right now on "america this morning," abortion rights upheld. results coming in overnight. the decision in red state kansas, the first state to vote on abortion since the supreme court overturned roe v. wade. what happened at the polls is being described as monumental and unheard of. also breaking right now, what house speaker nancy pelosi told the leader of taiwan overnight defying threats from china, which views taiwan as its own territory. pelosi's controversial visit raising tensions, how beijing could respond. castle intruder. what we're learning about the man accused of plotting to attack queen elizabeth with a crossbow making it onto the grounds of windsor castle. the stunning moment caught on camera when a paraglider

loses control plunging to earth after a mishap with his parachute. how he responded. plus -- >> a little roller up along first, behind the bag. >> paying tribute to one of the greatest voices in all of sports. and later, cashing in, the stock that is up more than 20,000% in the last two weeks. good wednesday morning, everyone. we begin with the breaking news overnight. the first vote on abortion since the supreme court's historic ruling on roe v. wade. >> voters in conservative kansas have decided to preserve abortion rights in their state. the decision was largely driven by high turnout in the suburbs. 53% in one county near kansas city. turnout that "the kansas city star" describes as nearly unheard of in a primary election. elsewhere, election results from michigan to missouri are revealing former president trump's power within the republican party.

abc's ike ejiochi is here with the very latest beginning with the results from kansas. ike, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, mona. that's right. it's the first vote on abortion since the supreme court struck down roe versus wade and the voters there made their decisions heard loud and clear. [ cheers ] this morning, abortion rights advocates are celebrating after voters in red state kansas rejected an amendment that would have removed the right to an abortion from the state's constitution. >> the level of work and effort that so many people put in to making sure that kansas doesn't have to worry about one of these extreme total bans on accessing reproductive health care services, i mean i feel really proud to be a kansan tonight. >> reporter: about 60% of voters were in favor of preserving abortion rights in kansas, a state with 350,000 more registered republicans than democrats. >> for this group those gathered here today, they were shattered

by the news of roe versus wade being overturned weeks ago. today they are celebrating this victory and hope that it sends a message out of the critical midterm elections less than 100 days away. >> reporter: meanwhile, overnight in missouri an expected tight race turned into a blow-out. eric schmitt won the republican nomination for senate preventing a comeback by former governor eric greitens who resigned amid a sex scandal and recently denied abuse claims made by his ex-wife. >> a lot of republicans were very much afraid that he would win, so republicans may have dodged a bullet and kept the senate seat. >> reporter: in michigan the candidate with former president trump's backing won the very crowded republican primary for governor. tudor dixon, a former conservative media host, will now face incumbent governor gretchen whitmer in november. >> this is personal for me. >> reporter: in her victory speech dixon called whitmer the queen of lockdowns and spoke about her own grandmother who died from covid alone in a michigan nursing home. >> so i make this promise tonight, no one in this state

will be locked away from their loved ones ever again. now we have the opportunity to truly hold gretchen whitmer accountable for the pain she's inflicted on each and every one of us during the past four years. >> reporter: some election results were delayed from wayne county, michigan, officials say the results had to be driven to election headquarters because the county never upgraded its modems to 5g, so the results could not be digitally submitted. elsewhere in arizona overnight house speaker rusty bowers was trailing in the state senate primary by a wide margin. he recently told the january 6th committee how he rejected pressure from former president trump to reverse the 2020 election. mona. >> ike, thank you. a major development now overnight from the january 6th investigation, abc news has learned former white house counsel pat cipollone has been subpoenaed by the federal grand jury investigating the capitol attack and other efforts to overturn the 2020 election. sources say cipollone is

expected to negotiate the terms of his appearance like he did with the january 6th committee. that testimony included how he wanted then president trump to do more to end the riot, cipollone may also be able to provide insight on any action trump took to support fake electors. a government watch dog says the pentagon deleted text messages from several trump administration officials after the attack on the capitol. the data was reportedly deleted from the cell phones of former acting defense secretary chris miller, his chief of staff and the former army secretary. the pentagon claims its standard operating procedure to erase or wipe the phones but abc's jonathan karl says the law says otherwise. >> reporter: there is a federal law called the federal records act, which requires federal employees to preserve their communications, which are then stored in the national archives. it is unclear how text messages on government issued cell phones would not be included in that. >> the watchdog says it requested the text messages

within days of the january 6th riot. the other big story this morning, speaker nancy pelosi defying china meeting with the leaders of taiwan overnight and praising the values of self-government, a remark that could further escalate tensions with beijing. this morning, house speaker nancy pelosi meeting with the president of taiwan and key members of its government defying threats from china. >> we have three purposes, one is security, security for our people, global security. two is economics, to spread as much prosperity as possible, and three is governance. >> reporter: pelosi now the highest ranking u.s. official in 25 years to visit taiwan, a self-governing democratic island that is split from china in 1949. but china still claims taiwan as its own and beijing has not ruled out using military force to reclaim the territory. many democrats and republicans supporting pelosi's trip. >> i'm about to use four words

in a row that i haven't used in this way before and those four words are, speaker pelosi was right. >> reporter: the speaker's flight to taiwan was guarded in secrecy, but the internet eventually caught on. millions of people followed pelosi's plane on flight aware, the flight tracking app even crashed at one point from all the people trying to log on. as taiwanese officials welcome pelosi china announced military exercises will take place in the airspace and waters surrounding taiwan. the chinese government calling the speaker's visit a serious violation of the one-china principle. pelosi meanwhile defended her trip writing, in the face of the chinese communist party's accelerating aggression, our congressional delegation's visit should be seen as an unequivocal statement that america stands with taiwan. >> we have built a thriving partnership, grounded in our shared values of self-government and self-determination. >> reporter: at the white house, spokesman john kirby urged china not to turn the visit into a crisis. >> we've been very clear that nothing has changed about our

one-china policy. we've said we do not support taiwan independence. >> reporter: pelosi's plane to taiwan reportedly took a three-hour detour to avoid any potential military conflicts. russian president vladimir putin's rumored girlfriend has been targeted in the latest round of u.s. sanctions. the treasury department froze alina kabaeva's visa along with any property she may own in the u.s. the 39-year-old is a former gymnast who now heads a media company. she's reportedly the mother of several of putin's children. the man accused of plotting to attack queen elizabeth with a crossbow makes his first court appearance today. investigators say the 22-year-old suspect posted messages on social media threatening the queen's life before he allegedly broke onto the grounds of windsor castle and is now charged with treason. authorities say he was carrying a crossbow when they arrested him at the queen's residence but say she was never in danger. extreme heat in the forecast today. it is adding to the misery in eastern kentucky. dozens of people are still missing after the historic

floods last week and thousands have no electricity or running water. abc's eva pilgrim says the situation is becoming more dsperate by the day. >> reporter: most of the people i talked to tell me they don't have flood insurance. most of these areas were not in flood zones and you can see the damage, the homes completely destroyed. everything they had gone. rebuilding is going to be hard. >> 37 people are confirmed dead, but that number is expected to rise. time now for a look at your wednesday weather. this hail the size of grapefruit caused major damage in alberta, canada. video from inside a car shows it pelting down and passengers were ducking as chunks of hail broke their windows. back here in the u.s., the radar shows rain developing in the southwest where flooding is possible today. storms also expected in louisiana and florida. and looking at today's high temperatures, triple digits in phoenix and dallas.

cooler in the northwest. seattle only reaches the 70s and 80s for new york and boston. 90 in miami. coming up, the solar flare that nasa is predicting today. also ahead, caught on camera, a paraglider plunging to earth after a problem with his parachute. what he did next. and why the company behind

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back now with a stunning new image from the james webb telescope. scientists call it the cartwheel galaxy. it's 500 million light-years away. it formed after a collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller star system. solar power of a different type may cause problems here on earth today.

a recent explosion on the sun's surface sent a solar flare our way. there is a chance the debris could cause power grid and satellite problems including issues with gps systems. we turn now to one paraglider's near-death experience high in the sky. a mishap sent him plunging to earth with his parachute tangled up and the ground fast approaching. abc's andrea fujii shows us. >> reporter: this morning a paraglider narrowly misses crashing into the ground, and it's all caught on camera. >> oh, my god. >> reporter: kevin phillips was performing an acro paragliding trick in spain thousands of feet in the air when he says he got hit by strong turbulence. his helmet camera shows him violently twist, tangling his chute and trapping his left hand, all while free-falling to earth. >> it got tangled and wrapped up like this. >> reporter: but through all the cords and with just seconds to impact, he manages to find the emergency chute.

>> i was lucky actually to find my second rescue, which i could deploy like with my bare hands just ripping it kind of out of the package. >> reporter: falling to the ground unharmed crying out in relief. >> oh, my god. >> reporter: the 34-year-old says he always does safety checks beforehand, and everything looked okay before takeoff. he says he's grateful he was able to think clearly under pressure. >> in the moment i was really surprised that i still was calm. i just wanted or i just needed to function, so i had not enough time to really freak out or to scream. >> reporter: he posted the video on social media already seen more than a million times writing, very last chance was to manually open the rescue package. estimated time left, about one second. this was not the day to die. this is not his first near-death experience. five years ago he crashed while paragliding and hurt his back, an accident that basically paralyzed him for three months, but he says mishaps will not keep him grounded. his next stop, the swiss championship. >> i'm fully motivated, and i

hope i can show what i've learned. >> reporter: kevin phillips said his mother had never seen him paraglide until that day, and knowing she was watching made him fight even harder to stay alive. mona, andrew. >> andrea, thank you. the parent company of t.j. maxx, marshalls and homegoods has agreed to pay a $13 million fine for knowingly selling recalled products. federal officials say most of the items in question were infant products. they include the fisher-price rock 'n play and other sleepers. coming up, the top democrat now claiming president biden won't run for re-election. but first the store owner who refused to be robbed. covid-19. some people get it, and some people can get it bad. and for those who do get it bad, it may be because they have a high-risk factor - such as heart disease, diabetes, being overweight, asthma, or smoking. even if symptoms feel mild, these factors can increase your risk of covid-19 turning severe.

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night that she does not think biden will run for re-election. >> ms. maloney. >> i don't believe he's running for re-election. >> biden has said he does plan to run again in 2024. we turn now to the defamation case against radio host and conspiracy theorist alex jones. parents of children killed in the sandy hook elementary school massacre in connecticut are describing in detail how his false claims about the shooting have made their lives a nightmare. >> i was blessed with 6 1/2 years. >> reporter: emotional testimony from neil heslin, the father of 6-year-old jesse lewis, who was killed in the massacre at sandy hook elementary in connecticut in 2012. >> i cherish those days, those years. >> reporter: heslin and jesse's mother, scarlett lewis, are one of several families that have already successfully sued "infowars" host alex jones for defamation after jones claimed the sandy hook shooting was a hoax and claimed the victims' parents were actors.

>> sandy hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors. >> reporter: now heslin and lewis are in court seeking $150 million in damages from jones, telling a jury that jones and the conspiracy theorists he enabled made their lives miserable. >> i can't even describe the last 9 1/2 years of the living hell that i and others have had to endure because of the negligence and the recklessness of alex jones. >> reporter: heslin says his family has received death threats with people even firing shots at his home. >> my home was shot up, vehicles were shot up in my yard. >> reporter: jones was not in court when heslin testified. heslin calling him a coward for not showing up. instead, jones was on his radio show saying likeody on the spectrum. r: jon in court later when jesse's mother took the stand. jones said his words were

protected under the first amendment and claims he was simply asking questions. >> i never intentionally tried to hurt you. the internet had a lot of questions. i had questions. >> jones faces more cross-examination today. the families claim he's using bankruptcy laws to shield his money. coming up, the stock that's up more than 20,000% in just the last two weeks. also ahead, paying tribute to legendary baseball announcer vin scully. who do you think you are? canceling plans, commanding a room, being your own biggest fan. who said you could do that? say no to settling, no to compromising. yes to getting all of the above. who? no, really. tell us. who do you think you are? oh, you're you. and tj maxx is where you can afford to be you to the maxx. when you find your reason to go on. let it pull you.

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moving forward, finding solutions, this is abc 7 news. reggie: cool losers overnight. fences going up as people who are homeless are forced from camps. a controversial plan to replace the park with housing moving forward. [indiscernible] kumasi: a san francisco school board meeting ends up in fighting. the special vote over a board members resist comments that had the community divided. reggie: water conservation report. a look at how the area is doing compared to the rest of the state. kumasi: it is wednesday, august 3. reggie: we will start with a check of the weather withdrew. drew: we have coastal cloud cover and high clouds. the humidity sticks with us today. live doppler 7, six mile visibility at the bay. we are doing just fine when it comes to the fog. temperatures right now, slightly cooler this time compared to yesterday. we