News Wrap: Hurricane Beryl takes aim at Jamaica, Cayman Islands and Haiti

Amna Nawaz:

Hurricane Beryl is taking aim at Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Haiti after leaving a trail of destruction in the Southeast Caribbean, including Grenada.

The storm has killed at least six people in the region. In Barbados, high waters lapped against the shoreline as strong winds whipped through the trees. Beryl's strength has weakened from a Category 5 to a Category 4 storm during the day, but officials say it could still devastate island nations with life-threatening winds and storm surge.

The Biden administration today proposed a new rule to protect U.S. workers from the dangers of excessive heat exposure on the job. It could be the first federal heat safety standard of its kind. President Biden said during a visit to Washington, D.C.'s Emergency Operations Center that the measure will save lives.

Joe Biden, President of the United States: Across the country, workers suffer heat stroke or even die just doing their jobs. This new rule will substantially reduce heat injuries, illnesses and deaths for over 36 million workers to whom it will apply, from farmworkers to construction workers, postal workers, manufacturing workers and so much more.

Amna Nawaz:

Among the proposed requirements, employers with workers routinely exposed to a heat index above 80 degrees must establish a heat injury and illness prevention plan. They must also offer rest breaks and access to shade and water for workers. And employers who fail to comply would face steep penalties. The White House says it will convene a summit on extreme heat later this summer.

The judge in Donald Trump's New York hush money case has pushed his sentencing until September 18 at the earliest. It was originally set for July 11. Judge Juan Merchan delayed to consider the possible impact of Monday's Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity. In May, Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. He has denied any wrongdoing.

A Manhattan appeals court has disbarred former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for repeating Donald Trump's lies about fraud in the 2020 election. The court wrote that the former federal prosecutor and Trump lawyer — quote — "repeatedly and intentionally made false statements" that — quote — "baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country's electoral process."

Giuliani claimed he didn't know the statements he'd been making were not true.

One day after closing out a momentous term, the Supreme Court announced several high-profile cases it will hear in the fall, one challenging the Food and Drug Administration's ban on marketing flavored e-cigarette products, another appealing a Texas law requiring that pornographic Web sites verify a user's age.

But the court declined to hear a challenge to an Illinois ban on certain semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines, a case that could have impacted more than a dozen state laws.

Officials in Northern India say a stampede at a religious event has killed more than 100 people, including many women and children. Local media said some 15,000 attendees of a Hindu gathering were trying to leave a tent meant to hold just 5,000 people. Relatives of the victims wept outside a nearby trauma center, and survivors spoke of the carnage that they saw.

Shakuntala Devi, Survivor (through interpreter):

People started falling one upon another, one upon another. Those who were crushed died. People there pulled them out.

Suresh, Survivor (through interpreter):

I came to attend the event with eight other people. None of them survived.

Amna Nawaz:

Authorities say heat and the lack of air inside the tent could have contributed to the disaster.

The United Nations says that gang violence in Haiti has displaced 300,000 children in just the last four months. That's more than half of the nearly 580,000 people overall made homeless in the ongoing fighting.

UNICEF says many kids are living in makeshift shelters, with some forced to join violent gangs just to survive. Those gangs now control about 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says the U.S. will send an additional $2.3 billion in security aid to Ukraine as he welcomed his Ukrainian counterpart to the Pentagon this morning. Ahead of closed-door meetings, Austin reiterated the Biden administration's unwavering support for Ukraine's defense against Russia.

Lloyd Austin, U.S. Secretary of Defense: We will continue to provide the critical capabilities that Ukraine needs to push back Russian aggression today and to deter Russian aggression tomorrow. This package under presidential drawdown authority will provide more air defense interceptors, anti-tank weapons and other critical munitions from U.S. inventories.

Amna Nawaz:

Meantime in Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hosted Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban for his first visit since Russia's 2022 invasion. Orban has long criticized and even hindered the West's military support for Ukraine. He urged Zelenskyy to consider a cease-fire to accelerate peace talks.

And Wall Street ended higher after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell noted some progress on inflation. The Dow Jones industrial average added 162 points, the Nasdaq closed at a new record, gaining nearly 150 points, and the S&P topped 5500 for the first time ever.