Possible top Harris VP contender withdraws from consideration
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper is no longer in the running to be Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate this election season.
The governor confirmed the news in a statement on X. The New York Times broke the story on Monday evening, reporting that Cooper informed Harris’ team about his decision to withdraw.
It was originally unclear what caused the decision, but Cooper said in a statement released on Monday evening that it “wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me.”
“I strongly support Vice President Harris’ campaign for President,” Cooper’s statement read. “I know she’s going to win and I was honored to be considered for this role.
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“This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket,” the North Carolina Democrat added. “As I’ve said from the beginning, she has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we’ll all work to make sure she wins.”
Cooper was considered a top contender among Harris’ potential running mates in recent days. After President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Harris began running her campaign, her team sent vetting materials to Cooper, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., were reportedly sent vetting materials as well.
John Locke Foundation senior political analyst Mitch Kokai told Fox News Digital earlier on Monday that the North Carolina governor was considered “a good match” for Harris.
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“Democrats are likely to see Roy Cooper as a good match for Kamala Harris for multiple reasons. First and foremost, Cooper helps bring North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes into play in a way other candidates do not,” Kokai explained.
“He has won six statewide elections since 2000. That’s an impressive accomplishment for a Democrat in a state that has trended right during the same time period.”
The political analyst called Cooper “the Democrats’ brightest star in North Carolina in recent years.”
“Cooper offers a clear demographic contrast to Harris, and he also presents a calm, sober, constrained personality that might help counter some of the criticism Harris has faced about her interactions with interviewers and the public,” Kokai added.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Cooper’s office and the Harris campaign for comment.
Biden calls Speaker Johnson ‘dead on arrival’ in response to SCOTUS radical changes
President Biden called House Speaker Mike Johnson “dead on arrival” during a strange interaction with a reporter on Monday.
The exchange came shortly after Biden called on Congress to impose term limits and a code of conduct on the Supreme Court. In a statement released earlier on Monday, Johnson condemned Biden’s proposal to “radically overhaul the U.S. Supreme Court,” and argued that doing so would “tilt the balance of power” and erode the rule of law.
“This proposal is the logical conclusion to the Biden-Harris Administration and Congressional Democrats’ ongoing efforts to delegitimize the Supreme Court,” the Louisiana Republican argued. “Their calls to expand and pack the Court will soon resume.”
“It is telling that Democrats want to change the system that has guided our nation since its founding simply because they disagree with some of the Court’s recent decisions,” he added. “This dangerous gambit of the Biden-Harris Administration is dead on arrival in the House.”
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When a reporter asked Biden for his response after he arrived in Austin, Texas, on Monday afternoon, Biden gave a garbled response.
“Mr. President, House Speaker Johnson says your Supreme Court reform is ‘dead on arrival.’ What’s your reaction, sir?” a reporter inquired.
“Who said that?” Biden responded.
“Speaker Johnson said it’s ‘dead on arrival,’” the reporter repeated.
The president then responded, “I think that’s what he is.”
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When the journalist asked for clarification, Biden doubled down on his retort.
“That he is – dead on arrival,” he replied.
The president then vowed that he was going to “figure [out] a way,” to get his proposed radical changes to the Supreme Court passed.
Around an hour later, Biden clarified his remarks during a speech and explained that he was referring to Johnson’s thought process.
“The Republican Speaker of the House said, whatever he proposes, [is] dead on arrival,” Biden said to the audience. “I think his thinking is dead on arrival.”
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Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and Johnson’s office for comment.
FBI details new information from interviews with Trump shooter’s family
PITTSBURGH – The FBI told reporters on Monday that would-be presidential assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks had a long-standing “interest in science” and “experiments,” and as a result, his family “wasn’t concerned” about the myriad packages he was receiving at their house.
Crooks, 20, made 25 gun-related purchases online between spring 2023 and the first half of this year and bought materials used to make explosives six times, all with aliases, according to the agency. On July 13, he opened fire at a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, injuring the former president and two others while killing firefighter Corey Comperatore.
“The shooter had a long interest in science and things like this and had been doing experiments and things like that over a period of time,” said Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office. “For that reason, [his family] wasn’t concerned that [the packages] were focused on committing an attack of this nature of harming other people.”
“Anything he was doing was online,” Rojek said. “He wasn’t hoarding ammunition. He wasn’t doing anything that I would say would significantly raise the suspicion of his parents in his home.”
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Rojek said that “the parents have been extremely cooperative from the first night we approached them.”
“The parents have said in their interviews that they had no advanced knowledge of any of this. We do find that to be credible at this stage but pending additional investigation,” Rojek said. “Again, we’re not ruling any possibility out as far as what was in the home.”
The agency’s revelations come as Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, was spotted on Monday leaving a Pittsburgh office building containing two law firms. He declined to answer reporters’ questions about whether his family spotted warning signs before their son attempted to take the former president’s life.
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The FBI said Crooks’ “primary social circle [was] his family.”
“We have identified only a couple people who we would call his friends, and most of those contacts were in fact dated,” Rojek said.
“Even his gaming platforms, we see very little interaction with other individuals, which is obviously outside the norm with what you normally see, particularly in gamers. To date, we have not found anyone that is really close to him in any type of social circle.”
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Rojek said the agency’s behavioral analysis experts believe Crooks was “highly intelligent,” attending college and maintaining steady employment.
“We do still believe that he was a loner as far as his association or any other activities related to his mental state.”
FBI agents said Crooks never sought professional help and was not prescribed medication.
They are continuing to assess Crooks’ social media accounts from different devices.
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Crooks had made online searches related to power plants, mass shooting events, information on improvised explosive devices, U.S. elected officials and the attempted assassination of the Slovakian prime minister earlier this year, agents said.
Socialist president picks fight with Elon Musk after declaring victory in likely rigged election
Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, who skeptics suggest cheated his way to winning the country’s presidential election on Sunday after securing over 50% of the vote, declared war on Tesla, X and Space X CEO Elon Musk, calling him his “arch-enemy.”
“Social media creates a virtual reality, and who controls the virtual reality? Our new archenemy, the famous Elon Musk,” Maduro stated.
“Do you want to fight? Let’s do it. Elon Musk, I’m ready. I’m not afraid of you, Elon Musk. Let’s fight, wherever you want.”
In a video Monday, Maduro was seen holding a cellphone as he declared war on Musk, alleging Musk wants to invade Venezuela with his space rockets.
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Musk shared the video on his social media platform X, saying, “el burro sabe mas que Maduro,” or, “The donkey knows more than Maduro.”
The billionaire also shared a video of people tearing down a billboard image of Maduro.
“The people of Venezuela have had enough of this clown,” Musk wrote.
Musk continued to reply to posts about the likely rigged election, including one suggesting Maduro won the presidential election with 107% of the votes. In his simple reply, Musk left a laughing emoji.
Another post shared by Musk shows a statue of former president Hugo Chávez being torn down; the X CEO wrote, “Adios Dictador Maduro.”
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As to claims Maduro made about Musk invading Venezuela with an army and his space rockets, one user asked if he could confirm or deny the rumor.
“Does he have space lasers? Because I do,” Musk wrote.
Maduro was declared the winner of the country’s presidential election on Sunday after securing more than 50% of the vote, although the opposition contends that the results are not accurate.
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The National Electoral Council said at around midnight that Maduro received 51% of the vote, while the main opposition candidate, Edmundo González, had 44% support, according to The Associated Press.
Elvis Amoroso, head of the National Electoral Council, said the results were based on 80% of voting stations and represented an irreversible trend.
The electoral authority, controlled by Maduro loyalists, did not immediately publish the results from each of the 30,000 polling booths across the country, impeding the opposition’s ability to challenge the results after alleging it only had data for about 30% of the ballot boxes.
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“The Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened,” González said.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claimed González’s margin of victory was “overwhelming.” Machado said the opposition had voting results from about 40% of ballot boxes across the country and that more were expected overnight.
Officials and lawmakers in the U.S. and elsewhere expressed skepticism about the validity of Venezuela’s presidential election results after Maduro was declared the victor.
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Speaking in Tokyo, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. has “serious concerns” about the announced outcome.
Historian who predicted almost every election since 1984 gives take on Trump-Harris matchup
The “Keys to the White House” are currently favoring Vice President Kamala Harris in a hypothetical 2024 matchup against former President Trump, but a final prediction for the 2024 race is yet to be made.
Allan Lichtman, an election forecaster who has correctly predicted nearly every presidential race since 1984, developed a formula that is used to make predictions about an upcoming presidential election – and in most cases, it proves to be right.
Lichtman’s “Keys to the White House” consists of 13 true or false questions that he believes establish a strong indication of who will be named the victor on the fall ballot. Each question is asked about the two dueling nominees; if “true” they are given a “key,” and if “false,” their competitor receives the point. Then, if one party’s candidate receives six or more keys, they are the predicted winner.
At the beginning of the cycle, Democrats were handed one automatic “key” for President Biden’s incumbency – but the ballot has since seen a dramatic shift.
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The “keys” are as follows:
– party mandate
– contest
– incumbency
– third party
– short-term economy
– long-term economy
– policy change,
– social unrest
– scandal
– foreign/military failure
– foreign/military success
– incumbent charisma
– challenger charisma
Democrats, with Harris being the likely nominee, currently hold six of the 13 keys, according to Lichtman’s prediction. These include primary contest, short-term economy, long-term economy, policy change, no scandal, and no challenger charisma.
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Republicans hold three keys: winning the House majority in the 2022 midterms, the current incumbent not seeking re-election, and the current incumbent lacking charisma.
There are still four more keys that have yet to be handed out.
The remaining keys include the third party factor, which Lichtman says is notable given Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s place in the race.
Keys are also still in the air for having “no social unrest,” as well as “foreign military failure” and “foreign military success.”
If Democrats lose three more keys, then they would be the projected “losers,” according to the election prognosticator’s formula.
A final prediction has not yet been made for the 2024 race, but Lichtman told News Nation that he believes “a lot would have to go wrong for Harris to lose.”
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Lichtman correctly predicted Trump would win in 2016, and Biden in 2020. The historian will make his final prediction for this cycle after Democrats choose their nominee at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in August.
Illegal immigrant accused in vicious attack on NYPD cops takes plea deal
One of several illegal immigrants accused of participating in the vicious assault of two New York City police officers in Times Square earlier this year accepted a plea deal in court Monday.
Under the terms of the deal offered by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Darwin Gomez-Izquiel, 19, will serve 364 days in jail.
The other migrants — Yohenry Brito, 24, Ulises Bohorquez, 21 — were offered plea deals to serve a year in jail in exchange for pleading guilty to second-degree assault, the New York Post reports, citing the DA’s office.
Patrick Hendry, president of the New York Police Benevolent Association, said the suspects should be required to serve longer sentences, but that he was glad that Gomez-Izquiel pleaded guilty to a felony.
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“However, the important test will come once his sentence is up,” he said in a statement. “He needs to be deported immediately upon release, without setting another foot on our city streets.”
Hendry noted that several other defendants had a bigger role in the gang assault on officers whose cases are still pending.
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The case stems from the January attack on an NYPD officer and lieutenant who were telling several migrants to move along a street in Times Square. Surveillance footage shows the migrants attacking the cops, punching and kicking them on the ground.
Many were charged with assault and released without bail. One of the suspects — Yorman Reveron, 24 — had two pending cases for assault and robbery.
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The attacks prompted much criticism of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the Biden administration over the influx and release of migrants into the United States.
Fan’s sign catches attention of US women’s basketball stars before beatdown
A Japanese women’s basketball fan brought a Caitlin Clark sign to take a shot at the American team ahead of their Paris Olympics matchup on Monday.
NBC Sports Bay Area reporter Kerith Burke caught Team USA stars A’ja Wilson, Brittney Griner and others pointing at the sign. The Americans were looking to extend their massive international winning streak and take down Japan in a rematch of the 2020 Olympics’ gold medal game.
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“You need Caitlin Clark to beat us,” the sign read.
Team USA didn’t appear to need Caitlin Clark or anyone else to get past Japan. The Americans won the game, 102-76.
Wilson, of the Las Vegas Aces, scored 24 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and had four blocked shots. Breanna Stewart, of the New York Liberty, had 22 points and eight rebounds. Griner, who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, Stewart’s teammate Sabrina Ionescu and Wilson’s teammate Kelsey Plum each had 11 points.
Clark was left off of the Olympic roster when it was selected back in June. She only had a few WNBA games under her belt at the time.
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But as the season churned on, Clark recorded a triple-double and set the single-game record for assists with 19 in separate outings.
Clark’s performance appeared to change Dawn Staley’s thoughts about the rookie.
“As a committee member, you’re charged with putting together the best team of players, the best talent,” Staley said on NBC. “Caitlin is just a rookie in the WNBA, wasn’t playing bad, but wasn’t playing like she’s playing now. If we had to do it all over again, the way that she’s playing, she would be in really high consideration of making the team because she is playing head and shoulders above a lot of people.
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“Shooting the ball extremely well, I mean she is an elite passer, she’s just got a great basketball IQ, and she’s a little more seasoned in the pro game in a couple of months than she was two months ago.”
Gospel group may have suffered ‘dark terror’ in fatal plane crash
Three members of the gospel group, the Nelons, were among seven people killed Friday, July 26, in a plane crash in Wyoming. There were no survivors.
An “autopilot issue during flight” was noted as a cause for concern by the National Transportation Safety Board spokesperson Keith Holloway, who also said that investigators were further evaluating the situation after investigating the crash site.
Prior to the single-engine Pilatus PC-12/47E turboprop airplane crashing, Dr. Alan Diehl, a former NTSB, FAA and U.S. Air Force Crash Investigator, Aviation Psychologist and author of, “Requiem for Camelot,” described to Fox News Digital what the passengers on the fatal flight may have experienced.
“Dark terror. That’s what you usually hear in my novel when I talk about [John F. Kennedy Jr.] falling from the sky,” Diehl shared. “I said it was all over, but the screaming, and that’s based on, you know, he didn’t have a voice recorder on his airplane, but I’m sure that he and his two passengers were just in terror as the plane was falling out of the sky, much like this one.
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“But of course, in this case, you know the actual breakup, we don’t know — the plane may have lost pressurization. And in a way… if the breakup occurred early enough, and they lost pressurization, they may have actually been unconscious or semi-conscious at the last minute or so. And that would be merciful. They would say that was God’s mercy.”
The Nelons co-founder, Kelly Nelon Clark, her husband Jason Clark, and their daughter, Amber Nelon Kistler died in the crash, according to a statement shared by daughter and fourth band member Autumn Nelon Streetman.
“Thank you for the prayers that have been extended already to me, my husband, Jamie, and our soon-to-be-born baby boy, as well as Jason’s parents, Dan and Linda Clark,” she said. “We appreciate your continued prayers, love and support as we navigate the coming days.”
“If the breakup occurred early enough, and they lost pressurization, they may have actually been unconscious or semi-conscious at the last minute or so. And that would be merciful. They would say that was God’s mercy.”
Amber’s husband, Nathan Kistler, their assistant Melodi Hodges, the pilot, Larry Haynie and his wife, Melissa, were also killed in the crash, according to Nelon Streetman.
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Diehl said investigators on the ground will begin a “major effort to try to establish whether that particular autopilot failed.” He added, “Theoretically, you have, whenever something like that fails, you have to tell the FAA about it so that they can start tracking this data.”
He noted that when NTSB investigators arrived on scene, they likely looked to see if the bodies were “in the aircraft” or not, or even if clothes were on their bodies.
“If their clothes were off that means they were thrown out while the airplane was still falling,” he said. “Your clothes, if you’re coming down at two, 300 miles an hour, I don’t care what you’re wearing, unless it’s really tight blue jeans, your clothes get ripped off.”
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Diehl added, “I investigated military accidents and a lot of times the flight suits are even ripped off. They knew they were going to die for a couple of minutes.”
Kathleen Bangs, an aviation safety expert and former airline pilot, told Fox News Digital that the Pilatus PC 12 is an “expensive airplane” which only requires one pilot to operate it. Unfavorable weather activity may have affected the flight, causing the plane to spin out of control.
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“People often ask were people conscious during this,” Bangs said. “And you know, at 26,000 feet the air is quite thin. So there’s always the chance that with the oncoming velocity of the air hitting you at 300 miles an hour, and all of a sudden the temperature is quite cold. The air is quite thin. There is a good chance that if occupants were ejected, that they would lose consciousness.
“There are incidents where people have been conscious all the way down.”
The Atlanta-based Gospel music family was en route to join the Gaither Homecoming Cruise to Alaska when the plane went down, cruise sponsor Gaither Music Group said. Autumn, the family’s youngest daughter, and her husband, Jamie Streetman, were not on the plane and learned of the crash when they arrived safely in Seattle.
“Autumn and Jamie will return home for now to Kelly’s brother, Todd Nelon and his wife, Rhonda, to begin the hard tasks that lie ahead. Please keep them, the Kistler family, the Haynie family and the family of Melodi Hodges in your prayers,” Gaither Music Group said.
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A preliminary report on the crash is expected in about 30 days, while a final report with the probable cause of the crash could take up to two years to complete, Holloway said.
The Nelons were inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 2016 and were winners of 10 GMA Dove Awards, including multiple song of the year and album of the year awards.