Death toll rises

Fear that the fighting will spread

By Pamela Brown, Jeremy Herb and Shoshana Dubnow | CNN

Washington — Melania Trump has barely been seen on the campaign trail this 12 months. During one in all her few appearances at a political event, she received a six-figure paycheck – a highly unusual move for the wife of a candidate.

The former first lady spoke at two Log Cabin Republicans political fundraisers this 12 months and received $237,500 for an event in April, in keeping with former President Donald Trump's most up-to-date disclosure statement. The payment was listed as a “speaking engagement.”

RELATED: Kimberly Guilfoyle could leave Don Trump Jr. over a 'flirtation' if Trump loses, political experts predict

Trump's most up-to-date disclosure form said Melania Trump was paid for the April fundraiser by the Log Cabin Republicans. But who actually wrote the check is a mystery: Log Cabin Republicans chairman Charles Moran told CNN earlier this month that the group didn’t raise the cash for Melania's speech, and the disclosure form didn’t provide any further information concerning the source of the payment.

Before the opposite fundraiser in July for the conservative LGBTQ group, an individual accustomed to the campaign said at the very least one request was made to a donor for the same payment. It is unclear whether Melania Trump was ultimately paid. The campaign has not released financial disclosures for that period. The source told CNN that Ric Grenell, former ambassador to Germany and a Trump ally, was the one who made the request on Melania Trump's behalf. Sources say Grenell has also helped the previous first lady with other business ventures.

Campaign finance and government ethics experts say that a payment to a presidential candidate's spouse to attend political fundraising events through the campaign is unusual and ethically questionable and may at the very least be properly noted on disclosure forms.

“It seems pretty self-serving. In my own general observation, I'm not used to seeing this kind of thing,” said Virginia Canter, chief ethicist at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.

If the organization didn’t, in truth, make the payment to Melania Trump, the previous president's financial disclosure statement may violate ethics rules since it must have listed the sponsor who paid Melania Trump, not only the situation where she spoke, Canter said.

“You could state that the payment was for a speaking appearance by the Log Cabin Republicans, but you also have to state who the source of the payment was, otherwise you can't assess the conflicts of interest and it wouldn't be compliant,” she said. “It should have been properly reported so that the source of income for the fee is listed.”

Sources supporting Melania Trump, who attended the Log Cabin Republican events and was unaware that she was paid for at the very least one in all them, defended her, saying it was her right to come to a decision how she spent her time and to be paid for it. One person near Melania Trump said she had decided that “my best and highest use is where I am,” adding that “she is a priceless, timeless asset” to Donald Trump.

A spokesman for Melania Trump declined to comment on CNN's questions.

Records show Melania Trump also received $250,000 for a Log Cabin Republicans event in December 2022, one in all three payments of $250,000 or more she received that month for speeches, shortly after the previous president announced his candidacy for reelection, in keeping with Donald Trump's financial disclosure form from last 12 months. One of the events was in Florida, the opposite was for a California group, Fix California, founded by Grenell. Grenell didn’t reply to multiple requests for comment.

The former First Lady was also $155,000 paid by a Trump-aligned Super PAC – called “Make America Great Again, Again” – for a speech she gave in Palm Beach, Florida, in December 2021, before Trump was a candidate.

She has performed at Log Cabin Republican events prior to now – in 2021 she was also the Guest of honour on the group's annual Spirit of Lincoln Gala.

The fundraising appearances also underline how Melania Trumpfrugal within the election campaign this 12 months. In addition to the 2 appearances at Log Cabin Republican, she and her husband performed at aFundraiser by billionaire and investor John Paulson in Palm Beach and she or he made a temporary appearance on the Republican National Convention, but didn’t give a speech there as she did in 2016. There is not any indication that she was paid for her appearance at Paulson's fundraiser.

“She was so disconnected and so absent from this campaign that I could hear her saying, 'If I put in my time, I'm going to get paid,'” said Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary under Trump and top adviser to Melania Trump who has develop into a critic of the previous president. “Even when we were in the White House, she was always so worried about people making money off her because she felt it was money she should be making.”

Grisham said that in her stay on the White House in 2018, Melania Trump instructed her staff to instruct a present shop near the White House to stop selling Melania Trump memorabilia, comparable to bobbleheads, without permission.

“She was outraged. She didn't like that they were making money off her,” Grisham said.

Donald Trump's financial disclosures also show that the previous first lady earned greater than $330,000 last 12 months for a licensing deal to sell digital trading cards (NFTs). She sells jewelry and other collectibles on her website.

In addition, the previous First Lady will publish her memoirs next month and embark on a promotional tour separate from the campaign. In a Series of short videos While promoting her book, On X, she made rare comments concerning the attempted assassination of her husband in Butler, Pennsylvania, the 2020 election results and her past as a nude model.

Melania Trump is just not the one member of the Trump family to receives a commission within the political highlight. Kimberly Guilfoyle received a lecture fee of 60,000 US dollars for introducing her fiancé, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., on the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, 2021, before the rebellion on the U.S. Capitol. Her speech lasted lower than three minutes.

Speaking and appearance fees for events outside of political fundraising campaigns for former government officials aren’t unusual.

Former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady Hillary Clinton collected greater than $153 million for paid speechesfrom 2001 until the previous Secretary of State launched her 2016 presidential campaign. Former President Barack Obama reportedly earned $400,000 from a single speech at a Wall Street healthcare conference in 2017. Attract criticism by members of his own party on the time. And within the two years after he left the vice presidency and before he began his presidential campaign, Joe and Jill Biden made a total of 15.6 million US dollarsmainly through book contracts and speaking engagements.

But representatives of Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Bill Clinton said they’d not received any money for fundraising appearances during a political campaign.

The president's son, Hunter Biden, got here under scrutiny for selling $85,000 price of artwork each at a Manhattan art gallery last springwhile his father was running for re-election.

By all accounts, the Log Cabin Republicans' fundraising efforts have been successful this 12 months, with Grenell posting on X in July that the previous first lady “opened her New York penthouse tonight to raise money for the group.”

“It's the first campaign rally ever held at the Trump residence,” he wrote. “And we raised $1.4 million in one night. Our goal is to win 50% of the gay vote for Donald Trump.”

At the April event at Mar-a-Lago where Melania Trump spoke, the organization launched its “Road to Victory” program to achieve voters in swing states, in keeping with Politico.

CNN's Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.

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HERCULES — Facing an uncertain economic future, officials with the Rodeo-Hercules Fire District have begun pursuing incorporation with the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, but not all residents are sold on the thought.

At two recent town hall meetings to deal with the difficulty, officials warned that RHFD's long-term financial health doesn’t look good: Expenses are expected to exceed revenues inside the subsequent decade and the district may have to make up hundreds of thousands in unfunded pension liabilities.

Four options are being considered: maintaining the establishment while cutting services, securing additional funding, outsourcing services or annexation, RHFD Fire Chief Rebecca Ramirez, ConFire Chief Lewis Broschard and Michael Despain, a former fire chief who advises the district on the difficulty, said on the June town hall meeting.

District residents have been surveyed on these issues over the past few weeks, and the outcomes of that survey will likely be reviewed by the RHFD Board of Directors during a special meeting on July 10. Some participants at each town hall meetings called the survey biased and the leading questions designed to advertise a ConFire takeover.

Of the 4 options available to the district, maintaining the establishment would likely force the department to shut a fireplace station because no additional funding source has been found, Chief Ramirez said. The deeper the district gets into financial trouble, the less likely it’s that an outdoor agency will wish to annex the world.

The district is predicted to generate $10 million to $12.3 million in revenue between 2024 and 2030, while spending $10 million to $13.3 million in the course of the same period, officials said. RHFD has only $7 million in reserves and about $12 million in unfunded pension liabilities.

Even with some revenue increases, akin to a money injection within the event of an economic recovery or the completion of the Hercules Hub – a project that can bring 1,400 housing units, 31,800 square meters of office space and recent multimodal connections to the region – the cash may not be enough to cover costs, Ramirez said.

“There could be an increase in revenue in the coming years. The problem is we don't have years left,” Ramirez said in the course of the first town hall meeting held in Hercules on June 18. “I'm afraid that even if we raise an additional $1.5 million, we wouldn't be able to provide the service that ConFire provides.”

Despain said the choice of outsourcing services is off the table after the county made inquiries and received no interest from other agencies. He noted that outsourcing could be “dangerous” for the agency providing the services because it might be left with employees after the contract ends and no revenue to cover those costs.

That leaves just one likely end result: the dissolution of the Rodeo-Hercules Fire District and its merger with ConFire. The agency has existed since 1937 and was then called the Rodeo Fire District. Hercules was annexed within the late Nineteen Seventies when the population in the town known for its dynamite plant began to blow up. ConFire, the county's largest fire department, provides fire services primarily in Central and East Contra Costa, but in addition has fire stations in West County.

Ramirez said annexation could occur as soon as a yr from now if decisions are made at a gentle pace. During the July 10 meeting, the fireplace district board could ask staff to return with a proposal for annexation to be voted on soon after, and Broschard could bring the same proposal to the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, which has oversight of ConFire.

The Local Agency Formation Commission would then review the proposal, a process that takes between three and 4 months, Ramirez said. If LAFCO approves, a transition process would begin with input from Ramirez and Broschard.

Should incorporation occur, Broschard assured the general public that funds from Measure O, a property tax approved by RHFD voters in 2016 to support the county's two fire stations, would proceed for use for those stations. He said existing ConFire staff will help reduce costs and reserves will likely be used to pay down unfunded liabilities.

“It's important for you to understand that you're still getting the most efficient, fastest and safest first aid, with three firefighters from stations 75 and 76 and one paramedic on each of those fire engine or truck companies. That's our minimum at ConFire,” Broschard said.

Not everyone was convinced. Maureen Brennan and Frank Grimsley, each members of the Measure O Oversight Committee, questioned why the difficulty was not put to voters.

“I don't want to be annexed. I don't think that's necessary. I think our fire district has made a tremendous turnaround since 2016,” Brennan said, adding that she is going to push for the difficulty to be put to a public vote when the board discusses it on July 10.

Former RHFD Fire Chief Pedro Jimenez also raised questions on annexation, and a few speakers called for more data before a final decision might be made. Speakers at each town hall meetings also expressed concerns that Rodeo and Hercules residents could be neglected under ConFire's leadership, since oversight of the district is handled by the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors.

Others, nevertheless, seemed convinced about annexation. Tanya Little, a 32-year-old Hercules resident, said she has been researching and dealing on the difficulty since 2021 and is ultimately convinced that annexation is best for the community.

Sarah Creeley, a teacher at Hanna Ranch Elementary School, said she opposed dissolving the district until she realized what a “broad range of experiences” residents would have in a bigger organization.

RHFD Captain Jonathan Bischoff, who has worked for the agency for 25 years, said nearly all of the district's 16 crew members support the annexation and the extra support it would supply.

“Whether it's Rodeo-Hercules or Contra Costa County Fire Protection, we're still our community. And I want you to know that, because we take this seriously,” Bischoff said. “We use wire and tape, we fake everything. We make it look easy, but it's not. ConFire has one big umbrella and ten more waiting for it if this one breaks.”

Bruins

BEDFORD — It stays to be seen whether the Bruins could have their captain available Tuesday as they fight to stave off elimination against the Florida Panthers.

Before the Bruins departed for South Florida on Monday afternoon, Don Sweeney provided a temporary update on the status of Brad Marchand, who was out for Game 4 with an upper-body injury.

“Brad skated today,” Sweeney said. “He’ll travel with the team, he’s still in the day-to-day and hopefully carries on – boys have got to give him a chance.”

The Marchand sunrise hike is a step in the correct direction. The remainder of his teammates needing to “give him a chance” could signal that the Bruins may have to win Game 5 and return to Boston to offer the 36-year-old winger enough time to be cleared to play.

Marchand was injured in Game 3 of Boston's second-round series against Florida after he was hit within the face in an on-ice collision with Panthers forward Sam Bennett.

No penalties were assessed for the sport, and Bennett also received no additional disciplinary motion from the league following Marchand's injury.

Marchand, who struggled to get back on his skates after his collision with Bennett, played just 10:51 of ice time Friday and didn’t return within the third period of Boston's Game 3 loss.

A brand new camera angle released Sunday night of the collision between Bennett and Marchand in Game 3 provided clear evidence that it was Bennett's strike that sent the Bruins falling forward onto the ice – and never a heavy backward strike.

After Florida's Game 4 win on Sunday, Bennett defended his clash with Marchand.

“Obviously in this game I’m not trying to hit him in the head like everyone says,” Bennett told the NHL on TNT team on Sunday. “Other people may have different opinions. I'm just preparing for him to hit me. There was no way I would have had time to think about hitting him in the head. People can see it however they want.

“It’s playoff hockey. There will be tough games. Of course it’s unfortunate that he got hit, but for me it’s just a hockey game.”

The Bruins travel back to Florida to face the Panthers in Game 5 on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The return of Marchand — who leads Boston in playoff scoring with 10 points in 10 games — would supply a significant boost to a desperate Boston squad.