News Wrap: Tornado hits upstate New York community

In our news wrap Wednesday, upstate New York is cleaning up after a tornado ripped through Oneida County, prosecutors formally appealed a federal judge’s ruling to toss out Donald Trump’s classified documents case, an Israeli delegation touched down in Cairo where international mediators are trying to push forward a cease-fire deal with Hamas and Russia and Ukraine completed a prisoner swap.

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Stephanie Sy: Yes, Amna and Geoff, Arkansas is the latest state to deal with extreme flooding. Nearly 11 inches of rain turned backyards into ponds and sent water rushing through streets and parts of
Marion County.

Officials said dozens of residents had to leave their houses. At least 80 people were evacuated from a local nursing home, while, in the Northeast, Upstate New York is cleaning up after a tornado ripped through Oneida County.

Governor Kathy Hochul said her flight to the area gave her a bird’s-eye view of the damage.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY): You cannot imagine the impact of seeing from the sky how vast the destruction is, when you see entire swathes of trees just collapsed like they were toothpicks.

Stephanie Sy: Meanwhile, across the U.S., hundreds of thousands are still without power after a series of storms without outages spanning from Texas in the South through Illinois and up to New York in the Northeast.

Prosecutors have formally appealed of federal judges ruling to toss out Donald Trump’s classified documents case. On Monday, district Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that special counsel Jack Smith had been unlawfully appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. Cannon’s decision went against decades of precedent by other federal courts that upheld such appointments.

The decision was the latest legal victory for the Trump camp following the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this month that gave broad immunity to presidents while in office. This appeal could result in months of legal wranglings, meaning any outcome would come well after November’s presidential election.

In the Middle East, an Israeli delegation touched down in Cairo, Egypt, today, where international mediators are trying to push forward a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas. Talks resumed as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced criticism from opposition lawmakers in Jerusalem for his management of the war.

But he insisted today that Hamas will only bow to heavy pressure.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister (through interpreter): We are making progress in achieving the war goals, freeing hostages, eliminating Hamas, and ensuring Gaza will not be able to pose another threat to Israel, thanks to combining military and political pressure. And I can tell you unambiguously that Hamas is indeed under pressure. The more we persist with the pressure, the more they will give up.

Stephanie Sy: Also today, Israel released 13 Palestinians who had been detained for several weeks. That’s according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. Some wept when they reunited with loved ones. Others described brutal beatings and showed signs of bruising, though those claims have not been independently verified.

Commemorations have taken place to mark 10 years since the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. In the Netherlands, relatives of passengers and crew gathered at a memorial close to Schiphol Airport, where the doomed flight departed on July 17, 2014. More than half of those on board were Dutch.

Another memorial event was held near the crash site in the Donetsk region of Ukraine; 298 people were killed when the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by a missile fired from territory held by pro-Russian rebels. Russia has denied any involvement.

Russia and Ukraine have completed their latest prisoner swap, exchanging 95 captives each. Patriotic cheers rang out from the Ukrainians as they celebrated their newfound freedom. Video released today showed soldiers exiting a transport bus looking gaunt, but relieved. For its part, Russia released footage of their soldiers, some looking weary and making calls to home.

This was the first such prisoner swap in three weeks and the 54th since Russia’s invasion in 2022.

In France, the mayor of Paris today took a dip in the Seine River to prove it’s clean and ready for the Olympic Games. With a crowd cheering on, Anne Hidalgo fulfilled a promise to show the waterway is suitable for hosting open water swimming competitions.

Since 2015, officials have spent more than a billion dollars to clean up the Seine. Swimming there has been banned for over a century. The Paris Olympics kick off July 26.

A pair of FX shows lead the pack in this year’s prime-time Emmy nominations. “Shogun” came out on top with 25 nominations. The 17th century Japanese drama earned nods for best drama series, best actress and best actor. “The Bear,” also an FX hit, set a new record for comedies with 23 nominations. Its star, Jeremy Allen White, will try for a repeat win in the best actor category.

Ayo Edebiri will compete for best actress after winning in a best supporting role last year. This year’s nominations come just six months after the industry held its last Emmy ceremony, which had been delayed due to the writer’s strike.

On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed as a drop in big tech stocks weighed on markets. The Dow Jones industrial gained more than 200 points to close well above 41000, but the Nasdaq posted its worst day since 2022, dropping more than 500 points. The S&P 500 also ended sharply lower.

And a dinosaur in New York has crushed prior records for archaeological auctions. An unidentified buyer paid $45 million for this 27-foot-long stegosaurus skeleton known as Apex. That’s about 10 times the original estimate set out by auction house Sotheby’s.

The spiked creature roamed the Earth more than 160 million years ago. It was excavated last year in Colorado. Sotheby’s had billed it as the finest stegosaurus fossil ever to come to auction.