. No inju
ries were reported but trees
were downed and some
businesses were damaged
in Moline, Illinois.
The weather service and
Illinois Emergency Man
agement also said a tornado
touched down Tuesday
morning in the western Illi
nois community of Colona.
Local news reports showed
wind damage to some
businesses.
Northern Illinois, from
Moline to Chicago, saw 75-80
mph winds and hail 2 to 3
inches in diameter on Tues
day afternoon, National
Weather Service meteorolo
gist Scott Baker said. The
agency received reports of
semi trucks tipped over by
winds in Lee County, about
95 miles west of Chicago.
The tornado risk in
the Upper Midwest was
expected to be highest in the
evening and late night Tues
day with storms targeting
northern Illinois, eastern
Iowa and southwest Wiscon
sin. Areas of southern Mis
souri and Arkansas were
most at risk overnight.
In Keokuk County, Iowa,
where 19 homes were
destroyed and more were
damaged Friday, emer
gency management official
Marissa Reisen worried
how those cleaning up the
damage will cope if another
storm hits.
“All of the people who
have been impacted by the
storms Friday night are
doing all this work, to clean
up, to gather their stuff, to
pile up the debris,” Rei
sen said. “If a storm comes
through and hits them again
and throws all that hard
work all over the place
again, it will be so deflating
to those people.”
Severe storms could pro
duce strong tornadoes and
large hail Wednesday across
eastern Illinois and lower
Michigan and in the Ohio
Valley, including Indiana
and Ohio, according to the
Storm Prediction Center.
The weather threat extends
southwestward across parts
of Kentucky, Missouri, Ten
nessee and Arkansas.
Trump arraigned on 34 felony counts, pleads not guilty
BY MICHAEL R. SISAK,
ERIC TUCKER,
JENNIFER PELTZ
AND WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press
NEW YORK — A stone
faced Donald Trump made
a momentous courtroom
appearance Tuesday when
he was confronted with a
34-count felony indictment
charging him in a scheme
to bury allegations of extra
marital affairs that arose
during his first White House
campaign.
The arraignment in a
Manhattan courtroom was
a stunning — and humbling
— spectacle for the first ex
president to ever face crimi
nal charges. With Trump
watching in silence, prosecu
tors bluntly accused him of
criminal conduct and set the
stage for a possible criminal
trial in the city where he
became a celebrity decades
ago.
The indictment centers
on allegations that Trump
falsified internal business
records at his private com
pany while trying to cover
up an effort to illegally influ
ence the 2016 election by
arranging payments that
silenced claims potentially
harmful to his candidacy. It
includes 34 counts of fudging
records related to checks
Trump sent to his personal
lawyer and problem-solver
to reimburse him for his role
in paying off a porn actor
who said she had an extra
marital sexual encounter
with Trump years earlier.
“The defendant, Donald J.
Trump, falsified New York
business records in order to
conceal an illegal conspir
acy to undermine the integ
rity of the 2016 presidential
election and other violations
of election laws,” said Assis
tant District Attorney Chris
topher Conroy.
Trump, somber and silent
as he entered and exited the
Manhattan courtroom, said
“not guilty” in a firm voice
while facing a judge who
warned him to refrain from
rhetoric that could inflame
or cause civil unrest. All told,
the ever-verbose Trump,
who for weeks before Tues
day’s arraignment had
assailed the case against
him as political persecution,
uttered only 10 words in the
courtroom. He appeared to
glare for a period at Manhat
tan District Attorney Alvin
Bragg, the prosecutor who
brought the case.
As he returned to his
Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago,
where he delivered a pri
metime address to hundreds
of supporters, Trump again
protested his innocence and
asserted on his Truth Social
platform that the “hearing
was shocking to many in that
they had no ‘surprises,’ and
therefore, no case.”
In his speech, Trump
lashed out anew at the
prosecution and attacked
in bitter terms the prosecu
tor and the judge presiding
over the case despite being
admonished hours earlier
about incendiary rhetoric.
In a sign of that other probes
are weighing on him, Trump
also steered his speech into a
broadside against a separate
Justice Department investi
gation into the mishandling
of classified documents.
“I never thought anything
like this could happen in
America,” Trump said of
the New York indictment.
“This fake case was brought
only to interfere with the
upcoming 2024 election
and it should be dropped
immediately.”
The crowd at Mar-a-Lago
included supporters like
failed Arizona gubernatorial
candidate Kari Lake and
longtime ally Roger Stone.
Trump’s wife, Melania, was
absent from his side and was
also not seen with him in
New York.
Even so, the indictment
amounts to a remarkable
reckoning for Trump after
years of investigations into
his personal, business and
political dealings. It shows
how even as Trump is look
ing to reclaim the White
House in 2024, he is shad
owed by investigations
related to his behavior in
the two prior elections, with
prosecutors in Atlanta and
Washington scrutinizing
efforts by Trump and his
allies to undo the 2020 presi
dential election — probes
that could produce even
more charges.
In the New York case,
each count of falsifying
business records, a felony,
is punishable by up to four
years in prison — though
it’s not clear if a judge
would impose any prison
time if Trump is convicted.
The next court date is Dec.
4 — two months before
Republicans begin their
nominating process in ear
nest — and Trump will again
be expected to appear.
A conviction would not
prevent Trump from run
ning for or winning the presi
dency in 2024.
The arraignment also
delved into Trump’s rheto
ric on the case, with pros
ecutors at one point handing
printouts of his social media
posts to the judge and
defense lawyers as Trump
looked on. Supreme Court
Judge Juan Merchan did not
impose a gag order but told
Trump’s lawyers to urge
him to refrain from posts
that could encourage unrest.
The broad contours of the
case have long been known,
focusing on a scheme that
prosecutors say began
months into his candidacy
in 2015, as his celebrity past
collided with his presiden
tial ambitions.
Though prosecutors
expressed confidence in the
case, a conviction is no sure
thing given the legal com
plexities of the allegations,
the application of state elec
tion laws to a federal elec
tion and prosecutors’ likely
reliance on a key witness,
Trump’s former lawyer and
fixer Michael Cohen, who
pleaded guilty in 2018 to
false statements.
It centers on payoffs
to two women, porn star
Stormy Daniels and Playboy
model Karen McDougal,
who said they had extra
marital sexual encounters
with Trump years earlier,
as well as to a Trump Tower
doorman who claimed to
have a story about a child he
alleged the former president
had out of wedlock.
“It’s not just about one
payment. It is 34 false state
ments and business records
that were concealing crimi
nal conduct,” Bragg told
reporters, when asked how
the three separate cases
were connected.
All 34 counts against
Trump are linked to a series
of checks that were written
to Cohen to reimburse him
for his role in paying off
Daniels. Those payments,
made over 12 months,
were recorded in various
internal company docu
ments as being for a legal
retainer that prosecutors
say didn’t exist. Cohen testi
fied before the grand jury
and is expected to be a star
prosecution witness.
Nine of those monthly
checks were paid out of
Trump’s personal accounts,
but records related to them
were maintained in the
Trump Organization’s data
system.
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