Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Reuters
The bombshell testimony
of Stormy Daniels
in Donald Trump
’s election interference case was certainly dramatic, but other events that took place may mean we are closer than ever to the former president facing the prospect of jail time.
It was the statements made by one of Trump’s lawyers that could land him an evening on Rikers Island, and also potentially get that attorney in ethical trouble herself.
The coverage of the trial focused mostly on Stephanie Clifford’s (aka Stormy Daniels’) testimony, including quite specific allegations related to her supposed interactions with the former president.
One person was killed on Wednesday after a tree fell on a vehicle in Tennessee. Severe storms were expected over an expansive area including Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is seriously considering bringing the failed bipartisan border deal back to the floor for a vote later this month
Instead of using $18 million in pandemic relief funds from the federal government to pay for a new public health building, Kane County is looking to use the funds mainly to improve and maintain current facilities.
The federal funds were provided to the county through the American Rescue Plan Act, which is commonly called ARPA. Kane County must give back to the federal government any of the funds it has not committed for a specific project by the end of this year, so the Kane County ARPA Committee is rushing to get eligible projects approved.
In total, Kane County has $19 million in ARPA funds left to allocate. The majority of that money, $18 million, was previously being considered to help fund the controversial public health building project that the Kane County Board voted down in late March
.
At a meeting on April 24, ARPA Committee members recommended spending almost $15 million on 12 projects, which included the renovation of the heating, ventilation and cooling system in the county’s two jail towers, projected to cost over $7 million, and the replacement of the chillers in the county’s judicial center, projected to cost $2 million.
The 12 projects also passed the Kane County Executive Committee by a single unanimous vote without any discussion at its meeting on Thursday. Now, those projects will go before the full Kane County Board for final approval.
The rest of the federal funds given to the county through ARPA, roughly $4 million, is set to be assigned to projects at the May meeting of the ARPA Committee, according to a presentation given by Jarett Sanchez, committee chair and District 24 Kane County Board member, at the committee’s April 24 meeting.
The goal, he said, is for all of the county’s ARPA funds to be assigned to projects by the APRA Committee in May, and for all of those projects to be approved by the Kane County Board in June.
Sanchez said he doesn’t like being rushed to approve projects, but that the discussion around the new public health building project took longer than anyone expected.
“We really are under crunch time,” he said at the April 24 meeting of the ARPA Committee.
If the projects are approved by the Kane County Board, there are still a number of steps that would need to be taken before the funds are legally considered to be “obligated” by the federal government, which all need to happen by the end of the year to prevent the federal government from taking the funds back, according to Sanchez.
He said that many of the projects that were approved by the APRA Committee in April were being considered as “backups” if the public health building project was not approved, so they went through months of planning and are not just being thrown out as a last resort.
ARPA has strict requirements for which projects and programs the funds are allowed to support, and Sanchez said the proposed projects are all allowed under current federal guidance.
Kane County was already planning to do many of the projects in its five-year capital improvement plan, according to Kane County Executive Director of IT and Buildings Management Roger Fahnestock.
He said county staff was originally planning to fund these projects through the county’s general fund, but since ARPA funds are available, it makes more sense to use those federal funds and save local dollars.
Two such projects are the $7 million HVAC replacement project in the county’s two jail towers and a $1.44 million HVAC replacement project in the sheriff’s office, Fahnestock said.
The Kane County Board voted in late February
to start those projects by hiring an engineering firm to redesign the HVAC system in the jail and sheriff’s office.
Similar projects that are being considered for ARPA money include HVAC replacements in other law enforcement buildings like the shooting range, hot water improvements for the jail and HVAC replacements in the Kane County Health Department building in Aurora.
However, one project assigned ARPA funds at the April meeting was not about facility improvements. The ARPA Committee assigned over $850,000 to the county’s proposed Food and Farm Resiliency Project, which could offer grants of between $10,000 and $25,000 to local farmers.
“We’ve got such a great opportunity in the western part of Kane County to be leaders in local food, so this kind of project and expenditure really helps move us in that direction,” Sanchez said.
According to the meeting’s agenda, the proposed project would provide grants for food-growing farms in Kane County to help cover the cost of operating expenses, freeing up funds for farmers to more easily make long-term investments in farm infrastructure and business growth.
The proposed project would address the unmet needs of farmers negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and make farms more resilient to future supply chain disruptions, the agenda said.
The Food and Drug Administration is preparing in case the current strain of avian flu circulating in the U.S. jumps to humans on a large scale, the agency’s commissioner told senators Wednesday.
FDA Commissioner Robert Califf told the Senate Appropriations Committee that while the threat to humans is low and milk products are safe, the FDA and other agencies are working to scale up medical countermeasures.
“So we got to have testing. Gotta have antivirals, and we need to have a vaccine ready to go. So we’ve been busy, getting prepared for if the virus does mutate in a way that jumps into humans on a larger level,” Califf said.
Califf said there’s a possibility that the H5N1 influenza virus could jump to humans and infect the lungs.
“That would make it perhaps transmissible through the airways, which would be really bad,” he said.
Califf stressed the public health risk is low, but the agency doesn’t want to be caught flat footed. The mortality rate for cattle is less than 1 percent, and the virus has so far caused mostly mild illness.
But it could be spreading asymptomatically, and Califf said dairy farmers and workers need to be protected with personal protective equipment (PPE). The use of PPE is routine in the poultry industry, but it’s new for the cattle industry, and Califf said he recognizes implementation will take time.
“If we institute the countermeasures now and reduce the spread of the virus now, then we’re much less likely to see a mutation that jumps to humans for which we’re ill-prepared,” Califf said.
The current bird flu strain has infected 36 dairy cattle herds across 9 states; Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota and Texas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There’s been just one documented case of human infection to date, which was found in a farmworker in Texas. His only symptom was conjunctivitis, from which he recovered.
Califf said the FDA is confident that vaccine production can be scaled up if needed, and the existing mRNA platforms can be deployed to match new strains.
“We’re in an enviable position compared to any time in the history of the world,” Califf said. “Viruses are relatively simple, so coming up with a matching vaccine is entirely possible in a short period of time.”
But, he added, “we’ve got to have the funding to keep the source warm.”
