Category: Headlines

CNN
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Tennis great Martina Navratilova has been diagnosed with both stage one throat and breast cancer, her agent told CNN in an email Monday.

“This double whammy is serious but still fixable,” the 66-year-old said in a statement on the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) website.

“I’m hoping for a favorable outcome. It’s going to stink for a while, but I’ll fight with all have I got.”

Navratilova, who won 59 grand slam titles in her career, has already battled breast cancer in 2010.

The latest prognosis is said to be good, according to the statement, and she will begin treatment this month.

Navratilova’s agent, Mary Greenham, said the tennis legend discovered an enlarged lymph node in her neck during the WTA Finals in Fort Worth, Texas, which was held from October 31 to November 7.

A biopsy was done, and she was later diagnosed with stage one throat cancer, her agent said. When Navratilova was undergoing throat tests, her agent said a suspicious form was found in her breast, which later was diagnosed as cancer.

Greenham said both cancers were in the early stages with great outcomes.

Navratilova enjoyed a long playing career in which she won 18 grand slam singles titles, 31 grand slam doubles titles and 10 grand slam mixed doubles titles. She still holds the WTA Tour’s all-time record of 167 titles.

After retiring from singles in 1994 at the age of 38, she continued playing doubles – and winning titles – into her 40s.

She has remained involved in the sport as a coach, broadcaster, and ambassador for the WTA Tour, highlighting the importance of preventive checkups to combat specific diseases such as breast cancer.

Navratilova was due to cover the upcoming Australian Open from the Tennis Channel studio but instead hopes to join occasionally by Zoom, Greenham added.

CNN
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The suspect in the fatal stabbing of four University of Idaho college students plans to waive extradition at a hearing this week, his attorney said, to expedite his return to Idaho, where he faces four counts of first-degree murder.

Bryan Christopher Kohberger is “shocked a little bit,” Jason LaBar, the chief public defender for Monroe County, Pennsylvania, told CNN on Saturday, a day after the 28-year-old’s arrest in his home state on charges related to the November 13 killing of Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20. Kohberger also faces a charge of felony burglary, according to Latah County, Idaho, Prosecutor Bill Thompson.

Kohberger’s family said “there are no words that can adequately express the sadness we feel,” according to a statement LaBar released Sunday on their behalf – the family’s first public statement since Kohberger’s arrest Friday.

“First and foremost we care deeply for the four families who have lost their precious children. There are no words that can adequately express the sadness we feel, and we pray each day for them,” the statement read. “We will continue to let the legal process unfold and as a family we will love and support our son and brother. We have fully cooperated with law enforcement agencies in an attempt to seek the truth and promote his presumption of innocence rather than judge unknown facts and make erroneous assumptions.”

LaBar did not discuss the murder case with the suspect when they spoke for about an hour Friday evening, the attorney said, adding he did not have probable cause documents related to it and is only representing Kohberger on the issue of his extradition, which the attorney called a “formality.”

“It’s a procedural issue, and really all the Commonwealth here has to prove is that he resembles or is the person who the arrest warrant is out for and that he was in the area at the time of the crime,” LaBar said.

Waiving extradition at the hearing set for Tuesday was “an easy decision, obviously,” LaBar said, “since he doesn’t contest that he is Bryan Kohberger.”

Kohberger is presumed innocent until proven guilty, LaBar said in a statement, noting, “Mr. Kohberger is eager to be exonerated of these charges and looks forward to resolving these matters as promptly as possible.”

LaBar expected Kohberger to be returned to Idaho within 72 hours of Tuesday’s hearing, the attorney said.

The arrest of the suspect – a PhD student in Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, the school confirmed – comes nearly seven weeks after the victims were found stabbed to death in an off-campus home. Since then, investigators have scoured some 20,000 tips and conducted more than 300 interviews in the case, they’ve said.

Authorities have yet to publicly confirm the suspect’s motive, or even if he knew the victims, whose deaths rattled the college community and the surrounding town of Moscow. The murder weapon has also not been located, Moscow Police Chief James Fry said Friday.

In the weeks since the killings, some community members have grown frustrated as investigators have yet to offer a thorough narrative of how the night unfolded. Authorities have released limited details, including the victims’ activities leading up to the attacks and people they have ruled out as suspects.

State law limits what information authorities can release before Kohberger makes an initial appearance in an Idaho court, Fry told reporters Friday. The probable cause affidavit – which details the factual basis of Kohberger’s charges – is sealed until the suspect is physically in Latah County and has been served with the Idaho arrest warrant, Thompson said.

Investigators homed in on Kohberger as a suspect through DNA evidence and by confirming his ownership of a white Hyundai Elantra seen near the crime scene, according to two law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation. Authorities say he lived just minutes from the site of the stabbings.

He drove cross-country in a white Hyundai Elantra and arrived at his parents’ house in Pennsylvania around Christmas, according to a law enforcement source. Authorities began tracking him at some point during his trip east from Idaho.

Kohberger, accompanied by his father, had driven from Idaho to Pennsylvania to celebrate the holidays with his family, LaBar confirmed.

CNN law enforcement analysts on what investigators could be looking for

An FBI surveillance team tracked him for four days before his arrest while law enforcement worked with prosecutors to develop enough probable cause to get a warrant, the two law enforcement sources said.

Genetic genealogy techniques were used to connect Kohberger to unidentified DNA evidence, another source with knowledge of the case told CNN. The DNA was run through a public database to find potential family member matches, and subsequent investigative work by law enforcement led to his identification as the suspect, the source said.

A white Hyundai Elantra was found at his parents’ home, LaBar said, where authorities apprehended Kohberger early Friday.

This story has been updated to clarify the action expected at Tuesday’s extradition hearing.

CNN
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A text exchange between Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff Julie Radford and White House aide Hope Hicks reveals their anger over then-President Donald Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, hurting them professionally, according to newly released documents collected by the House select committee investigating the Capitol Hill insurrection.

“In one day he ended every future opportunity that doesn’t include speaking engagements at the local Proud Boys chapter,” Hicks wrote to Radford on January 6, 2021. “And all of us that didn’t have jobs lined up will be perpetually unemployed. I’m so mad and upset. We all look like domestic terrorists now.”

Hicks added: “This made us all unemployable. Like untouchable. God I’m so f***ing mad.”

Radford responded by texting, “I know, like there isn’t a chance of finding a job,” and indicating she already lost a job opportunity from Visa, which sent her a “blow off email.”

The new release is part of a steady stream of documents from the committee, complementing the release of its sweeping 845-page report. The latest comes as the panel winds down its work with the House majority set to change hands from Democrats to Republicans on Tuesday at the start of the new Congress.

In the text messages, Hicks then says “Alyssa looks like a genius,” an apparent reference to Alyssa Farah Griffin resigning from her post as a White House aide one month before the attack on the US Capitol.

Hicks and Radford then discuss Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s in-law Karlie Kloss, the supermodel, tweeting that Trump’s response to the election was anti-American.

“Unreal,” Radford texted.

The committee also released call logs from the days leading up to January 6, 2021 painting a fuller picture of who the former president was speaking to as he and his allies were plotting for him to stay in office, the first time the panel is releasing White House call logs in their entirety.

The logs have been crucial to the panel’s investigation in piecing together a timeline of events. While the log for January 6 has a seven-hour gap, the committee has gone to great lengths to fill in that part of the timeline through witness interviews and other records.

The day before the US Capitol attack, Trump spoke to then-Vice President Mike Pence. After that conversation, Trump spoke with Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who helped fuel Trump’s election lies in the state, and then the switchboard operator left a note “that Senator Douglas Mastriano will be calling in for the Vice President.”

Trump also talked to a number of members of Congress on January 5, including Sens. Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Trump and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri tried calling each other many times but could not connect. Trump also spoke with John Eastman, who helped Trump create the fake elector scheme that day.

The January 2 call log shows what happened in the immediate aftermath of the infamous hour-long call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger when Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” votes for him to win the state. Once the call with Raffensperger wrapped, Trump had a zoom with his then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani and spoke on the phone with his Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and later Steve Bannon.

On January 3, Trump had multiple calls with former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark and GOP Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, as the former President tried and ultimately failed to install Clark as the acting head of DOJ. The call logs reflect a flurry of calls with DOJ officials, including then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and his deputy Richard Donoghue.

At 4:22 p.m. ET that day, Clark is listed as acting attorney general, but earlier in the day he was not.

This story has been updated with additional developments Monday.

CNN
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Three people were killed, and two others injured after a scaffolding collapse at a construction site in Charlotte, North Carolina, Monday, according to tweets from Charlotte Fire Rescue.

“Currently Charlotte Fire is securing the area,” in the 700 block of East Morehead Street said the agency. “A family reunification area has been established,” said the tweet.

The two injured people were transported to Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center “with minor injuries,” a spokesperson for Mecklenburg County Emergency Medical Services Agency said.

It’s unclear what led to the accident at this time.

This is a developing story and will be updated.