Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) delivered an emotional speech about his disability to commemorate the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Mr Fetterman spoke via video message in his signature Carhartt shirt at the American Association of People with Disabilities’ celebration of the landmark law that passed in 1990 with overwhelming bipartisan support. During his campaign for Senate last year, Mr Fetterman suffered a stroke which affected his auditory processing. As a result, he now uses speech-to-text technology. “The reality is that all Americans should be able to get access to the support that they need,” he said. “The Americans with Disabilities Act makes this possible.” In February, Mr Fetterman checked into Walter Reed Medical Center to undergo treatment for depression. He checked out at the end of March and has since returned to the United States Senate. “I want to thank your community for the work that you have done to make sure people with disabilities can run for and win office,” he said. Mr Fetterman appeared at the celebration with other elected officials including Sen Tammy Duckworth (D-IL); Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the former House majority whip; and Rep Debbie Dingell (D-MI). Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also attended. “Now that I’m a senator, I’m going to continue to fight for disability rights in DC,” Mr Fetterman said. But many of the people at the event also highlighted the work that needed to be done to make places more accessible. Ms Duckworth, who lost both of her legs serving in the Iraq War, talked about how she took her two daughters to see the Barbie movie but could not go because the elevator did not work. “And so my two girls watched a movie with their nanny with me sitting outside for two and a half hours waiting for them to be done,” Ms Duckworth said, noting how nobody had informed her that the elevator was broken until after she bought a ticket. “It is 2023 folks we can and will and should do better.” She also pointed out how it is still legal to pay people with disabilities below the minimum wage and that medical equipment continues to get broken when people with disabilities travel by air. As a result, she said she is pushing for wheelchairs to be considered complex medical devices so they could not be destroyed. Similarly, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared over the video to discuss how the Transportation Department had begun preliminary work to stay in their wheelchairs as they fly. “And today we’re pleased to officially announce the rule that will increase the size of accessibility of airplane bathrooms to better accommodate access on board,” he said. The anniversary comes after many people who helped pass the ADA such as disability rights Judith Heumann and the late Sen Lowell Weicker, a Republican from Connecticut, and C Boyden Gray, an adviser to former president George HW Bush, passed away earlier this year. Ms Duckworth spoke about how eventually, plenty of people will need to use the accommodations that the ADA guarantees. “I hope one day you develop one because that will mean that you've lived a long life and maybe that you'll care about disabled access,” she said. Read More Back in hoodies and gym shorts, Fetterman tackles Senate life after depression treatment Hunter Biden’s plea deal appears at risk of falling apart. What happens next? Trump wants to see Biden impeached, and other Republicans are quick to pile on House UFO hearing probes claims of physics defying technology

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A GOP senator used a bit of alternative history to paint the Justice Department’s decision to prosecute Donald Trump as improper and politically motivated on Sunday. Ron Johnson was speaking on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures with host Maria Bartiromo when he made the claim that the twice-impeached former Republican president had, in fact, decided against directing the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton, the opponent he famously vowed to “lock up” countless times on the campaign trail. "[President Gerald] Ford decided it was best for America to not pursue prosecution against [President Richard] Nixon. President Trump pretty much made the same decision, decided not to pursue any kind of prosecution of Hillary Clinton,” said Mr Johnson. “Joe Biden could have made the same decision. He didn't,” added the senator. There were a couple of important issues with Mr Johnson’s assertion, however. Number one, Mr Ford did not direct the Justice Department to end a criminal investigation into his predecessor; instead, he pardoned Mr Nixon for any crimes he committed while in office, making a prosecution moot. Mr Trump hardly extended that same gesture to Ms Clinton. In fact, the Department of Justice closed the investigation into the Democratic secretary of State on two separate occasions, both before Mr Trump ever took office. The final end to that probe occurred two days before Mr Trump’s 2016 election victory, after the FBI had made the controversial decision to reopen the investigation with just days to go in the race. Mr Johnson’s apparent assertion that Mr Biden should consider pardoning Mr Trump for crimes he may have committed is the latest in an emerging line of half-hearted defences of the former president by Republicans aligned with the party’s establishment. Others, like Ohio’s new senator, JD Vance, have rejected the idea that any crimes could have been committed at all. Those more forceful arguments align more closely with the former president’s own; Mr Trump has loudly insisted that he is not guilty of the numerous allegations levied against him in the DoJ’s indictment, including witness tampering and violations of the Espionage Act. He also faces a separate set of criminal charges in New York stemming from a scheme to pay hush money to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels. Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case. Read More Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement Lindsey Graham ties himself in knots trying to defend Trump over classified documents indictment ‘It’s making them angrier’: North Carolina Republicans rally around Trump after indictment Trump allies cite Clinton email probe to attack classified records case. There are big differences

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A mother who says she experienced “hell on earth” was among the British tourists forced to flee Rhodes this weekend as fierce wildfires continue to rip through the Greek holiday island. Officials on the island, which sits southwest of Turkey in the Aegean Sea, launched Greece’s biggest-ever evacuation operation as the blaze tore through vast swathes of land, threatening resorts popular with holidaymakers. Tourists were forced to shelter in schools, sports stadiums, airports and alternative hotels as firefighters desperately fought to contain the flames, which officials fear may worsen on Monday as wind speeds more than double on the island. As Britons rushed to book seats on packed flights home after the evacuations, holiday firms including Jet2, the UK’s biggest tour operator, announced they would be cancelling services to Rhodes and would be sending empty planes to bring stranded tourists home. Around 19,000 people in total are reported to have been evacuated from Rhodes, the largest of Greece’s Dodecanese islands, which has a local population of about 115,000. Becky Mulligan, a 29-year-old training manager from Leicester, was staying at the Princess Sun Hotel in the Kiotari resort on Rhodes’s southeast coast when she, her five-year-old daughter, and sister, 20, were forced to quickly pack their bags and flee as the sky turned “orange”. “Smoke started coming up against the window of the hotel so we decided to run,” she told The Independent. “There were helicopters hovering above making the whole building shake. “We ended up legging it down a dirt track as the smoke came up around our legs. I thought I was going to die. It was like hell on earth.” Ms Mulligan and her family were forced to seek refuge on the beach as they waited for coaches to come and pick them up, which she described as the “most scary point”. She said hundreds of people were waiting to be evacuated with grown adults “basically trampling on children to get to the buses”. The trio was then taken to Gennadi Grande resort and from there bussed to another location, where they were forced to spend the Saturday night on the floor of a hotel room. On Sunday morning they managed to escape safely, sharing a taxi with another family to the airport where their flight back to the UK was due to depart after 11pm. Dan Jones, a sports teacher from Torquay, Devon, said he had to climb onto a fishing trawler with his sons on Saturday night, describing it as “the scariest moment in my entire life”, adding: “What brave boys.” Ian Wakefield told Times Radio he spent the night in a school playground in Faliraki after being evacuated from his hotel in Pefki. He said: “It didn’t really feel real – being in imminent danger of being burned to death. Between midnight and around 5am this morning we were going through an evacuation which was pretty chaotic. “There were a lot of upset people and children who were understandably quite hysterical. It was all very confusing – the instructions from the hotel manager were unclear. “You had to make your own choice in the end. I’ve had to leave quite a lot of luggage in the hotel.” As fire crews struggled to contain the blazes and thick black smoke continued billowing into the sky, British holiday firms began cancelling flights to Rhodes, although some planes touched down on the island on Saturday night and early on Sunday morning despite the emergency. Jet2 Holidays cancelled all flights to the island until 30 July and said it would send empty planes to bring stranded Britons home, while Tui said it would cancel all flights and holidays until Tuesday. Thomas Cook later announced it had cancelled all holidays to Kiotari and Lardos – the areas of the island most at risk – until 31 July and would be in touch with customers to arrange “swift refunds”. It has also offered full refunds to customers due to depart for other parts of the island on Sunday and Monday who wish to cancel their trip. But some holidaymakers suggested that operators should have cancelled flights to the island sooner. Lowri Jones from Crymych, Pembrokeshire, Wales, described scenes of “chaos” at Rhodes Airport when she arrived there on Saturday night. The mother of three, 52, travelled to the Greek island with her thirteen year-old-daughter for a holiday. “It was absolute pandemonium at the airport, with long queues of people trying to find out what coach they were,” she told The Independent. “We booked with Tui and there has been very little communication from them. “We had been due to stay at the Atlantica Dreams hotel in Gennadi but were driven - without warning - to a completely different resort in the north of the island due to the wildfires.” She added: “Me and my daughter ended up spending the night on the floor with other people in a room with no air conditioning in sweltering heat - it was horrible. “To be honest, I don’t think we should have even been there in the first place. The flight was delayed because the pilot had to do a risk assessment to see if it was safe to land because of the fires. “Tui should have told us it wasn’t safe and given us a refund - at least that way I could have made a decision about booking somewhere else. Now I’m stranded in Rhodes and having to look at booking flights home.” A spokesperson for Tui said it is continuing to monitor the wildfires and appreciated the “distressing and difficult” situation for its customers. Anyone who remains in Rhodes is urged “follow the advice of the local authorities who are managing tourist movements in impacted areas,” they said. Britain’s ambassador to Greece said the Foreign Office had sent a "rapid deployment team" to help UK tourists who were among thousands forced to flee for their lives on Saturday as the wildfire spread. Read More Holidays and flights to Greek island ravaged by fire cancelled UK airlines still selling tickets to Rhodes despite wildfire inferno Greece: Smoke turns Rhodes sky grey and hazy as wildfires continue to rage CLIMATE GLIMPSE: Here's what you need to see and know today Jet2 and Tui scrap Rhodes flights as tourists fleeing island describe ‘hell on earth’ Decision not to refund Rhodes tourists would be ‘unconscionable’, charity says