(AUSTIN, Texas) — A Texas judge is holding a hearing on whether to prevent state agencies from investigating gender-confirming care for transgender youth as child abuse.
District Judge Amy Clark Meachum will hear Friday from the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl who were under investigation by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Meachum will also hear from attorneys from the state.
According to the DFPS, there are at least nine similar investigations open as a result of the attorney general’s opinion on trans care.
The opinion written by state Attorney General Ken Paxton last month stated that “there is no doubt that these procedures are ‘abuse’ under Texas law, and thus must be halted.”
He went on: “The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) has a responsibility to act accordingly. I’ll do everything I can to protect against those who take advantage of and harm young Texans.”
The next day, Texas Governor Greg Abbott published a letter, ordering the DFPS to investigate such treatments as child abuse.
“Because the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) is responsible for protecting children from abuse, I hereby direct your agency to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas,” Abbott said in the Feb. 22 letter.
Meachum has already blocked the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services from investigating the family of the 16-year-old girl. The family is part of a lawsuit against the state’s directive from the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal.
Several companies, including Ikea, Google, Apple, Meta, Johnson & Johnson, PayPal, Capital One and Electronic Arts have spoken out against the bill in a full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News.
“The recent attempt to criminalize a parent for helping their transgender child access medically necessary, age-appropriate healthcare in the state of Texas goes against the values of our companies,” a signed letter from the companies stated.
Cathryn Oakley, HRC’s state legislative director and senior counsel, said that misinformation is at the center of recent anti-LGBTQ efforts, including the Texas directive.
She told ABC News that she believes fear-mongering has painted a picture of trans youth that is “completely not true.”
She said that for many young children, transitioning means using a name and pronoun that feels right for them and presenting themselves in a way that feels right for them.
She says that when puberty hits is when medical intervention might begin through puberty blockers, which temporarily pause puberty while children and families assess their gender journey. “No one is performing surgery on kids. There’s no amputation happening,” she said.
“They’re literally putting trans kids lives on the line,” she said, referring to mental health conditions that trans youth face in the wake of discrimination.
“It’s incumbent on us to really educate folks about what it means to be a trans kid because I think the only reason people are buying into that kind of rhetoric is because even people who are fair-minded have questions about what it means to be a trans youth,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — On March 26, 1997, an anonymous caller directed police to a mansion outside San Diego where authorities soon discovered the largest mass suicide on U.S. soil.
The 39 victims found within the home were all members of a strange and secretive cult called Heaven’s Gate, which had a goal to transcend to “higher beings” by spaceship.
Watch the full story on “20/20” TONIGHT at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.
The anonymous caller was Rio DiAngelo, a surviving member who left the group after three years and was to stay behind and tell the world about the group’s story.
“I was always looking for answers, looking for purpose in my life,” said DiAngelo. “I loved these people … it meant everything to me.”DiAngelo first spoke to ABC News’ Diane Sawyer in 1997.
“We lived like we were living in a monastery. We were all celibate individuals, looking forward to self advancement,” said DiAngelo.
Heaven’s Gate began in the early 1970s by co-founders Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lou Nettles. Applewhite was the son of a Presbyterian preacher and became a talented stage actor and singer. He struggled with his sexuality and had a complicated relationship with his father.
At a moment in his life when he was depressed, hearing voices in his head and having apocalyptic visions, he met Nettles. She was a nurse and mother of four children. She had already believed in UFOs and astrology prior to meeting Applewhite.
According to former friends and colleagues, she said the voices in his head may be spirits from above telling him he one day could be a divine teacher.
Applewhite and Nettles told their followers that the human body was a “vehicle” to carry their soul and that the savior had returned in the human form of Applewhite, who was called “Do.”
They set out to start their own religion and seek out followers. They told people interested that, if they joined them, they could learn how to be pure enough to be invited to heaven too.
Over the course of several years, Applewhite and Nettles required their followers to adhere to increasingly more strange and severe rules, including severing all contact with family and friends and encouraging adopting an asexual appearance. In later years, some members of the group underwent castration.
Now nearly 25 years later, DiAngelo reflected on where his life is now. He says he still feels the presence of Applewhite and Nettles.
“Mostly, it’s just feeling. I don’t get words, but mostly it’s just feeling,” said DiAngelo.
DiAngelo said he made the choice to move on.
“I tried to get a job and people would not hire me because they thought I was part of some crazy thing. And so it’s really a matter of choice for me to get along with my career, my life, just so people would not look at me,” said DiAngelo. “It’s not about me, you know?”
DeAngelo, now a retired art director, said he’s reunited with his mother and is focusing on spending more time with his granddaughter.
“I’m a regular guy. I’m tryin’ to be more of myself,” said DeAngelo. “And a better person in every way I can.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support. Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) for help.
(NEW YORK) — March marks two years since the coronavirus pandemic upended life across the globe.
Although the nationwide quarantine was initially meant to last only 14 days, in the hope of slowing down the spread of the virus, two weeks eventually turned into a two-year ordeal, lasting far longer than health experts had initially predicted.
“Two years ago, I, like many other people, thought that restrictions would be over in two months. If someone told me we would still be wearing masks after two years — and effective vaccines — I probably would have done things a little differently,” David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News.
“Part of what has made this so exhausting is that we’ve thought, time and again, that the end of the pandemic was just a month or two away. But we’ve finally come to realize that a ‘pandemic end date’ just isn’t coming anytime soon,” Dowdy added.
Although studies now demonstrate that the virus had already commenced its rapid spread across the country in late 2019, many Americans were still completely unaware of what the “novel coronavirus” was, and of the looming health crisis — one that would underscore the lack of national and global preparedness to deal with such a pandemic.
It was only when positive cases reached U.S. soil that most Americans began to take notice of the growing crisis.
Former President Donald Trump was quick to try to quell concerns, repeatedly telling the public that the situation was under control.
“It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” Trump predicted in late February 2020. “The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
However, the spread of the virus would soon soar to unprecedented levels, in a rapid escalation that led states and cities to shut down, and families to retreat to their homes.
Now, despite the creation of vaccinations and treatments, there have been nearly 965,000 American lives confirmed lost to the virus.
Early predictions from the Trump Administration in late March of 2020 estimated between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans could lose their lives, though the president told reporters at a White House briefing that he believed the death toll would be “substantially below” 100,000.
Many experts believe that the current COVID-19 death totals are undercounted due to inconsistent reporting by states and localities, and also by the exclusion of records of excess deaths — a measure of how many lives have been lost beyond what would be expected if the pandemic had not occurred.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since Feb. 1, 2020, there have been more than one million excess deaths.
March 1, 2020: New York confirms its first COVID-19 case
New York was hit hard in the early weeks of the pandemic. On March 1, 2020, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the state’s first confirmed case of COVID-19. New York City would, in a matter of weeks, become the nation’s viral epicenter, with COVID-19-positive patients soon overwhelming hospitals, and city morgues, leaving the Big Apple at a standstill, shuttering businesses and creating a mass exodus from the city’s boroughs to surrounding suburbs.
“This is a different beast that we’re dealing with. It is going to be weeks, and weeks, and weeks, weeks and weeks. This is going to be a long day, and it’s going to be a hard day, and it’s going to be an ugly day, and it’s going to be a sad day,” Cuomo warned the public during one of his press conferences that March.
March 6, 2020: Trump proclaims ‘anybody’ can get a COVID-19 test
In the days that followed, there would be a growing demand for COVID-19 tests, across the country, as more Americans began to exhibit symptoms.
However, despite a March 6, 2020, proclamation by Trump that “anybody that wants a test can get a test,” the demand for COVID-19 testing would soon outpace the supply.
It would take seven months before the U.S. would ramp up testing enough to test one million Americans a day.
“Though two years of a pandemic has yielded significant scientific achievements in vaccines, therapeutics and testing, it has also unearthed huge deficits in public health infrastructure and our health care systems’ ability to deliver high quality equitable care. We were never properly prepared and even after 24 months we consistently underestimate this virus,” John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said Wednesday.
At the time, there were still no antiviral treatments or vaccines available to support health care workers as they faced an onslaught of patients in need.
March 9, 2020: Stock market circuit breaker sends shock waves across the country
By March 9, there were more warning signs that the virus would soon wreak havoc on the country, when an automatic circuit breaker safety mechanism was activated to stop stock prices from free falling.
Markets fell rapidly within minutes of the stock market opening, forcing a temporary halt to trading. The 15-minute pause was triggered after the S&P 500 plunged by more than 7%.
“The only way to avoid a recession would be a quick and very aggressive fiscal policy response by the Trump administration,” Moody’s Investor Services chief economist Mark Zandi told ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis at the time. “But this seems unlikely as the administration continues to significantly downplay the severity of the crisis.”
March 11, 2020: WHO declares COVID-19 a ‘pandemic’
The World Health Organization’s announcement on March 11, 202 that it had shifted its characterization of the virus to “pandemic,” marked a turning point in the pandemic.
That same day, Trump announced the U.S. was restricting travel by foreign nationals who had traveled to 26 specific European countries.
And on that night, the NBA announced it would suspend its season due to a COVID-19 outbreak, following a mid-game suspension of play between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder, while actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, on a shoot in Australia, announced, from isolation, that they had been diagnosed with coronavirus.
March 12, 2020 and the months that followed: A national and global shutdown
Starting March 12, 2020, Broadway theaters went dark for more than a year, after New York Gov. Cuomo announced that no gatherings of more than 500 people would be allowed, excepting schools, hospitals, mass transit, and nursing homes.
The National Hockey League suspended its season, and President Trump declared a national emergency in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
In the weeks and months that followed, millions of Americans would contract the virus, and hundreds of thousands would die.
“While many would like to declare this pandemic over at the two-year mark, we are still far from an acceptable state with over a thousand dying a day from this virus. Sheer exhaustion with public health mandates is not a reason to declare victory,” Brownstein said Wednesday.
Health experts stress that the virus will not go away overnight, and it will likely take years for the globe to fully recover from the pandemic.
“It’s going to take us a long time to recover mentally and emotionally from this pandemic,” Dowdy said. “As time goes on, those ‘near normal’ times will become the norm, and waves of disease and death the exception. We just may have a few more waves to ride before we get there.”
(NEW YORK) — Alabama became the latest state to remove permit requirements to carry a concealed gun in public, as multiple states debate similar measures this session.
Known as “permitless carry” or “constitutional carry” legislation, the bills have been roundly criticized by police and gun control advocates, who argue that removing permits poses a safety risk to citizens and officers. Proponents, meanwhile, claim that the permitting process is too onerous and that the laws ensure Second Amendment rights.
At hearings across the country in recent weeks, law enforcement officials have testified against these bills, which have proliferated in Republican states during the primary season.
“Police weighing in against permitless carry matters,” Shannon Watts, founder of Everytown subsidiary Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, told ABC News. “But I guess the question is at end of the day, those Republicans who are worried about being primaried, are they going to put public safety over their hopes for the primary election?”
Last year, six states — Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, Tennessee, Texas and Utah — enacted permitless carry measures, according to the Pew Research Center.
When Alabama’s law goes into effect next year, it will be one of 22 states where it is legal to carry a concealed gun without a permit, based on data compiled by Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun violence prevention organization.
Two other states — Indiana and Ohio — have recently passed similar bills, which await their respective governor’s signature or veto, while at least four others — Georgia, Nebraska, South Carolina and Wisconsin — are considering it.
In Ohio, Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey was one of more than 80 opponents to testify in December before a state Senate public safety committee against SB 215, which allows people 21 and older who are legally allowed to own a gun to conceal it without a permit. It also removes a requirement to tell officers about the firearm unless they ask.
“To allow people to carry concealed with no background check, no documentation of who they are and no training is dangerous,” McGuffey told ABC News. “I am not against the Second Amendment — the right to bear arms. What I’m asking people to do is consider that there must be some failsafe placed into the system.”
To get a concealed carry permit in Ohio requires a fee of at least $67, a background check and eight hours of training that covers safety features and public safety. The training is especially key, McGuffey said.
“I have 900 officers,” she said. “Our deputies are well-vetted for their backgrounds, their personalities, their integrity, their ability to follow rules and follow the law, and I would not hand one of them a gun with no training.”
Background checks are another important piece, McGuffey said. In 2021, Ohio issued 202,920 new or renewal concealed carry permits, denied 2,668 applicants who failed to meet state requirements and revoked another 420 licenses “for causes including felony convictions and mental incompetence,” according to a state attorney general’s report. McGuffey said she signed 93 revocations last year for people who were convicted of menacing, domestic violence, assault and other violent actions.
Despite widespread opposition from law enforcement and citizens, the bill passed the state legislature last week.
“Responsible gun owners should not be punished for lawfully practicing their constitutional rights,” state Sen. Terry Johnson, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement.
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has until March 15 to sign or veto SB 215 before it becomes law. He has not publicly indicated what he plans to do, though in a statement to Columbus, Ohio, ABC affiliate WSYX-TV, his spokesperson said the governor “has long supported the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.”
In Indiana, a constitutional carry bill is before Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb’s desk, after passing the state legislature Tuesday. Under HB 1296, anyone at least 18 years old who can legally carry a handgun would no longer need a permit to do so in the state.
Among those speaking out against the bill included the head of the Indiana State Police, local sheriffs and county prosecutors.
“What we have done now is we’ve taken away the one tool that police officers had out on the street to be able to act quickly and efficiently for not only their personal safety but for the safety of our communities,” Patrick Flannelly, vice president of the Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police, told Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV.
The opposition from state police and prosecutor associations swayed Republican state Sen. Kyle Walker, a lifetime National Rifle Association member who has a concealed carry permit, to vote no to the bill, he said.
The governor must sign or veto the bill within seven days, otherwise it becomes law. He has not publicly indicated what he plans to do.
“The governor will review every piece of legislation that comes across his desk and make the best determination for all Hoosiers,” Holcomb’s press secretary, Erin Murphy, told ABC News in a statement.
Alabama became the first state to sign a permitless carry bill into law this year on Thursday. HB 272 removes the requirement to obtain a permit to carry a concealed pistol.
“Unlike states who are doing everything in their power to make it harder for law abiding citizens, Alabama is reaffirming our commitment to defending our Second Amendment rights,” Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. “I have always stood up for the rights of law abiding gunowners, and I am proud to do that again today.”
Among those who had spoken out against the bill were the Alabama Sheriffs Association, the Alabama Association of School Resource Officers and multiple local law enforcement agencies.
Opponents of permitless carry laws point to research from the National Bureau of Economic Research, which found that states that have passed permitless carry legislation have seen increases in gun violence. The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has also found that states with stronger gun laws have lower gun-death rates.
As Ohio’s bill sits on the governor’s desk, McGuffey continues to push for its veto.
“My sense is the citizens of Hamilton County are depending on our elected officials to use common sense when they are legislating bills that can potentially create violence, that can potentially put a gun in the hands of someone who absolutely should never have a weapon,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Masks will continue to be required on planes, trains and buses for at least another month, the Transportation Security Administration announced Thursday. The agency said the federal mask mandate for transportation would be extended through April 18.
During the extension, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will work with government agencies to “help inform a revised policy framework for when, and under what circumstances, masks should be required in the public transportation corridor,” according to a TSA press release.
Airlines for America (A4A), the group that lobbies on behalf of all major U.S. airlines, said in a statement that its members would support the extension, but it urged the Biden administration to find a path forward for lifting mask and testing requirements.
This is the shortest extension of the travel mask mandate since it was first enacted under President Biden. Previously, the extensions had lasted for 90 days.
A coalition of Republican Senators called on the president to end federal Covid-19 travel restrictions Thursday. The group, led by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said, “It is time for the federal government to recognize this reality, follow the science, and reduce or eliminate these restrictions immediately.”
(CHICAGO) — Former Empire actor Jussie Smollett will get one last chance to publicly admit to fabricating a 2019 hate-crime attack on himself before learning whether a judge sentences him to prison.
Smollett, 39, is scheduled to appear Thursday afternoon in Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago to hear his fate after a jury convicted him in December on five of six felony counts of disorderly conduct stemming from him filing a false police report and lying to police, who spent more than $130,000 investigating his allegations.
During his trial, the actor testified in his own defense, maintaining his story that two masked men wearing hats bearing former President Donald Trump’s “MAGA” motto assaulted him on a street and put a noose around his neck.
“There was no hoax,” Smollett testified.
Judge James Linn is allowing news cameras into Thursday’s hearing, in which Smollett is expected to be granted an opportunity to speak.
Several supporters of Smollett, including civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson and actor Samuel L. Jackson, have written Linn letters vouching for Smollett’s character and asking him for leniency, according to ABC Chicago station WLS-TV.
“Jussie has a long track record of being a deeply engaged and contributing citizen,” the Rev. Jackson wrote in his letter to Linn. “Jussie has already suffered.”
Samuel L. Jackson and his wife, actress LaTanya Jackson, sent a letter to Linn asking him to “please find an alternative to incarceration.”
The maximum sentence Smollett faces is three years in prison. But Linn could consider Smollett’s lack of criminal history and sentence him to probation.
The judge could also order Smollett to pay a fine, restitution, or both.
Smollett’s lawyers have said they plan to appeal the conviction and that Smollett is “100% confident” he will win.
The openly gay actor told police that on Jan. 29, 2019, he was walking on a street near his Chicago apartment around 2 a.m. when he was set upon by two men. The attackers allegedly shouted racist and homophobic slurs before hitting him, pouring “an unknown chemical substance” and wrapping a rope around his neck.
Chicago police said Smollett’s story of being the victim of an attack began to unravel when investigators tracked down two men, brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who they said were seen in a security video near where Smollett claimed he was assaulted and around the same time it supposedly occurred.
The Osundairo brothers testified during Smollett’s trial that the actor paid them $3,500 to help him orchestrate and stage the crime.
In a stunning move, Cook County District Attorney Kim Foxx’s office initially dropped all charges against Smollett in March 2019 despite acknowledging Smollett fabricated the street attack on himself in a bizarre attempt to get a pay raise.
Prior to the decision to drop the charges, Foxx recused herself from the Smollett probe after it surfaced that she had been in touch with Smollett’s family. She left the decision on the disposition of the case to Joe Magats, the first assistant state attorney in Cook County.
As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Smollett forfeited 10% of a $100,000 bond and preemptively completed community service prior to the charges being dropped.
Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A tentative $83 million settlement has been reached in a punitive class action lawsuit brought by victims affected by the Surfside building that partially collapsed in South Florida last June, court filings show.
The lawsuit was filed against several groups and individuals, including companies that developed and maintained the property, the company responsible for the construction of the building, and engineers and inspectors of the building.
Ninety-eight people were killed in the collapse when the South Tower suffered a “catastrophic failure,” according to court documents.
While 55 condominium units were immediately destroyed, the remainder of the building, which had 136 units, had to be demolished, documents show.
The agreement provides for an $83 million Common Fund to be paid to unit owners as compensations for condominiums and contents; in exchange, unit owners will be relieved from any liability for injury and wrongful death claims, according to court documents.
Each unit owner will be paid a proportionate share of the funds based on their ownership share of the condominium, court documents show.
Once the agreement is finalized and can no longer be appealed, the victims will receive $50 million out of the first $100 million that is recovered from groups responsible for the building. The remaining $33 million of the settlement will be paid out of the money that’s first recovered after that $100 million, according to the court filing.
“All other funds recovered will inure solely for the benefit of the wrongful death claimants,” according to a court filing.
Morabito Consultants, one of the defendants in the lawsuit, said in a statement that it “denies that it is, in any way, liable for the collapse or the resulting damages.”
“But we also firmly believe that the families who have suffered from this tragedy deserve compensation so that they may focus on healing,” it added.
In a statement Tuesday to NBC 6, Becker & Poliakoff, which represents the condo association, said it “continues to deny that it is in any way responsible for the collapse… (and) this settlement is not a finding of fault against Becker…. We are pleased this matter was quickly resolved and sincerely hope the insurance settlement will bring some relief to those impacted by this terrible tragedy.”
The court will hold a final approval hearing for the agreement on March 30. Any objections to the agreement must be submitted to the court by March 23.
(NEW YORK) — Jack Petocz, a student activist in Florida, led his peers on a school walkout last week in protest of what many call the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which was passed by the state legislature on Tuesday.
The Florida bill would limit what educators in the state can teach about sexual orientation and gender identity inside some classrooms.
Under this legislation, these lessons “may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” The bill is now headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk.
“Queer people aren’t inherently not age-appropriate,” Petocz told ABC News Live on Wednesday. “Our existence fosters a more inclusive environment.”
What started as a peaceful way for young people to rally against the bill turned into a school suspension for Petocz. He said that just before the protest was about to start, he was pulled to the side by administrators voicing their opposition against students waving the pride flags that Petocz had purchased on his own for the event.
“My school district tried to prevent us from giving out pride flags and distributing them,” Petocz said. “I resisted, and I told students to not give up their pride flags, because they’re a symbol of our identity. They’re a symbol of acceptance and embrace of our queerness.”
Petocz said at least a dozen schools participated in walk-outs. Protests have also taken place across the state in the form of written letter campaigns, petitions and rallies.
Activists across the state and nation are making final pleas to DeSantis before he decides whether or not to sign the bill into law.
DeSantis has signaled his support for the bill but has not yet said whether he will sign it. Supporters of the bill say they want parents to have more control over what is being taught in the classroom.
“I call on Gov. DeSantis to have a meeting with me before he signs this into law to hear a firsthand account of how this bill will affect my community,” Petocz said.
Rep. Joe Harding, the bill’s sponsor, told ABC News, “Families are families. Let the families be families. The school district doesn’t need to insert themselves at that point when children are still learning how to read and do basic math.”
But for many of these students, political measures like these are personal attacks, according to Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Over 21% of Generation Z identifies with the LGBTQ community, a recent Gallup poll found.
“It’s becoming a war zone for them,” Ellis said in an interview with ABC News Live on Wednesday morning.
“Why are we even discussing this?” Ellis asked. “What this does at the end of the day is politicize LGBTQ people who just want to go to school, learn how to read and write, and every now and then want to see their families represented as well.”
Ellis, who is gay, is a mother to young children and told ABC News that children’s books with two moms were her children’s favorite stories to read growing up. She said that this bill would prevent children with LGBTQ parents from being able to relate lessons to their own lives at home.
She pointed to other anti-LGBTQ bills that have been proposed this year, calling it a “coordinated effort” by conservative legislators. Bills targeting the community have popped up in other iterations — including bans against gender-affirming care for trans youth being proposed in Idaho and Alabama and bans on trans participation in women’s sports in Iowa and Indiana.
“These politicians are taking this opportunity to raise money for themselves and using our children and classrooms to create divisions,” Ellis said.
Equality Florida, a local organization that has been organizing many of the protests against the bill, said that it will “not allow this bill to harm LGBTQ Floridians.” The organization argues that removing LGBTQ content from classrooms creates an environment of exclusion and oppression against queer youth.
“Lawmakers rejected the voices of tens of thousands who sent emails and made phone calls asking for them to put a stop to this bill, thousands of courageous students who walked out of class, hundreds of people who testified before their bodies, dozens of child welfare organizations and leaders who spoke up to name the harms of the bill and their own Republican colleagues who refused to support it,” the organization said in a statement.
“Instead, they locked arms with the angry mobs hurling anti-LGBTQ slurs at those asking for nothing more than a safe place to go to school without having to hide who they are,” the statement read. “Our fight for full equality continues.”
(NEW YORK) — For the past 24 years, the U.S. and Russia have worked together to construct and maintain the International Space Station, where research has led to some of the most important discoveries of the 21st century.
Now, 227 miles below the unrivaled laboratory, Russia has waged a war in Ukraine that’s pitted the country against the U.S. and its allies — leaving the future of the ISS in question.
“When you’re in space and you’re flying around the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour and in a very hazardous environment, cooperation is the most important thing,” said former astronaut Scott Kelly.
The ISS is divided into two sections: the Russian Orbital Segment operated by Russia and the United States Orbital Segment run by the U.S. American and Russian astronauts were the first to step inside the ISS in 1998.
Watch the full story on “ABCNL Prime” TONIGHT at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.
From there, the partnership has continued. When the U.S. shuttle program ended in 2011, U.S. astronauts like Cady Coleman relied exclusively on Russian rockets to get her on board the station.
Coleman said once on board the craft, where you came from didn’t matter, and it was all about how to work and live with one another.
“Space is hard and space is dangerous. And in my experience … with our Russian partners it means sitting down, having a meal together,” said Coleman. “It means talking about what’s hard for you, what’s hard for them and how together we can get this accomplished. [We] look each other in the eye and realize that we’re all about the same thing.”
Coleman said that American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts would cooperate on everything from life-or-death missions to the mundane.
“I was up there with the three Russian cosmonauts,” said Coleman.”[We] share a goal of exploring space … and that goal doesn’t change whether we’re on the Earth or living up on the space station.”
NASA’s reliance on Russian rockets ended in 2020 when SpaceX debuted its Crew Dragon Capsule, but talks are underway to allow Russians on future SpaceX flights.
Russian cosmonauts continue to train at NASA’s facility in Houston.
Astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who holds the ongoing record for longest space flight, is set to end his 355 days in space in just three weeks. The plan is for him to land in Kazakhstan with two Russian cosmonauts on a Russian spacecraft.
But unprecedented sanctions against Russia could put Vande Hei’s return on hold. After Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two weeks ago, President Joe Biden announced new sanctions, including cutting more than half of Russia’s high-tech imports.
“It’ll degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program,” Biden said during a White House address Feb. 24.
Shortly after the remarks, NASA released a statement on U.S.-Russian civil space cooperation, saying that “no changes are planned” and that the agency will continue to support “ongoing in orbit and ground station operations.”
Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s Space Agency and a close ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin, responded to Biden in a series of hostile tweets. On Feb. 26, he posted a video in Russian that threatened to leave Vande Hei behind in space and detach Russia’s segment of the space station altogether.
Kelly said he felt compelled to speak up and engaged with Rogozin on Twitter.
“I was just enraged that he, the [cosmonauts], said that they were going to leave an American crew member behind. I never thought I would ever hear anything so outrageous,” said Kelly.
NASA has remained silent on Rogozin’s threats to abandon Vande Hei in space. Prior to the conflict in Ukraine, Russia had announced plans to pull out of the space station as early as 2025.
Although war continues to wage on Earth, Kelly said he hopes that the U.S.-Russian partnership in space can be mended.
“I’ve known [people at the Russian Space Agency], many of them for well over two decades, I trust them. I’ve literally trusted them with my life before,” said Kelly, who added that the U.S. should still “prepare for the worst” and “hope for the best.”
Kelly said the ISS is an example of where peace is possible because all astronauts share a common goal: to explore and learn.
“I just hope people realize and want to keep this partnership together because it is one of the few things that unites all of humanity together,” said Kelly. “I think one of the biggest successes of the International Space Station is the international aspect of giving us something to work on together, that makes us friends.”
Lawmakers in the State House voted in favor of bill HB 675, which makes it a felony to provide such care. Now the bill goes to the State Senate.
Anyone who provides or knowingly gives permission for a child or teen to receive hormone therapy or physical alterations to affirm their gender identity would be punished under this law and could face life in prison.
Gender affirmation is when transgender people make changes to their lives in accordance with their gender identity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That can be done through a change of clothing, hairstyles, mannerisms, names and pronouns.
Gender affirmation can also come in the form of hormone therapy or surgeries to alter one’s physical characteristics.
On the House floor, State Rep. Ilana Rubel told a story of her friend’s child who knew he was transgender from a young age. After he transitioned — publicly expressing oneself as another gender — Rubel said she saw him turn from a troubled youth to a successful college student.
“This is obviously not a step that a family takes lightly,” Rubel said. “This is a step that comes after literally thousands of hours of agonizing. There is no parent in the world who is just finding a way to force sex-change treatments on to their kids.”
She added, “They do this because they realize after endless excruciating probing that this is what their child needs.”
Rubel also noted that gender-affirming care is supported by medical organizations such as the American Medical Association, Idaho Medical Association, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Pediatrics and more.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Bruce Skaug, said he does not support underage gender reassignment surgeries or therapies and claimed that “Europe is pulling back from this type of procedure now because they’ve seen negative effects and there’s no positive mental health effect for children,” though he did not cite specific research or examples.
“We need to stop sterilizing and mutilating children under the age of 18,” Skaug went on. “This is a mental illness that needs to be treated,” referring to trans identities.
He suggested that people rely on “old fashioned counseling, talk therapy” and “traditional psychology methods” to address trans identities and needs in youth.
Cathryn Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel at Human Rights Campaign, said she is disappointed that “some politicians in Boise have decided to follow Texas and Alabama down the path of imposing felony criminal penalties upon doctors who are simply doing their jobs.”
She noted that a recent study found that gender-affirming care reduces the risk of moderate or severe depression by 60% and suicidality by 73%.
