(WASHINGTON) — Another high-altitude object was shot down on Sunday afternoon, this one over Lake Huron, three U.S. officials confirmed to ABC News, marking the latest in a string of such incidents.
The object was shot down by a U.S. military aircraft, according to one of the officials.
A senior administration official said President Joe Biden directed that the object be shot down “out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of military leaders.”
This official said the object shot down was detected on radar over Montana on Saturday and was seen again on radar over Wisconsin and Michigan on Sunday.
The object was octagonal in structure, unmanned and traveling at about 20,000 feet, the official said. There is no indication of surveillance capabilities but the administration cannot rule that out.
“The object has been downed by pilots from the US Air Force and National Guard. Great work by all who carried out this mission both in the air and back at headquarters. We’re all interested in exactly what this object was and [its] purpose,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., tweeted.
“As long as these things keep traversing the US and Canada, I’ll continue to ask for Congress to get a full briefing based on our exploitation of the wreckage,” Slotkin wrote.
The downing is the fourth time in recent days that a high-altitude object was shot by the military over U.S. or Canadian territory.
The first incident involved a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that was tracked across the continental U.S. and then shot down off the coast of South Carolina by a U.S. F-22 fighter jet on Feb. 4. That balloon caused bipartisan concern in Washington after it floated across Alaska, Canada and then through the U.S., passing over sensitive military installations, including at least one housing intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The military waited to shoot it over the Atlantic Ocean out of concerns that downing it could risk people on the ground being injured by debris, officials have said. The delay nonetheless sparked criticism from Republicans and some Democrats that President Joe Biden and the Pentagon waited too long to handle the balloon.
Since then, two more objects were shot down before Sunday — one over Alaska and one over Canada — both by U.S. F-22 jets.
The military has not confirmed what kind of objects they were, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday they too were balloons, though smaller than the first one.
Schumer linked them to the Chinese, who initially claimed the first balloon was a civilian craft.
The episodes have only fueled bipartisan calls for more information from the Pentagon over the origin of the subsequent objects and their capabilities, with diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing already ratcheting up over the initial balloon.
One U.S. official attributed the rise in the sightings to boosted surveillance capabilities by the military and not a rush of new foreign objects flying over American airspace.
“Northern Command has adjusted the parameters of their radar capabilities in a way that they can see more than they could before,” the official said.
This official explained that the suspected Chinese spy balloon triggered a new state of vigilance for the U.S. military.
“That’s not to say they were blissfully ignorant before,” the official said, “but there are lots of things floating around and now we are more finely attuned to it.”
(SAN FRANCISCO) — An explosion and fire in a San Francisco residential neighborhood that killed a disabled woman and injured her caregiver and a firefighter was allegedly caused by a clandestine drug lab, according to police.
The blast on Thursday that leveled one home and damaged two others in the city’s Outer Sunset neighborhood led to the arrest of 53-year-old Dorron Price, owner of the home that blew up and whose wife was killed in the incident, the San Francisco Police Department announced Saturday.
Price was arrested on charges of involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment, manufacturing drugs and reckless arson with great bodily injury, police said. He was being held without bail Sunday in the San Francisco County Jail, according to online jail records.
Price was booked at the jail Friday night after authorities found evidence of the home lab used to manufacture Phencyclidine, a drug also known as PCP or “angel dust,” according to police.
At the time of the blast, Price’s wife and her 65-year-old caregiver were inside the house, according to police. The caregiver, who suffered major injuries, was in the basement doing laundry when the explosion erupted, according to a statement she gave police that was obtained by ABC San Francisco station KGO-TV.
The caregiver, whose name was not released, managed to dig her way out of the rubble. She told police Price and his wife have two children, who were at school at the time of the explosion.
It was not clear where Price was at the time of the blast.
The explosion produced a three-alarm fire that damaged two neighboring homes and displaced five families, according to the San Francisco Fire Department. One firefighter was injured fighting the fire, authorities said.
Once the fire was extinguished, a K-9 search team found the body of Price’s deceased wife, according to the fire department.
More than 100 firefighters fought the blaze, the department said.
“We are aware of the numerous calls and reports of an explosion and houses shaking in the area,” said San Francisco Fire Capt. Jonathan Baxter.
The cause of the explosion and fire left some residents in the neighborhood shocked and angry.
“It’s a quiet neighborhood. People are nice. And in the middle of the street, you have this guy who is doing something illegally,” neighbor Karen Lei, whose home was damaged in the explosion, told KGO-TV.
Lei applauded the arrest of Price, saying, “That’s the right thing to do, because he’s very destructive — causing property damages and disrupting people’s lives.”
(FLINT, Mich.) — Residents of Flint, Michigan, are facing yet another issue with the city’s embattled water system.
Flint announced a citywide boil water advisory after a water main broke Friday morning, causing the pressure of the entire city’s system to drop below safe levels.
Crews have been able to locate the damaged 24-inch transmission line and begin repairs, officials said. A public notice said that officials anticipate the repairs, flushing, and necessary testing will continue at least through Monday, meaning the city’s over 80,000 residents will be left boiling filtered water or using bottled water through the weekend.
A Facebook post from the City of Flint described the boil water advisory as a “precaution.”
“We are estimating right now, if everything goes well, by Monday we will be all clear with this,” Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley said at a press conference. “The repair is underway right now.”
The call for bottled water use comes a month after a program that previously provided free bottled water to residents ended, though the city still offers water filters.
Flint officials have not identified the cause of Friday’s main break. The notice mentioned that the reservoir and pump station at fault was scheduled for renovation later this year.
“As the City of Flint continues to upgrade our water infrastructure, we need to keep in mind that the integrity of our infrastructure is uneven,” Department of Public Works Director Mike Brown said. “Some of it is state of the art, and some of it is very old.”
The failure of the water main caused a drop in water pressure citywide Friday morning, prompting the boil water advisory. Officials notified the public about the main break on Flint’s city website shortly after 10:00 a.m. local time on Friday; Less than an hour later, officials said they located the break and enacted the boil water advisory.
The federal Safe Water Drinking Act’s public notification rule includes requirements to notify the public about the loss of water pressure in drinking water systems. Michigan’s Drinking Water and Environmental Health Division notes that a low-pressure event can allow contaminants to enter a water supply; however, the declaration of a boil water advisory during a low-pressure event can be made on a case-by-case basis.
To lift the advisory, crews will need to repair the transmission line, flush the system, and complete bacterial testing, according to the advisory.
To maintain water service, Flint increased the amount of water it receives from the Great Lakes Water Authority and Genesee County Drain Commission.
Meanwhile, city officials recommend that residents use bottled water or filtered and boiled water for consumption and cleaning purposes. State guidance recommends that residents boil cold filtered water for one minute to kill bacteria and microorganisms.
Once the boil water advisory is lifted, state guidance recommends flushing plumbing, cleaning faucet aerators, and changing water filters.
Flint suffered a years-long water crisis in 2014 after budget cuts prompted a change in the city’s water source. According to the Natural Resource Defense Council, officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, allowing lead to leach into the supply and expose residents to the carcinogenic substance.
Research from the University of Michigan later indicated that children in Flint were exposed to triple the lead compared to children a decade earlier.
(LONG BEACH, Calif.) — A California pipeline, that delivers the majority of fuel to the Las Vegas Valley and surrounding areas, is expected to resume operations Saturday afternoon, the pipeline operator announced.
The Kinder Morgan gas pipeline, which supplies about 90% of needed gas, diesel, jet fuel and other refined petroleum products to the Las Vegas Valley and surrounding areas, experienced a disruption that resulted in a temporary shutdown of the line.
“We have isolated the source of the release within our Watson Station in Long Beach, California. Restart activities are underway for Watson Station’s associated SFPP West and CalNev pipelines. We expect these pipelines to resume operations this afternoon and begin delivering fuel to their respective market areas later today. We continue to be in close contact with our customers and the appropriate regulatory agencies as we work to resolve this issue,” Kinder Morgan, the pipeline operator, said in a statement to ABC News.
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo declared a state of emergency Friday due to the disruption.
On Thursday, Kinder Morgan, the pipeline operator, began investigating a leak inside its Watson Station in Long Beach, California, the company said in a statement.
“Watson Station and its associated SFPP West and CALNEV pipelines have been isolated and shut down while we work to resolve this issue. There are no injuries or fire reported as a result of this incident,” Kinder Morgan said in its statement. Kinder Morgan’s 566-mile CALNEV pipeline system transports gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from Los Angeles to terminals in Barstow, California, and Las Vegas.
“The appropriate regulatory agencies have been notified, and an investigation into the cause and quantity of the release will be conducted. We are working closely with our customers on potential impacts,” Kinder Morgan said.
The disruption may cause a shortage of fuel supplies in Nevada, according to the declaration of emergency.
The emergency declaration will allow Nevada to receive federal waivers, resources to repair the pipeline and allow the state to increase the transportation of fuel by other means, according to Lombardo.
“To avoid any unnecessary shortages, I strongly urge all Las Vegas residents to avoid panic buying while awaiting repair timeline updates,” Lombardo said in a statement posted on Twitter.
The declaration expires in 15 days unless it is renewed.
(SAN DIEGO) — Three people were shot, including one fatally, at an agricultural nursery in Southern California on Friday, authorities said.
A suspected shooter was taken into custody on the property, according to the San Diego Sheriff.
The incident occurred around 3 p.m. local time at Atkins Nursery in Fallbrook, a village located about 50 miles north of San Diego, the San Diego Sheriff said.
First responders and law enforcement officers responded to an “incident involving several patients with gunshot injuries,” the North County Fire Protection District said Friday afternoon.
Responding deputies found two victims outside a barn on the property with gunshot wounds to their upper torso, the sheriff said. The victims — a woman believed to be in her mid-30s and a man in his late 60s — were transported to a local hospital where they underwent surgery for non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
A third victim — a man believed to be in his late 50s — was found dead from apparent gunshot wounds to his upper torso, the sheriff said. His identity is not known at this time.
Another man located inside the barn was determined to be the alleged shooter, the sheriff said. The suspect, identified by the San Diego Sheriff as 76-year-old Enrique Barajas Gutierrez, was arrested and taken to the Fallbrook Sheriff’s Station without incident. He will be booked into the Vista Detention Facility for murder, the sheriff said.
A rifle of unknown type and caliber is believed to have been used in the shooting, the sheriff said.
A motive is under investigation. Investigators are working to determine the relationship between Gutierrez and the victims, though they believe he is the father of the female victim, the sheriff said.
“At this time, there is no further threat to the community,” the San Diego Sheriff said.
Aerial footage from the scene showed a large law enforcement presence near the nursery.
Residents were asked to avoid the area Friday night due to the active crime scene.
@NorthCountyFire is on scene of an incident involving several patients with gunshot injuries. @SDSOFallbrook is also on scene. Please avoid this area. Reche Road is currently closed from Rabbit Hill to Scooter Lane. pic.twitter.com/FHMOxBFF1q
— North County Fire Protection District (@NorthCountyFire) February 10, 2023
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said they were “coordinating closely with local officials on this developing situation.”
“Our thoughts are with those impacted by today’s act of violence, and all the Californians recovering from tragic shootings this year,” the office tweeted.
(NEW YORK) — More than three-quarters of U.S. states are experiencing a teacher shortage, highlighting a growing concern among public education and government officials about challenges that were exacerbated during three years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on pandemic learning published in June 2022 found that public education lost about 7% of its total teaching population (233,000) between 2019 and 2021 — with many educators, in phone calls, text messages and interviews with ABC News, citing strict time demands, persisting behavioral issues and lack of administrative support, among other obstacles.
According to the education departments, agencies and associations surveyed for this story, staffing issues have continued.
“Our nation is undergoing a mass exodus of teachers leaving the classroom,” Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., told ABC News in December. “We can choose to take this issue head on or lose America’s teachers and have the education of our students severely impacted.”
Between October and the end of January, ABC News reached out by phone and email to the overarching education departments in all 50 states as well as Washington. D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
For all 53, ABC News asked if they were experiencing any shortages or extreme staffing vacancies and, if so, what their greatest need was in terms of subject-matter position openings.
As of Feb. 9, at least 39 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands — 41 out of 53 surveyed — reported ongoing shortages. Many also reported subject matter vacancies in areas such as physical and special education and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Sabrina McCall, the Anderson, South Carolina, School District Five director of human resources and teacher effectiveness, told ABC News that the No. 1 contributing factor in her district has been student misbehavior.
“It’s difficult to overcome,” she said. “They [the teachers] have a lot on their plate. And when you add student behaviors in there, it sometimes just messes up the entire plate.”
From Kentucky and Idaho’s communications officers’ statements calling the teacher shortage a “crisis” to several Missouri school districts implementing four-day weeks as a recruitment and retention tool, some states, as the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) put it, are still facing “unprecedented” staffing challenges.
One outside expert, however, said the data on vacancies doesn’t tell a simple story.
Jess Gartner, the founder & CEO of Allovue, a company that combines financial technology with education data, suggested the nation’s shortage situation is “complicated.”
“Part of what’s driving what feels like a very acute challenge or crisis right now — it seems from the data — is more driven by the creation of new positions than a mass exodus of existing staff,” she said.
Where are the shortages?
ABC News received responses from 49 of the 50 states’ education departments and related groups, making multiple efforts to reach Rhode Island, whose state officials have yet to respond to email and phone requests.
Many states say they’re still surveying district data and compiling vacancy statistics that will be released later this year. Puerto Rico did not have its data; neither did Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon or Tennessee.
Florida, New Hampshire and New Mexico did not report shortages and Louisiana said it didn’t believe it was having a teaching shortage either.
Texas education officials said the state “is employing more teachers this school year than ever before, and new teacher production numbers remain high. However, as with many states, Texas public school systems have had a challenging time filling vacant positions due to various factors.”
Despite some states missing vacancy tallies for the 2022-2023 school year, the federal government reported public schools have been experiencing difficulties filling teaching vacancies for more than two full school cycles, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
In Alaska, the state described “significant challenges” and a pressing need for special education teachers, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and more. Across the country, in New York, officials pointed to openings for literacy and special education instructors as “two persistent” and statewide issues. And in Missouri, officials said their staffing problems were the result of “less supply” and “increased demand.”
In South Carolina, McCall said her district pulled some aspiring educators from local apprenticeship programs to help fill positions left open from teachers quitting over the summer.
Separately, last October, NCES found particular vacancy problems in high-poverty, high-minority school districts. Barnard College professor Erika Kitzmiller believes the vacancy rate in low-income schools has worsened inequities that existed in education prior to the pandemic.
“There’s clearly a strain on the system if we can’t find teachers who are qualified to fill positions in high-need districts,” Kitzmiller told ABC News. “We know that people [school districts] are having difficulty just finding people regardless of qualifications or competencies or effectiveness. And those vacancies are highly prevalent in low-income schools that predominantly serve Black and brown youth.”
However, the vacancy issues are location-specific as well, according to education advocates. Urban and rural student populations often face acute shortages, said Gartner.
“The reality is that these experiences can vary a lot across geographies … even from one county to the next,” Gartner explained.
“It is almost always true that when there are economic challenges and when there are curricular challenges or policy changes, those things hit our large urban school districts and our rural school districts the hardest,” she added.
Some states see declining shortages
With data varying from district to district, not all states are feeling the same strain in the same way, if at all. Some tout above average statistics and say they have less to worry about than the areas with severe staffing issues.
For example, Alabama’s state education officials said they were struggling to find “qualified teachers” in rural areas but the state’s overall challenges are subsiding.
“Alabama, like most other states, has experienced teacher shortages in certain areas,” the state said in December, adding, “It is not as urgent as it has been in the past.”
In contrast, the number of educators in New Hampshire has been steadily increasing, according to a July 2022 report released by its state education department.
“While there may be teacher shortages in certain subjects and certain locations throughout New Hampshire – specifically special education, paraprofessional, and STEM positions – the educator shortage has not worsened, overall,” wrote Stephen Appleby, director of the New Hampshire Education Department’s Division of Educator Support and Higher Education.
“Instead, it has improved during the past two years,” Appleby wrote.
New Mexico, which last year sent in the National Guard to aid short-staffed school districts, saw a 34% decrease in the 2022 teacher vacancy rate, according to a statewide report. The state also touts the highest average teacher compensation throughout the Southwest region.
“Improved teacher salaries have been an important incentive to get people back into the classroom and New Mexico’s teachers appreciate the hard work of Gov. [Michelle] Lujan Grisham and the Legislature to make this happen,” the state’s teacher’s union president, Mary Parr-Sanchez, said in a statement.
Florida’s education department said it only saw 2% of its teaching positions unfilled to start the 2022-2023 school year, thanks to its recruitment and retention strategies.
The education department also had hundreds of qualified veterans apply for temporary teaching certificates, and it gave bonuses to retired military veterans and first responders who committed to at least two years of teaching. Last year, Florida recorded the largest teacher salary raise in its history, boosting the average starting salary from $40,000 to $48,000. In January, Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed investing $1 billion that could raise teacher salaries again.
From Tennessee — whose Grow Your Own program was the first in the nation to have a recognized apprenticeship program through the U.S. Labor and Education departments — to Texas’ Teacher Vacancy Task Force, most states have been trying varied approaches to help crack the shortage issue.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy recently signed an executive order establishing a task force to combat his state’s public education challenges.
“Unfortunately, our state is no exception to the national teacher shortage currently straining our education system,” Murphy said in a statement. “With a critical need for learning recovery and acceleration as well as mental health support for our students, teachers and other school staff are more essential than ever,” he said.
But Gartner warns that if states didn’t fill the hardest hit positions during the fall, now might be too late.
“If you’ve got dozens or hundreds of those same positions open, is it likely that you’re going to fill them this far into the year? Probably not. So what’s plan B?” she asked, adding, “That is not an enviable decision to make. Because what you’re really saying is we now have to spend money on our second-best resource or our third-best resource that we would prefer to have because the resource simply is not available.”
Some vacancies point to funding for increased support
With the federal government providing nearly $200 billion in elementary and secondary school emergency funds during the pandemic, Gartner believes the overall data on district vacancies has been conflated because that money is being sent to states and local education agencies to create new positions to help students with their social, emotional and mental health needs.
That addition of federal dollars also caused a 57% spike in new job openings in public education, according to Gartner.
But most of the relief money goes to address severe staffing challenges at high-need or the low-income public schools, as designated under Title I, and Gartner said the funding was allocated proportionally. Still, there’s not enough money for the increased vacancies created by the combination of quitting teachers and extra positions, which Gartner suggests compounds the challenges that these schools normally see.
“You’re going to have some districts where they’re probably seeing higher than typical quit rates [voluntary resignations],” the educator, who has taught in schools around the world, told ABC News. “They have more job openings available right now, so that gap is really large.”
Gartner said the so-called teacher exodus doesn’t outpace other professions. Government data supports this view: From January 2017-January 2022, K-12 employee quit rates were down compared to the private sector, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Even in the midst of a lot of turmoil, a lot of economic volatility, a lot of heightened stress, we’re still seeing consistently lower rates of attrition in public education than we are in nearly any other industry,” Gartner said.
(ST.LOUIS) — For more than a year, Fatima Suarez said her family’s St. Louis home was repeatedly visited by a woman who allegedly insulted her family, stole their mail and damaged their property.
Video footage captured by the family’s Ring doorbell camera allegedly shows a woman yelling into the camera, going through their mail and hurling racist remarks at them.
“It scared my family. It scared me,” she said. “I’ve cried. It was really stressful to see her keep coming back.”
Suarez, whose family is of Mexican descent, posted the footage to TikTok, where it received millions of views.
On Tuesday, the city’s Circuit Attorney’s Office said in a statement that it “elevated the warrant application related to this case.” On Wednesday, Judy Kline of St. Louis was criminally charged on three counts — burglary, property damage and unlawful use of a weapon.
According to a probable cause statement sent to ABC News by the Circuit Attorney’s Office, Ring camera video footage shows Kline “holding a hammer and yelling ‘What the hell are you doing in my home? Get out b—-! Get out! It’s my home!”
Suarez said her family doesn’t know Kline. “We’ve never seen her in our lives,” she said.
Suarez credits social media in spurring the police to take action.
“I’ve seen similar stories on TikTok going on, and I thought maybe that would help my family out as well,” she said. “But I never knew it would blow up like that, and it did. So I’m thankful for everybody that made it viral because now [there’s] going to be hopefully action taken.”
Suarez said Kline first came to her family’s home last year.
According to the probable cause statement, Kline went to the back of the house on January 5, 2022, and used a “hammer to break in through the basement door window by breaking the glass on the door.”
Suarez said her father was in the house with her sister, who was 4 years old at the time.
Kline “smashed a glass door on a drying machine,” the statement said. “The victim stated that once inside, [Kline] yelled insults at him, while holding the hammer over her head.”
A booking data report from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department showed that Kline was arrested that day and charged with aggravated burglary and property damage.
“I always call the cops, and all the times that I call them, they only kept her for like 72 hours and then she was released,” Suarez alleged. “That’s why she had the opportunity to keep coming back.”
Kline was also “served with an ex parte order of protection involving a petitioner who resides at the same address as this incident,” the probable cause statement said. “This matter is scheduled for an Adult Abuse Hearing on February 15, 2023.”
Suarez said Kline has visited the home multiple times, including last week. The probable cause statement said that she was reported to have returned to the home multiple times.
Even though Kline has charges against her, Suarez said her family still fear that she will return.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department told ABC News Thursday that Kline “is not currently in custody.”
ABC News could not reach Kline for comment.
In a statement Tuesday, the city’s Circuit Attorney’s Office said, “when cases are submitted by the police, the SLMPD [St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department] determines the public safety threat to evaluate whether the case should be reviewed within 24 hours of the application for an arrest warrant.”
“The CAO has elevated the warrant application related to this case, and is awaiting the video evidence that was not initially submitted, and that is now circulating on the Internet,” the office said.
Suarez claimed she previously sent the videos to the police.
“At one point, I wanted to become part of the justice system, like a cop or something,” she said, “but because of how they are with other people, how they treat other people, how they don’t care about cases. … I don’t really trust them as much anymore.”
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump’s legal team turned over a folder with classification markings found last month at his Mar-a-Lago resort to federal agents, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
It is unclear what type of classification markings the folder had or what material had previously been inside.
Additionally, sources tell ABC News that a laptop belonging to a current aide of the former president was also provided to federal agents.
Sources said the discovery occurred in mid-January as Trump’s team was searching through additional boxes amid the Department of Justice’s ongoing efforts to have Trump’s attorneys verify that Trump no longer still has classified documents in his possession.
The material was discovered in the Mar-a-Lago complex, and not in a storage facility within the complex that housed hundreds of classified documents prior to them being seized in August 2022, the sources said.
During the August search, investigators seized 46 folders with classified banners that were empty.
Trump attorney James Trusty turned over the folder with classification markings to federal investigators, and also informed agents that it had been electronically copied to a laptop of a current Trump aide, the sources said.
ABC News has also learned that after the information was recovered, federal agents retrieved the laptop from the aide. The laptop was not retrieved on the Mar-a-Lago grounds, the sources said.
“It is customary in circumstances such as this for investigators to search the computer to see if classified material is still on that computer,” said John Cohen, former acting undersecretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security and now an ABC News contributor. “They will also seek to determine if classified material was transmitted electronically to other computers or devices via that computer.”
Neither Trusty nor a spokesperson for Trump immediately responded to a request for comment from ABC News.
The special counsel’s office also did not immediately respond.
The development comes as a separate special counsel is probing the handling of classified materials by President Joe Biden after he left the vice presidency. There have subsequently been multiple recoveries of documents from various locations tied to Trump, Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.
Federal investigators have reported mounting frustration with Trump, who some believe could still be unlawfully holding on to classified documents even after the FBI’s unprecedented August search of his Mar-a-Lago estate.
ABC News reported in December that Trump had an outside team conduct a deeper search for any government documents at four properties, which turned up at least two more documents marked classified.
As ABC News previously reported, the Justice Department sought to hold Trump in contempt for not complying with their initial June subpoena for all documents with classification markings that were in his possession.
In December, a federal judge in Washington declined to hold Trump or his legal team in contempt of court and instead urged the Justice Department and Trump’s legal team to resolve the dispute themselves, sources told ABC News at the time.
Chief Judge Beryl Howell did not rule out the possibility that Trump could be held in contempt if their talks broke down further.
(NEW YORK) — Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI, have recently come under fire and are at the center of political battles being waged by Republican governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis.
These initiatives, seen in businesses, schools or government agencies, are intended to address inequities against historically marginalized groups that may be found within an organization.
ABC News spoke to DEI experts and consultants about what DEI is and what these initiatives look like.
What is DEI?
“Diversity” refers to the representation of people from a variety of backgrounds – particularly referring to people of different races, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, religions and more – at all levels in an organization, including the leadership level.
“Equity” focuses on fairness and justice, particularly referring to compensation and whether people are being paid or treated fairly, DEI experts told ABC News.
“Inclusion” is about whether people feel like they belong, and whether they feel heard or valued in an organization, experts say.
DEI initiatives focus on three main areas: training, organizational policies and practices, as well as organizational culture, according to Erica Foldy, a professor at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Initiatives focusing on policies, practices and culture exist to correct inequities within an organization, said Tina Opie, a DEI consultant and professor at Babson College.
This includes addressing discriminatory hiring practices, pay inequity, or rectifying issues that cause poor employee retention rates among marginalized groups.
DEI training is meant to encourage people to be more aware and reflective about inequities and discrimination on an individual level, Foldy said.
What’s DEI’s purpose?
DEI has its roots in the 1960’s anti-discrimination legislative movement when laws like the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 addressed labor issues based on protected classes.
Companies had to comply with these anti-discrimination laws, and the DEI movement stems from these efforts to continue to create equitable workplaces and schools.
“Somewhere around the late ’80s, early ’90s, people are realizing that simply trying to stop discriminating against different groups of people is not enough,” Foldy said. “The kind of ethos of those initiatives was to go beyond just avoiding discrimination and to actively changing organizations so that they were more welcoming and more inclusive.”
And though DEI is in the spotlight, Foldy says, these initiatives are efforted under a plethora of different acronyms or names.
Every DEI initiative may be run differently, experts say, but the overall goal is to make companies and leaders examine the way their company treats or serves marginalized groups.
“Historically, there have been some groups of people who have had more access and control over resources, money, time, other people and the ability to affect policies, procedures, law,” said Opie.
“Are you saying that you think across the United States … they’re the only ones who are best equipped to run these companies? Is it something about their DNA, genetics or is it something else?” she added.
Opie and Foldy say DEI makes people uncomfortable because they feel that correcting power inequities can be seen as “unfair” to the people with power or privilege.
Opie and Foldy believe critiques of DEI often frame these initiatives as unfairly giving something to marginalized people who “have not earned” it and are taking things away from people.
“Dominance and privilege – understandably, those things are hard to give up,” Foldy said. “For the greater good, of not just a workplace, but for our country, our democracy, we have to become a country that equally and passionately welcomes all the people who live in the country.”
Opie argues some critiques see diversity as not an “us” issue, but a “them” issue.
Why are conservatives attacking it?
DEI initiatives have come under attack by conservative legislators including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
In a recent memo, Abbott told state agencies that DEI initiatives are “illegal.”
The memo, sent on Sunday by Abbott’s chief of staff, Gardner Pate, said these initiatives violate the law because they “expressly favor some demographic groups to the detriment of others.”
It did not specify which groups were being harmed under such programs.
Pate claimed these programs “proactively encourage discrimination in the workplace,” and do the opposite of what they claim to do.
Renae Eze, a spokesperson for Gov. Abbott’s office, said in a statement: “The letter from the Governor’s chief of staff is a reminder that state agencies and public universities must follow federal and state law in their hiring practices.”
“The issue is not diversity—the issue is that equity is not equality. Here in Texas, we give people a chance to advance based on talent and merit,” Eze added.
The memo came days after DeSantis said he plans to bar state universities from funding DEI initiatives.
He argued that DEI is an “indoctrinating” program.
His administration requested data from colleges and universities throughout the state regarding race-related and DEI-related programs and courses, asking employees to “report the amount of money that they are using in things like DEI and [critical race theory] programs.”
“It’s a lot of money, and it’s not the best use of your money,” he said at a Jan. 31 press conference. “We are also going to eliminate all DEI and [critical race theory] bureaucracies in the state of Florida. No funding and that will wither on the vine.”
ABC News’ Armando Garcia and Max Zahn contributed to this report.
(ROMAN FOREST, TEXAS) — A Texas mother is wanted for abandoning her two children for nearly two months late last year, according to police.
Roman Forest, Texas, police said Thursday they have issued an arrest warrant for Raven Yates for two counts of abandoning/endangering a child without intent to return.
The father of one of the children, a 12-year-old girl, reported to police on Nov. 14, 2022, that she had been left home alone with her 3-year-old brother since Sept. 28.
They allegedly did not have food or supplies for much of this time and the two children were not registered in school.
The father, who lives out of state, flew in from California in November after his former mother-in-law saw her daughter, Yates, alone in Mobile, Alabama, police said. He came to realize the two children were alone because his daughter had been asking him to send them food regularly.
He alerted police and met them at the house where the two children were staying. The father does not live at the house, but he pays the rent, Roman Forest Police Chief Stephen Carlisle told ABC News in an interview.
Police did not find any food in the cabinets or fridge, but the kids were both healthy.
“I guess the 12-year-old was very resourceful. But she shouldn’t have had to do that,” Carlisle said.
The father of the 12-year-old took the two kids to stay with their grandmother in Mobile, Alabama.
Police also discovered that a few weeks before she allegedly abandoned the children in September, Yates reported that her third child, a 14-year-old, had run away. Somehow, the child was able to make it to their grandmother’s house in Mobile as well.
The three children are now safe with their grandmother in Alabama.
Yates is believed to still be in the Mobile area, and she has been posting regularly on her social media accounts, Carlisle said.
Police have been unable to locate Yates since first issuing a warrant for her arrest on Dec. 6. Police hope members of the public will come forward with information that could help them apprehend Yates.
Mobile police did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
