National

(NEW YORK) — Jessica Parker, 40, didn’t transition until she was in her 30s.

She suppressed her identity in her conservative, central Texas town out of fear of rejection or violence. But as more and more LGBTQ people came into her life, she finally felt safe enough to come out, identifying publicly as a woman.

“I feel more myself than ever,” Parker told ABC News in an interview. “I’ve been happier than ever. It’s been a struggle, certainly, but it’s been great and I have a good trans community now.”

Her “chosen family” — the close circle of LGBTQ friends and allies she has cultivated — understands the beauty and power of the LGBTQ community and they’ve become a lifeline for her.

When facing rejection from family members or feeling lost about the challenges faced by the LGBTQ community, that’s where a chosen family steps in. Local activist groups, LGBTQ alliances or clubs, or dedicated spaces like queer bars are often the birthplaces of many chosen families.

As anti-LGBTQ policies and legislation proliferate across the country, finding such a community has become a vital tool. For many queer people, a chosen family can be a means for survival.

“That’s what’s beautiful about the trans community,” said D. ​​Ojeda, a senior national organizer at trans advocacy organization National Center for Transgender Equality. Their pronouns are they/them and they identify as nonbinary.

“What makes us so resilient is that we tend to really be resourceful in making sure that our communities get what they need, even if external forces don’t protect us.”

Increase in anti-LGBTQ legislation

2021 was a record-breaking year for anti-LGBTQ legislation, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Legislatures in 2022 are moving full steam ahead with these ongoing efforts — including bills or governmental directives in Florida, Texas, Alabama, Indiana, and more that target these groups.

Recent bills and laws range from attempting to ban some trans children from sports; to banning trans people from the bathroom corresponding with their gender; to banning curricula featuring LGBTQ subjects in some classrooms.

The trans community has taken its safety into its own hands in many cases. Ojeda says trans activists have been dispatched to barbershops and hair salons, health clinics and other service locations to assess a businesses’ acceptance of trans people.

When someone needs a jumpstart on their car, or when someone needs moral support during a health care procedure — a chosen family will ensure that someone will be there to lend a helping hand.

They say it’s because other LGBTQ people often understand the collective struggles, queer joy and nuances of the community in a way only they may understand.

“We’re always looking out for each other,” Ojeda said. “Even when outside forces want to make sure that we don’t exist — that’s going to be an impossible thing to do. Because our community is resilient. We definitely have this strong, unified force. This is our chosen family.

Building a strong network

It’s why Parker, Ojeda and Ricardo Martinez, CEO of LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas, encourage LGBTQ youth to find or build a strong moral support system that understands the challenges of being part of the community.

A chosen family can save lives, they say.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), LGBTQ community members are at a higher risk for experiencing mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety disorders and suicidal ideations.

Transgender individuals, in particular, are at risk — they are almost four times as likely as cisgender people to experience a mental health condition and suicide, NAMI reports.

The organization also found that discrimination, prejudice, denial of civil and human rights and family rejection are oft the source behind this disparity.

“I’ve made a tremendous amount of friends [in the LGBTQ community], which brings me a tremendous amount of joy. But also heartbreak, right?” Martinez said, referring to the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ legislation and sentiment.

However, he said the heartbreak is short-lived.

He added, “Regardless of what powers are trying to attack us, I know that I can pull back on many of the families that I’ve met, who affirm the identity of their children, folks who I’ve met on the ground who are incredible advocates that have tremendous power not only in their words but in their actions.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, has the potential to make history as the first Black woman on the country’s highest court.

She was nominated by a historic White House, with the first female and Black vice president in U.S. history — Kamala Harris.

Black women have continued to “break the glass ceiling,” in politics, sports, the humanities and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Despite this progress, there is still a long way to go to achieve racial and gender diversity.

Here are some of the women paving the way for generations to come:

Erin Jackson, first Black woman to win a medal in speed skating

Jackson, 29, won gold for the United States in the women’s 500-meter speed skating competition at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. She’s the first Black woman to ever medal in the sport.

Diversity in winter sports remains abysmal — Jackson is one of few Black athletes on Team USA for the 2022 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games.

When asked by “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts about the lack of diversity in the sport, Jackson said she hopes her achievement helps get “more people to come out and try” winter sports.

In an interview with Team USA, she said: “I hope I can be an example. I would love to see more people of color in all the winter sports. It helps to have some visibility out there, to be able to see other people like you doing something maybe you’d never thought about doing before.”

Jackson, who has been an inline roller skater since she was 10 years old, had only begun practicing speed skating in 2017. She qualified for her first Olympic team in 2018 within months of formally starting to train on the ice, according to Team USA.

Simone Leigh, first Black woman to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale is one of the most anticipated international art events and in 2022, Leigh will take the world stage to highlight her work made for and dedicated to Black women.

Leigh, born in Chicago, Illinois, is a multimedia artist who explores the experiences of Black femme-identifying people, often referencing African art and traditions of the African Diaspora, according to the Institute of Contemporary Art.

“Leigh’s unique sculptural work explores and elevates ideas about history, race, gender, labor, and monuments, creating and reclaiming powerful narratives of Black women,” the ICA said in the announcement of her participation.

For the Biennale, Leigh created “a series of new sculptures and installations that address what the artist calls an ‘incomplete archive’ of Black feminist thought, with works inspired by leading Black intellectuals,” the ICA said.

Her work will be on view from April 23 to Nov. 27, 2022, in Venice, Italy.

Clarice Phelps, first Black woman to help in the discovery of a periodic element

Phelps is a nuclear chemist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and in 2010 she played a key role in discovering and confirming Tennessine, a new element on the periodic table. But her groundbreaking work isn’t done — she’s also part of the international effort to discover elements 119 and 120.

Phelps, an advocate for diversity in STEM and youth outreach for the sciences, told ABC News that the discovery of Tennessine was one of the highlights of her career: “While my part may have been small in the entirety of the element discovery team, I think the impact of my presence was monumental for Black girls who don’t normally see themselves occupying spaces and disciplines like this.

“I would hope that the next generation of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, etc., do not have to find themselves alone amongst a sea of faces that do not reflect what they see in the mirror everyday,” she added. “I hope that working in this field allows others to see the valuable contributions that employing diversity yields and make adjustments to enact real change in their workplace environments.”

Jessica Watkins, first Black woman to live on the International Space Station

Watkins has become the first Black woman assigned to a mission at the International Space Station. She will orbit Earth as she conducts research in a microgravity laboratory as a mission specialist for the SpaceX Crew-4 mission.

Watkins, 33, earned a bachelor of science in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University, and a doctorate in geology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She joined NASA as an intern and has since worked at various research centers before being selected in 2017 for NASA’s Astronaut Candidate Class.

This will be her first journey to space since becoming an astronaut. She’s officially fulfilling a dream she’s had since she was a young girl.

“A dream feels like a big faraway goal that’s going to be difficult to achieve or something you might achieve much later in life,” Watkins said in a video released by NASA last year. “But in reality, what a dream realized is just one putting one foot in front of the other on a daily basis. If you put enough of those footprints together, eventually they become a path towards your dreams.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Don Natzke, who lost his sight at age 12, says still being able to vote has played a pivotal role in his life.

“It’s true of all citizens, but certainly for people with disabilities, the people who are making the policies are very important to us,” he told ABC News. “For example, what my community chooses to do to have accessible transportation available affects how I’m able to move around my community.”

Natzke, who is now retired, grew up in Wisconsin and says the only way he could vote was to appear at a polling place and have someone read, mark and cast the ballot for him.

“But as technology has moved along, we’ve ended up having the possibility of accessible voting machines and different ways to vote. This is particularly important,” he told ABC News.

Leading up to the 2020 election, in order to expand voting during the pandemic, the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission encouraged the use of absentee ballot drop boxes and allowed a friend or family member to drop off a ballot for another voter. Election officials placed about 570 absentee ballot drop boxes across 66 of the state’s 72 counties.

Natzke says that, since he was high-risk for COVID, he didn’t feel comfortable going to the polls in-person. He had reservations about mail-in-voting because of Postal Service delivery delays. He said having the drop boxes as an option was essential because he was able to have his son, one of his primary caretakers, drop off his ballot.

But now, in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, states that enacted policies making it easier to vote, such as drop boxes and drive-thru voting, expanded polling hours, and increased absentee voting options, have started to roll back those options.

Disabled voters say they and their caretakers are suffering the consequences.

In Wisconsin, changed election policies will make it harder for disabled voters to cast their ballots, Natzke said. While people with disabilities can still benefit from accommodations such as accessible voting machines, they still face hurdles getting to polling sites and sometimes having to use outdated equipment.

Last month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied a request from the elections commission to keep the drop boxes through the state’s April election and barred anyone other than the voter from mailing or returning a ballot.

It comes as the court will hear arguments next month on whether it’s valid to use drop boxes in future elections.

Rick Esenberg, president and general counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which brought the lawsuit challenging guidelines allowing drop boxes, told ABC News he’s not necessarily against drop boxes but says it’s up to state lawmakers, not election officials, to change election rules.

Since the 2020 election, Wisconsin’s GOP-controlled legislature has passed a slew of election-related bills. However, with many of them adding more requirements to voting or giving more power to partisan actors, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers says he will veto any legislation that makes it harder for people to vote.

Esenberg and other backers of the policy rollbacks in Wisconsin say their efforts are aimed at cracking down on election fraud, despite no serious fraud having been found in the 2020 election. 

Esenberg also pushed back on claims disabled voters are being disenfranchised, saying people with disabilities can vote by requesting “door-to-door” service through the Postal Service to get their ballot delivered. Advocates say that doesn’t always work because some disabled voters are confined to bed.

Those in the disability community say there are still roadblocks for some with mobility issues, and argue the legislature’s work is causing harm.

“Well, it’s democracy,” Esenberg responds. “What you have to do at that point, is go out and win small elections. So, your side will have a majority in the legislature and you’ll be able to get what you want.”

“The disability community is not against fraud-free elections; we’re not against that. But we also don’t want our civil rights trampled on in the process,” said Stephanie Birmingham, an advocacy coordinator at Options for Independent Living and someone who has used a wheelchair since an early age.

Natzke agrees, saying there is no evidence of widespread fraud. “The cure is far worse than the illness.”

Just this year, 27 states have pre-filed or introduced legislation making it more difficult for people to vote. At least three of those states introduced measures specifically aimed at people with disabilities that make it harder to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

In Texas, under new voting law S.B. 1 — which includes new requirements to mail-in voting, more power to partisan poll watchers, and cuts back on early voting hours — lawmakers added new requirements and potential criminal penalties for assisting voters, including those with disabilities.

Now, aides must fill out extensive paperwork and take an oath that they did not pressure the voter to choose them for assistance.

Voters with disabilities and their aides say they are left to fend for themselves, trying to figure out what the new rules mean.

Barbara Beckert, director of the Disability Rights Wisconsin’s Milwaukee office, said she has experienced a significant influx of calls from caretakers as well as voters voicing frustration, hurt and confusion about the rollback of drop boxes and absentee ballot return assistance A main reason is that some of the new rules contradict legal disability protections.

Though Wisconsin state law says only the voter may return his or her ballot, section 208 of the Voting Rights Act permits a voter with a disability from getting help doing so from a person of their choice.

“It’s my understanding that in a situation like that, federal law would preempt the state law. However, you know, this is a difficult situation. It’s been very challenging to know how to advise a voter in that situation,” she explains.

The difficulties come as turnout among voters with disabilities has surged in recent years. In 2020, all disability types and demographic groups experienced higher turnout, with nearly 62% of all people with disabilities voting, according to recent data from the Program for Disability Research at Rutgers University and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Now, they worry the new measures will reverse those historic gains.

Texas just held the first primary of the midterm season, and advocates say the new rules imposed significant challenges.

“We talked to one lady the other day who had applied multiple times and never got her ballot, so she ended up not voting,” Chase Bearden, deputy director of Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, told ABC News.

And in Wisconsin, voters are bracing for April’s election, where judicial, educational and municipal officers are on the ballot.

Don Natzke, now a senior citizen, hopes for a better understanding of the hurdles people with disabilities often face.

“We recognize that there are times that we all need to accomplish what everybody else needs to do. But sometimes we need to do that differently,” Natze said. “It makes me wonder, you know, is my vote really something that’s valued?”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Matthew and Christy Johnson describe watching the Russian invasion of Ukraine as “heart-wrenching.”

The Johnsons, of Littleton, Colorado, are one of hundreds of families in the United States who were in the process of adopting a child from Ukraine when the conflict there began.

“It feels like living through a nightmare,” Matthew Johnson told “Good Morning America.” “She’s not legally our daughter but for all intents and purposes we feel like our daughter is over there with bombs flying around her, and all we can do is pray.”

The Johnsons, parents of five biological children, first met the child they hope to adopt, an 8-year-old girl named Margarita, this summer when they hosted her for several weeks through Host Orphans Worldwide, a nonprofit organization that matches host families in the U.S. with Ukrainian children.

Margarita returned to Colorado in December to spend the holidays with the Johnsons, and flew back to Ukraine on Jan. 15.

The Johnsons said they received one of the final pieces of documentation needed for the adoption process just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.

Now, they said they are waiting daily to hear about the safety of Margarita, who lives in southeastern Ukraine.

“Over the past several months we’ve been able to do video chats or send her messages and packages, but we haven’t heard anything [from her] for the last week,” said Christy Johnson. “So it’s been really heart-wrenching.”

The Johnsons said they have heard from other families in the U.S. that the institution where Margarita is staying is safe, but they have no idea what is next for the young girl they describe as “funny and delightful” and a member of their family.

“When she left in January we were telling her, ‘We’ll come. We’ll see you in Spring,'” said Matthew Johnson. “Now it’s devastating. We can’t fulfill that promise anymore.”

While more than 1.2 million people have been forced to flee Ukraine since Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24, millions more people remain in the country, including children.

Prior to the war, approximately 100,000 children in Ukraine were being raised in institutions, according to government statistics, a United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, spokesperson told ABC News.

Many of the institutions are located in hot spots, according to the spokesperson, who added that many of the children in institutions, such as boarding schools and orphanages, have disabilities.

These institutions are being evacuated without proper monitoring of the children’s situation, according to UNICEF.

Hannah and Brent Romero, of Villa Platte, Louisiana, said they submitted the final paperwork to adopt a 15-year-old boy from Ukraine on Jan. 17, just weeks before the war began.

The boy, whose name they asked not be used, has Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune condition in which a person’s body no longer makes insulin.

“We ask him every day about that and he says he’s doing OK,” said Brent Romero. “But I think he’s not telling us the full truth because he doesn’t want us to worry more than we’re already worried about his health.”

The Romeros said they are able to stay in touch with the boy — whom they have known since 2019, when they hosted him for nearly eight weeks in Louisiana — through text messages mostly while he shelters in place in Lviv, a city in western Ukraine.

“We stay up until he’s awake so we can see if we can catch him before we go to sleep,” said Hannah Romero. “He told me yesterday, ‘I didn’t sleep well … because the air raid sirens kept going off and we had to go in the basement.'”

Hannah Romero, a high school English teacher, and Brent Romero, a pastor, are flying from Louisiana to Poland on Friday to join a group of Americans who have gathered there to help support children who make it out of Ukraine.

Hannah Romero said she plans to stay in Poland for two weeks, while Brent Romero said he plans to stay indefinitely, until he can bring the 15-year-old boy home. The couple, already parents of two sons, said they are also hoping to take in the boy’s 11-year-old sister, whom they have never met.

“We’re not asking permission to adopt them right now,” said Hannah Romero. “We’re asking permission to bring them here temporarily, just to keep them safe and until everything else can be figured out.”

She continued, “It might take years to figure everything else out, but that’s OK. We need them to be safe in the time being.”

Hundreds of miles away from the Romeros, in Florida, Kelly Lee, a mom of five, including four adopted children, is working to help a 16-year-old girl she is in the process of adopting get safely to the U.S.

Lee, of Oviedo, Florida, and her husband, Kevin, are now applying for tourist visas for the girl and her sister and 7-year-old nephew, all of whom were able to escape to Hungary.

“The whole [adoption] process is on hold, and it’s really just a matter of getting them safe is what’s important,” said Lee. “Our first attempt is to apply for these tourist visas.”

Lee said she has seen what she describes as an “army of moms” working together in the U.S. to help children in Ukraine, connecting on social media and helping each other navigate language barriers and the extreme circumstances of war.

“We’re getting messages from families saying, ‘We need help. We have this kid we need out,'” said Lee. “So it’s been a joke that it’s like an army of moms have come together to try to get their children. They’re researching in a country that they can’t even read websites, but they’re trying to figure out buses and trains.”

In Oregon, Jennifer Mitchell, is one of the moms leading the charge.

Mitchell, a mom of eight, including three children adopted from Ukraine, is one of the founders of Host Orphans Worldwide, the organization that matches host families in the U.S. with Ukrainian children.

While Host Orphans Worldwide does not facilitate adoptions, about 75% of kids in its program end up getting adopted by people in the U.S., according to Mitchell. She said Ukraine has a high number of U.S. adoptions because it has both one of the shortest wait times for international adoption and one of the largest populations of children in need.

Mitchell’s husband traveled to Poland this week to assist a team on the ground supporting refugees, while Mitchell is home in Oregon coordinating between families in the U.S. and orphanage directors in Ukraine.

“We’ve gotten money to them to buy food because they were running out, and we’ve helped with bus transportation and train tickets to get kids out of Ukraine,” she said. “We have a few orphanages in the eastern part of the country that are surrounded and it is safer for them to stay put than to move. It is a dire situation.”

Mitchell said in one of those orphanages is a 12-year-old girl she and her husband were in the process of adopting, noting they have not spoken to her in over a week.

“There’s probably closer to 100 kids in that orphanage,” she said. “Even evacuating them puts a target on their back.”

With no end in sight to the conflict with Russia, Mitchell said she fears what the end result will be for children in Ukraine.

“The orphan crisis in Ukraine was already bad and this, it’s just going to be a humanitarian emergency,” she said. “It is horrific.”

ABC News’ Zoe Magee contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — When it comes to meal prep, the idea of dishing out a lineup of “same, same but different” type recipes can become monotonous and dissatisfying.

So “Good Morning America” Food rounded up an array of freezer friendly recipes that can be prepped ahead, popped in the freezer and cooked on the spot when you’re ready to enjoy.

Sarah Farmer, executive culinary director of Taste of Home, previously shared these freezer-pleaser dinners that cut down the “stress of having to figure out what to make for dinner every night.”

Get ready to clean out, cook and fill up your freezer, because these additional recipes will keep your kitchen full of delicious and easy homemade dinners.

Five-Cheese Ziti al Forno

Ingredients

1-1/2 pounds (about 7-1/2 cups) uncooked ziti or small tube pasta
2 jars (24 ounces each) marinara sauce
1 jar (15 ounces) Alfredo sauce
2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
1/2 cup reduced-fat ricotta cheese
1/2 cup shredded provolone cheese
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
Topping:
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
Optional: Minced fresh parsley or basil, optional

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (when ready to cook, do not bake if freezing ahead). Cook the pasta according to the package directions for al dente; drain.

Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, combine the marinara sauce, Alfredo sauce, 1 cup mozzarella and the ricotta, provolone and Romano. Cook over medium heat until sauce begins to simmer and cheeses are melted. Stir in cooked pasta; pour mixture into a greased 13×9-in. baking dish. Top with remaining 1 cup mozzarella cheese.

In a small bowl, stir together Parmesan, bread crumbs, garlic and olive oil; sprinkle over the pasta.
Bake, uncovered, until mixture is bubbly and topping is golden brown, 30-40 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. Garnish with fresh parsley or basil if desired.

Freeze option: Cool the unbaked casserole; cover and freeze. To use, partially thaw in the refrigerator overnight. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover casserole with foil; bake 50 minutes. Uncover; bake until heated through and a thermometer inserted in center reads 165 degrees, 15-20 minutes longer.

Air-Fryer Jamaican Beef Patties

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon pepper
3/4 teaspoon salt
For the crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons curry powder
Dash salt
1/2 cup cold butter
1/3 cup ice water
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Directions

In a large skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat until beef is no longer pink and onion is tender, 6-8 minutes, breaking up beef into crumbles; drain. Stir in curry powder, thyme, pepper and salt; set aside.

For crust, in a large bowl, whisk together flour, curry powder and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add water; stir just until moistened.

Preheat air fryer to 350 degrees. Divide dough into 8 portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a 6-in. circle. Place about 1/4 cup filling on 1 half of each circle. Fold crust over filling. Press edges with a fork to seal.

Freeze option: Cover and freeze unbaked pastries on a parchment-lined baking sheet until firm. Transfer to freezer containers; return to freezer. To use, cook pastries on a greased tray in air-fryer basket in a preheated 350° air-fry until heated through, 25-30 minutes.

In batches if necessary, place in a single layer on greased tray in air-fryer basket; brush with beaten egg. Cook until golden brown, 22-25 minutes. Remove to wire racks. Serve warm.

Korean Beef and Rice

Ingredients

1 pound lean ground beef (90% lean)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2-2/3 cups hot cooked brown rice
3 green onions, thinly sliced

Directions

In a large skillet, cook beef and garlic over medium heat 6-8 minutes or until beef is no longer pink, breaking beef into crumbles. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix brown sugar, soy sauce, oil and seasonings.

Stir sauce into beef; heat through. Serve with rice. Sprinkle with green onions.

Freeze option: Freeze cooled meat mixture in freezer containers. To use, partially thaw in refrigerator overnight. Heat through in a saucepan, stirring occasionally.

Pressure Cooker Chicken Enchilada Soup

Grab the ingredients and follow the prep steps and pressure cook as directed. Store in a freezer safe container and remove to reheat on a stovetop or in a slow cooker until heated through.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon canola oil
2 Anaheim or poblano peppers, finely chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 carton (48 ounces) chicken broth
1 can (14-1/2 ounces) Mexican diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can (10 ounces) enchilada sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 to 1 teaspoon chipotle hot pepper sauce, optional
1/3 cup minced fresh cilantro

Optional: Shredded cheddar cheese, cubed avocado, sour cream and tortilla strips

Directions

Select sauté setting on a 6-quart electric pressure cooker. Adjust for medium heat; add oil. When oil is hot, add peppers and onion; cook and stir until tender, 6-8 minutes. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Add chicken, broth, tomatoes, enchilada sauce, tomato paste, seasonings and, if desired, pepper sauce. Stir.

Lock lid; close pressure-release valve. Adjust to pressure-cook on high for 8 minutes. Allow pressure to naturally release for 7 minutes; quick-release any remaining pressure.

Remove chicken from pressure cooker. Shred with 2 forks; return to pressure cooker.

Stir in cilantro. Serve with toppings as desired.

Recipes reprinted with permission courtesy of Taste of Home.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court reinstated the death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who attacked the Boston Marathon in 2013, in a decision announced Friday.

It was a 6-3 decision, with the opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas. Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is reversed,” Thomas wrote in the decision.

Breyer in the dissent said Tsarnaev should have been allowed to present evidence that his older brother Tamerlan had previously committed three brutal murders to bolster his case that he “radicalized him.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Music producer Derrick Harris filed a lawsuit against the City of New York and the New York Police Department alleging he was wrongfully accused of sexual assault and imprisoned for four years on Rikers Island.

Harris was acquitted on some of the charges in 2015 and cleared of all charges in 2020, according to the lawsuit.

The city played a role in the arrest of Derrick Harris for “a bogus rape accusation, leading to his wrongful incarceration for four years,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump said at a press conference Thursday.

Harris was “wrongfully and falsely accused based on police lies,” he said.

Crump said evidence was fabricated against Harris to keep him imprisoned in Rikers Island for four years after his arrest and prior to trial. Harris was injured during his imprisonment, including suffering a skull fracture, he said.

The lawsuits also lists as defendants the police officers who arrested Harris, former New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and Carolina Holderness, the former deputy chief for the special victims bureau at the District Attorney’s office.

The NYPD declined to comment because they said they had not been served with the lawsuit.

Representatives for the city of New York, Vance Jr. and Holderness did not immediately reply to ABC News’ requests for comment. Attorney information for the officers was not immediately available.

According to the lawsuit, Harris was beaten and arrested at his home by NYPD officers on Sept. 12, 2011, after an incident in which a female acquaintance screamed for help from the balcony of his apartment, alleging he had sexually assaulted her. The woman left, but hours later officers entered his home without a warrant, the lawsuit claims.

Harris was punched, pushed and slammed to the ground by the officers, the lawsuit says. He was handcuffed without explanation or attempts at de-escalation, he alleges in the lawsuit.

After his arrest, the lawsuit says officers falsified witness evidence and evidence at the scene to obtain a warrant to search his home. It also claims that the alleged victim’s rape kit and other physical evidence was improperly handled and that Harris had to have the evidence tested which showed his DNA was not present and proved his innocence.

“And then he found out how easy it was for the system to gobble up a black man and just tried him out,” Crump said.

Prior to the incident, Harris was a self-employed music producer with clients including Wu-Tang Clan, Alicia Keys and Busta Rhymes. He had no prior convictions or time in prison, according to the lawsuit.

“I feel like if I wasn’t a black man, then the fact that they had evidence to prove my innocence within a few months of me being arrested, I would have not had to stay on Rikers Island for over four years, just like they did to Kalief Browder,” Harris said at the press conference, referencing the teenager who was imprisoned on Rikers Island for three years without a trial.

“They hold you on Rikers Island, with no case at all, in an attempt to try to get you to take a guilty plea. And it’s wrong. It has to be stopped,” Harris said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — A top Justice Department official has a stern warning for Russian oligarchs who attempt to evade U.S. sanctions: Nobody is out of the DOJ’s reach.

“The point of going after Putin’s cronies and Russian oligarchs who seek to violate our laws and shield their assets is to say that nobody is beyond the reach of our system of justice, beyond the reach of our work and cooperation with our allies, and that these cronies and oligarchs who seek to support and bolster the Russian regime shouldn’t be able to get away with that while people are dying,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told ABC News’ Byron Pitts.

The Justice Department on Wednesday announced a task force to target the assets of Russian oligarchs after President Joe Biden previewed the move in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

The U.S. says some of the oligarchs have ties to President Vladimir Putin and he uses them to launder or hide hundreds of millions of dollars obtained through corruption.

Dubbed Task Force KleptoCapture, the group will investigate and implement new sanctions, combat unlawful efforts to undermine restrictions taken against Russian financial institutions, go after oligarchs who use cryptocurrency to evade U.S. sanctions and seize the assets of Russian oligarchs.

The deputy attorney general urged U.S. businesses to shore up their compliance with sanctions and make sure they know who they’re doing business with.

“Because if they don’t and they run afoul of the sanctions, the consequences can be quite severe,” she said. “And our investigations are often aided by companies and financial institutions that say, ‘You know what, we’re seeing some unusual activity,’ and sharing that information with us, and that’s critically important.”

Monaco said the task force is a “commitment” from the DOJ to put the full weight of the agency behind combatting “efforts of oligarchs and Putin’s cronies to evade sanctions, to launder money, to violate the sanctions that we’re imposing in an unprecedented way with our international partners.”

The deputy attorney general juxtaposed the images playing out on TV of people suffering in Ukraine with some of Russia’s wealthiest citizens evading sanctions.

“We’ve got people dying, bombs falling on civilian populations. All the while you’ve got oligarchs, Putin’s cronies who have engaged in corruptly acquiring billions of dollars, shrouding it and hiding it in luxury items in the West,” she said.

“That cannot stand,” she added.

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(NEW YORK) — Environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, claiming the agency has failed to help preserve Florida manatee habitats as the species faces rising deaths.

Nearly 1,100 manatees died in 2021, which is roughly 20% of the east coast population of manatees, according to a lawsuit filed by Save the Manatee Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife.

“We’ve now had almost 300 [die] in 2022,” aquatic biologist Patrick Rose told ABC News. Rose is the executive director of Save the Manatee Club, the non-profit organization started by singer Jimmy Buffet in 1981 that is dedicated to protecting manatees and preserving their natural habitat.

The group tells ABC News that popular waterways for manatees, like the Indian River Lagoon on Florida’s east coast, have suffered years of pollution from sources like failed septic tanks, improperly treated sewage and fertilizer that deposits nutrients into the water.

“That excess nutrient causes algal blooms that were so severe that it shaded out the seagrass that manatees and other species depend on. The seagrass died,” Rose said.

Manatees typically eat 100 to 200 pounds of seagrass and other plants every day, or roughly 10-20% of their body weight. With so little seagrass available, the manatees have been starving, and in 2021 U.S Fish and Wildlife declared the high number of manatee deaths “an unusual mortality event”.

According to the lawsuit, the Florida manatee was first listed as an endangered species in 1967, but to help protect the animals even further, USFWS designated areas where manatees are found as a “critical habitat” in 1976. Critical habitats are specific areas that have biological and physical features that are important for the survival of a species.

When the critical habitat was first established, important components of the habitat, such as the seagrass, were not taken into consideration, Rose said.

But by 2008, updated Congressional and USFWS definitions of a critical habit and new scientific information required that the manatee’s critical habitat designation be adjusted, according to the lawsuit.

Environmental groups requested that USFWS update the term in 2008 and the agency agreed, but never followed through, according to the lawsuit.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not respond to an ABC News request for comment on the lawsuit.

Save the Manatee Club hopes the USFWS “will work with us now to ensure that seagrasses and warm water habitat are better protected to prevent a continuation of the devastating losses of so many manatees due the continuing loss of seagrasses, which are literally “critically important” to the future survival of manatees,” Rose said.

Save the Manatee is also appealing to the United States Environmental Protection Agency in hopes to upgrade water quality standards so that seagrass will not continue to die from pollution.

“Ultimately, we believe that we must use the provisions of both the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act to ensure that manatees are protected today and for the foreseeable future,” Rose said.

If the court rules in favor of the environmental groups, it will result in higher standards and stiffer penalties for those who pollute waters which kill seagrass. According to Rose, until the standards are raised, the manatees and their ecosystems will continue to be under threat.

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(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s daughter once penned a letter to then-President Barack Obama requesting he nominate her mom for a seat on the Supreme Court.

Leila, who was an 11-year-old middle schooler in 2016, wrote the missive touting the credentials of her mother following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Jackson was serving on the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C. at the time.

“I would like to add my mother, Ketanji Brown Jackson of the District Court, to the list,” Leila wrote, referring to Obama’s shortlist of potential nominees.

“She is determined, honest, and never breaks a promise to anyone, even if there are other things she’d rather do,” the letter reads. “She can demonstrate commitment, and is loyal and never brags.”

Jackson read the entire letter aloud in a 2017 speech and tells the story around it and how she first explained to her daughter the process of becoming a justice.

Obama ended up selecting Merrick Garland to fill the opening, but Senate Republicans fused to hold hearings on the now-attorney general, leaving the seat to be filled by President Donald Trump, who nominated Justice Neil Gorsuch.

It took another six years for President Joe Biden, who served as Obama’s vice president when Leila sent her letter, to come to the same conclusion that Brown “would make a great Supreme Court Justice, even if the workload will be larger….”

In February, Biden tapped to Brown replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement earlier this year.

It is the first time a Black woman has been nominated to the Supreme Court.

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.

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