(NEW YORK) — George Santos is expected to plead guilty in his fraud case during a hearing Monday in federal court on Long Island, sources familiar with the case told ABC News, while cautioning the erratic former Republican congressman could always change his mind.
A guilty plea would avoid a trial that is scheduled to begin next month. Hundreds of potential jurors had already been summoned.
Calls seeking comment to Santos, his attorney and federal prosecutors with the Eastern District of New York were not returned.
Santos, who was expelled from the House of Representatives, faces 23 felony charges that accuse him of defrauding donors, lying about his finances and needlessly accepting unemployment benefits among other things.
It was not immediately clear to which charges Santos is expected to plea or what sentence would be imposed.
Santos allegedly misrepresented elements of his background and biography during his campaign to represent parts of Queen’s and Nassau County, but the criminal charges to which he has pleaded not guilty to mainly involve money.
Two associates, including Santos’ former campaign treasurer, have pleaded guilty to charges over their role in his alleged fraud.
(WASHINGTON) When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, there was a key provision that the Biden administration fought hard for. For years, private insurance companies negotiated with drug makers over prescription prices.
However, Medicare, representing 50 million seniors, did not have the same right to negotiate prices for its Part D coverage. This meant that Medicare basically had to accept the prices offered to them.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra joined “Start Here,” ABC News’ flagship daily news podcast, earlier this year to announce that negotiations were starting. They had selected 10 medications to prioritize and attempt to bargain down prices.
On Thursday, during the first public event held by President Biden and Vice President Harris since the Biden dropped out of the presidential race, they revealed that they had agreed on all issues. This is being described as a significant development for anyone on Medicare, and for anyone who pays taxes to fund the expenses of Medicare.
Secretary Becerra joined “Start Here” on Friday to discuss this further.
START HERE: Mr. Secretary, last time we spoke you had just identified the drugs…they included some diabetes drugs, some arthritis medications, treatments for blood clots and blood cancer. Where are we now?
BECERRA: We are done with the negotiation, Brad. We have completed 10 drugs. Every company joined in the negotiations. We had offers, counter offers, and we hit a sweet spot with all ten. And that sweet spot will save Americans on Medicare who need these drugs lots of money. And it will save taxpayers who help fund the Medicare program lots of money, in the billions.
START HERE: Yeah. How much of a discount are we talking about here?
BECERRA: So in some cases, the discount from the list price is up to 79%. I think the lowest discount is about 38%. And I do want to caveat that a bit. Very rarely does anybody pay list price for anything. And if you do, take it back and bargain a bit. Whether it’s that car at the dealership where you look at list price, you don’t pay that. When you go to the department store, you try to find everything you can on sale or, you know at some point it’s going to go on sale.
And so everybody makes the effort to try to get the best price for whatever the product is. In this case, it’s a very important product, it’s your prescription medication. But you should still be able to get a good price, and that’s what we did. We negotiated and got a much better price than what Medicare was getting.
START HERE: But just so we can we can be clear about that caveat. You’re saying it’s 68%, say it’s like 79% less than the list price. But you guys weren’t paying the list price earlier. Can you tell us how much you were paying on these drugs beforehand, and how much the new discount you’ve gotten is?
BECERRA: Yeah. And that’s where it gets a little dicey because there are lots of nooks and crannies in the health care system. Some of them include what are, what is considered proprietary information of the companies, the drug companies, that they don’t want disclosed. And so the net price that Medicare pays is lower than the list price, but still high.
START HERE: So there’s some contract somewhere being like “You guys, no one can disclose what you guys had originally been paying.”
BECERRA: Yeah. We can’t, we can’t take you behind the curtain unless the drug companies tell us it’s okay to do so.
START HERE: Were you able to actually push back against these drug companies, or was it kind of like “We’ll ask once and then we’ll have to take what we get. We’re not going to risk not giving Americans these, these drugs.”
BECERRA: Well, let’s just say that when they came in with their offer or counteroffer, the final price was neither our initial offer nor their official offer. But here’s what I will tell you. The Congressional Budget Office, which is Congress’ budget estimator, they’re the ones that keep tabs of what legislation will cost — will it save money or will it cost taxpayers money? And they are very stingy when it comes to saying “Oh, taxpayers will save money.” Right?
Well, the Congressional Budget Office said with regard to the Inflation Reduction Act and prescription drug negotiation, they said, we believe in the first year of negotiation — which we just finished — in that first year, and they’re projecting because they didn’t know which drugs it would be, etc.. They said, we believe the Department of Health Human Services will save $3.7 billion. Well, we’ve saved $6 billion.
And on top of that, we’re saving people out of pocket another billion and a half. But here’s the kicker. They said over 10 years, they assume that this new law, over 10 years of negotiating, will save $100 billion. So if we’re already almost double their first estimate for their first year, I guarantee you we’re going to do better than the 100 billion, over 10 years.
START HERE: Okay. When do the new prices go into effect, then I guess?
BECERRA: Jan. 1, 2026.
START HERE: Okay, so when that kicks in, how much of a discount will average Medicare patients actually see? Because, like, if you guys scored a 68% discount on Farxiga, like the diabetes kidney medication, does that mean that the person using that drug is going to pay, it doesn’t mean they’re going to pay 68% less. I mean, how much less would it be?
BECERRA: Yeah. So remember, and that’s also a difficult question because seniors don’t typically pay very much for their prescription medication. Medicare the program, that’s the beauty of Medicare, it covers the lion’s share of the cost of those drugs. Some Americans still have to pay some out-of-pocket costs for their drugs, especially the higher cost drugs. So we’re going to save folks quite a bit of money.
Let’s put it this way: I can talk to you in total aggregate terms. We can now look at the price that we negotiated and say “Okay, if we had this price back in 2023, what would our cost have been?” And the result is we would have saved $6 billion to the health care program, and Americans will be able to save about a billion and a half dollars collectively in their out-of-pocket costs.
START HERE: The trade group that represents companies like Pfizer, Lilly, Merck, they’ve said we might not see as much innovation because we’re not getting as much money. That’s, that’s constantly been sort of a critique of this. They also say that your math makes assumptions about how many people truly save money on this. They say a very small amount of people actually get this Part D plan in the way that would actually save the money here. What is your response to to to these pharmaceutical groups?
BECERRA: Well, remember, they’re more than 50 million Americans who have prescription coverage under Medicare, the Part D program. There are about 9 million people in the Medicare program who use one of these 10 drugs. It’s not a small universe of people. And these are very expensive drugs. When you can bring the price down of a drug that’s listed for, say, $10,000, $12,000 to $3,000. That’s a pretty good deal. It’s still $3,000, but it sure saved you a ton of money. If you were paid $12,000 or 13,000 before that.
And so this will save not just the Medicare program money, but it will save Medicare beneficiaries money. And it certainly will pay taxpayers who today, when they work, have some of their money from their paycheck taken out so they could cover their Medicare investment into the future so that when they get turned 65, they can qualify. They will get to benefit from a strengthened Medicare program that will have those new resources available, because we didn’t have to spend it at, for overcharging us for the prescription medication.
START HERE: Well, so now, I mean, the idea is that you’ll negotiate more drug prices, right? So you got these 10 out of the way. What are the next 10 or the next 20, or do you guys have a sense of what types of drugs you’re looking to target?
BECERRA: Yeah. And here I have to be careful, because everything we say about a drug can move the price on the market. Right? And I don’t want to be accused of trying to influence the price up or down. And so what I can tell you is the statute, the new law, the Inflation Reduction Act, gave a pretty clear prescription of how to select these, set of drugs that will be negotiated. That’s a, it’s a good thing in the way, in a sense that it doesn’t let politics enter into this. It was pretty clear which drugs count. In this case, the first 10, they had to be the most expensive drugs in the Medicare system.
START HERE: All right. So then we’ll see what happens next. All right. Secretary Xavier Becerra, thank you so much.
(CHICAGO) — President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will speak at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday night, a senior DNCC spokesperson confirmed.
Their speeches will “make a strong case to elect Harris,” the spokesperson said.
“We are so excited to honor and celebrate the President’s lifetime of service and unmatched legacy,” the statement added.
Aides say Biden will address “how in the battle for the soul of America, we’ve ensured democracy prevailed, democracy delivered, and now with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, we must ensure democracy is preserved.”
Harris, who is on a campaign swing this weekend, will arrive in Chicago from Pennsylvania on Sunday night, and is expected to join the “tributes to Biden” on Monday. She’ll then go up to Milwaukee for a rally on Tuesday.
The Democratic National Convention is set to begin Monday in Chicago — during which Democratic Party delegates are set to support Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, after their unconventional path to the party’s nomination.
During the four-day convention, Democratic heavyweights are set to rally behind Harris, who was officially certified as the Democratic presidential nominee earlier this month after getting the vast majority of delegate votes in a virtual roll call.
Harris’ path to the DNC has been an unorthodox and truncated one after President Joe Biden announced he was leaving the 2024 race and endorsed Harris for the job on July 21.
(NEW YORK) — Trump Media & Technology Group’s stock dropped more than 11% this week, suffering from sour sentiment after a weak earnings report and the return of former President Donald Trump to rival social media platform X.
The company’s woes stretch back to the middle of last month. Since then, the stock for the Truth Social parent company has plummeted by about 43%. Yet as the stock continues to slide, some of its investors remain unfazed, telling ABC News they are optimistic about the company’s financial outlook, or intend to stand by it as an expression of their support for Trump.
Todd Schlanger, an interior designer from West Palm Beach, told ABC News that he purchased shares in Trump Media because he supports Trump’s politics and believes in his businesses.
“I’m a Republican, so I supported him. When I found out about the stock, I got involved because I support the company and believe in free speech,” said Schlanger, who said he owns approximately a thousand shares of the company.
A frequent user of the social media platform, Schlanger boasted about the user interface – “It’s like a combination of X and Facebook” – and said he looked forward to the expansion of the company’s streaming services.
“I think it’s going to be as strong as Facebook or Twitter,” said Schlanger.
Other investors said they primarily saw Truth Social as a way to support the former president.
“I did it more as a statement to President Trump and to show support at the time. I wasn’t really looking to make a lot of money,” said Teri Lynn Roberson, who bought five shares of the company as the company neared its peak stock price after going public in March.
Roberson said she was unconcerned about the stock’s poor performance or the impact of Trump’s potential return to rival X, the latter of which she said could benefit Trump’s presidential campaign by expanding his audience of supporters beyond the “echo chamber” of Truth Social.
“I’m way at a loss, but I am OK with that. I am just watching it for fun,” Roberson said.
Truth Social’s stock performance holds significant financial implications for the former president, who owns a 65% stake in the company. Truth Social shares make up a large portion of Trump’s overall net worth, according to Fortune.
Truth Social did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Truth Social’s recent losses
An earnings report released last Friday showed, Truth Social had lost more than $16 million over a three-month period ending in June. The company brought in revenue of about $836,000, down 30% from $1.2 million a year earlier, the earnings report showed.
In a statement released following the earnings report, Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes applauded the company’s balance sheet, including $344 million in cash and no debt.
“From the beginning, it was our intention to make Truth Social an impenetrable beachhead of free speech, and by taking extraordinary steps to minimize our reliance on Big Tech, that is exactly what we are doing,” Nunes said.
Investors, however, reacted poorly to the quarterly report when trading opened on Monday, and the stock price continued to drop when Trump then posted on rival X for the first time in roughly a year. It marked just his second post on the platform since January 2021, when the company suspended Trump in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol “due to the risk of further incitement to violence.”
After tech billionaire Elon Musk purchased what was then known as Twitter in Oct. 2022, he lifted the ban the following month. On Monday, Musk spoke with Trump in an interview that was broadcast on the platform.
While the former president is bound by an exclusivity agreement with Trump Media & Technology Group to post personal content first to Truth Social, Trump can make “politically-related” posts on other social media sites, according to the agreement. Other than a series of political posts on Monday, Trump has refrained from using social media sites beyond Truth Social.
Michael Rogers, who owns a masonry company in Asheville, North Carolina, said he first bought shares of Truth Social in 2022, before the company went public. Since then, Rogers has acquired more than 10,000 shares, he said.
Rogers, who said he plans to vote for Trump in November, bought the shares as both an expression of political support and as a sign of confidence in the company’s financial outlook, he said. “It’s a 50-50 balance of the reasons I started investing in Truth Social,” Rogers told ABC News.
Trump’s return to X this week did not bother Rogers, since the platform allows Trump to reach a larger audience, Rogers said. The weak earnings report last Friday did concern him, however.
“The revenue just isn’t there,” Rogers said. “That’s something the company has to work on.”
Despite the stock’s recent struggles, Rogers said he retains confidence in the business.
“I’m in it for the long haul,” Rogers said.
Analyst outlook
Analysts described the performance of Truth Social as the characteristic fluctuation of a so-called “meme stock.” The term – made famous by pandemic-era examples such as GameStop and AMC – indicates a company that largely appeals to investors on the basis of ideology, rather than financial outlook.
Truth Social’s value climbed about 30% in the immediate aftermath of an assassination attempt against Trump in July, reaching a price of $40 a share. That figure marked the highest level for the stock in more than a month, but shares still stood well below a peak of about $66.
The share price now stands at about $23, amounting to a drop of nearly two-thirds from its peak.
Tyler Richey, an analyst at Sevens Report Research, said the decline of the stock price in recent weeks has coincided with the emergence of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee. A surge for Harris in voter surveys has damaged perception of Trump’s election prospects, Richey told ABC News.
“The stock has ebbed and flowed with sentiment toward former president Trump,” Richey said. “It doesn’t help that Trump was pretty much exclusively using Truth Social and decided to join Elon Musk with X.”
Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida, said Truth Social’s poor financial performance leaves it vulnerable to negative news and darkens its long-term outlook.
“For a long time, I’ve been saying that the stock will be volatile but that the long-run trend will be down,” Ritter said.
“What’s lacking for the true believer in the company story is, ‘OK, where is the business strategy that will be generating revenue?'” Ritter added, noting by contrast that it makes sense for die-hard Trump supporters to back the stock.
“I don’t think it’s irrational for people to do that,” Ritter said. “On the other hand, I generally don’t go out of my way to further line the pockets of billionaires.”
Trump supporters rushing to purchase shares in Truth Social provided other investors an opportunity to cash in on the company’s tumultuous stock price. With anticipation building ahead of Trump Media & Technology Group’s merger in March with Digital World Acquisition Corporation, Mitchell Standley exercised a few call options – contracts that allow an investor to buy a stock at a predetermined price – to make a 1,500% return on his investment.
“It was basically just a pump and dump,” Standley told ABC News. “I knew that once they merged, all of his supporters were going to dump a bunch of money into it and buy it up.”
Since March, Standley has avoided the company, he said, attributing its volatile stock performance to a lack of business fundamentals.
“I made my money and am staying away from it,” Standley said.
(NEW YORK) — Journalist Amr Manasra says he remembers the moment an iron column saved his life.
It was a miracle, he said, when an Israeli sniper’s bullet was met by the iron before it could reach his press vest — as he lay down in the streets of Jenin in the occupied West Bank — where he was documenting the latest raid by the Israeli forces with a few other colleagues.
In that 40-hour operation in late May, at least 11 people were killed and over 30 people were injured, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Health.
Although locals interviewed by ABC News said they are used to the presence of Israeli forces in Jenin, they said they are still living through the consequences of that one operation, the full scope of the damage coming to light only now as witnesses speak up. The trail of destruction of infrastructure and resources left by that Israeli operation fits into what the U.N. has said is an increasing pattern of violence against Palestinians and their communities in the occupied territories.
ABC News has pieced together a wider accounting of the destruction that Jenin sustained in this raid and subsequently by talking to more than a dozen witnesses, including journalists on the ground, international organizations operating in Jenin, residents, and local authorities, and by obtaining and verifying visual evidence from the scene.
They said that this raid was the first of this kind in Jenin since Oct. 7, when in a surprise attack, Hamas and other militants infiltrated southern Israel and killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250. Almost immediately, Israel began its war on Hamas in Gaza, which has left over 39,890 Palestinians killed in the Strip and 92,200 injured, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
Early on May 21, Israeli troops moved deep into the Jenin refugee camp for what they called a counter-terrorism operation.
The troops opened fire on civilians, according to witnesses including paramedics on the scene, killing bystanders. Among them, three children, a prominent doctor, and a teacher.
Other witnesses interviewed by ABC News said the Israeli troops then proceeded to demolish homes, raid public buildings and dig up water pipes and roads with armored bulldozers, providing photo and video evidence that ABC News was able to geolocate to places in Jenin.
“IDF forces, the Shin Bet and Magav (Border Police) completed an operation to counter terrorism in Jenin this morning. As part of the operation, about 20 terrorist infrastructures were destroyed, including an explosives laboratory and dozens of weapons,” the Israeli Defense Forces said in a statement to ABC News on May 23, the same day they left Jenin. Hamas later claimed two male adults among the victims, as confirmed by sources to ABC News.
Those 40 hours were the deadliest for Jenin since Oct. 7, and one of the most violent in the recent history of the refugee camp, according to the local United Nations office.
Located less than 20 miles south of Nazareth, Jenin is home to one of the most densely populated of 19 refugee camps for Palestinians in the West Bank, with over 20,000 registered refugees, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA. It opened in 1953 to house Palestinians seeking refuge following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Its displaced residents and their descendants have maintained special refugee status, living in a kind of limbo for decades as Jenin developed into a city, its occupants holding onto hope they will one day claim what they say is their right to the disputed land.
Jenin also became a stronghold of the Palestinian armed struggle against the Israeli occupation, which includes factions of terrorist groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad and an armed wing of Fatah allied under the umbrella of what is known as Jenin Brigades, making it a frequent target for Israeli raid.
Especially in the past ten months, Jenin has been raided multiple times by Israeli forces, including in January, when soldiers entered the Ibn Sina Hospital disguised as patients, in what may account for a violation of international law, several experts told ABC News.
Still, the 40-hour operation in May stood out for its impact and scale. “This was not a normal raid but a full-scale invasion,” the director of UNRWA in the West Bank, Adam Bouloukos, told ABC News, calling the operation “definitely unusual.”
“They went into our buildings and destroyed everything, room by room,” Bouloukos said, adding that hundreds of Israeli soldiers arrived in full equipment.
Pictures obtained by ABC News appear to show the damage inside the U.N. buildings in Jenin after that raid.
UNRWA said Israeli soldiers camped overnight in its relief and social services office, leaving behind pizza boxes with names in Hebrew, scattered documents and broken furniture.
Some hospital rooms and the outside of the building also appear damaged, with broken monitors, windows, doors, chairs, fans and medical equipment among the vandalized objects.
Other videos appeared to show military vehicles inside the city center, near the hospital and refugee camp. The videos appeared to include the sounds of heavy gunfire.
Among the first to respond, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), whose spokesperson in Jenin, Ahmed Jibril, told ABC News that the first calls for assistance started around 8 a.m. on May 21.
But as they made their way, their ambulances were prevented from reaching the wounded and searched by Israeli forces, Jibril said. Videos geolocated by ABC News show at least three ambulances being searched in three locations in Jenin that the PRCS said are from incidents on that day.
“The shooting happened all over the refugee camp and surroundings. They began obstructing the entrance of our crews to the camp to assist people or to carry them to the hospital,” the PRCS spokesperson said.
“Our crews were stripped naked and interrogated together with the injured they were transporting,” he added.
Another video shared by the PRCS on their X account appears to show the moment a paramedic is forced to raise his arms and abandon the patient he was assisting.
“The PRCS ambulance man gave the injured first aid and wanted to put him on the stretcher. It was around 1:30 a.m. when the Israeli forces stopped him and asked to leave the place,” Jibril said of the video. “After questions and searching, the Israeli forces arrested the injured person and dismissed the ambulance.”
Journalists on duty in the refugee camp said they were also searched the same day and, in at least one case, injured and almost killed, they told ABC News.
Palestinian photojournalist Amr Manasra was filmed by a colleague, Obada Tahayna, moments after he was shot by Israeli soldiers a few feet away from the entrance of the refugee camp, he said.
“There was no one in the street except journalists and the Israeli occupation army,” Manasra told ABC News in June. “We were wearing our official press uniform, including body armor and a helmet.”
Manasra said a small group of journalists moved towards the Jenin Governmental Hospital to document what was happening there.
“When the first two of our fellow journalists came forward, the occupation army began shooting at me and our colleague Tahaina,” Manasra told ABC News. Tahaina, who filmed the scene, confirmed the sequence of events to ABC News.
The block on ambulances continued for the second day, according to the PRCS, who said the Israeli forces rejected at least 30 requests to coordinate with them in order to allow their medical staff to assist patients.
“They also arrested a paramedic from inside the Ibn Sina ambulance and opened fire on the Red Crescent ambulance,” the PRCS added. The PRCS shared via text message a photo of the damaged ambulance, which ABC News could not independently verify.
With the world focused on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, experts are warning about the parallel spike in violence in the West Bank by the Israeli forces.
The U.N. Human Rights Office said in June it has observed over 80 cases of “consistent violations of international human rights law,” including “disproportionate use of lethal force,” apparently “targeted killings” and “systematic denial or delaying of medical assistance to those critically injured” in the West Bank since Oct. 7 by the Israeli military.
“As if the tragic events in Israel and then Gaza over the past eight months were not enough, the people of the occupied West Bank are also being subjected to day-after-day of unprecedented bloodshed,” U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said in a statement on June 4, after the total number of killed in the West Bank surpassed 500.
It recently topped 600, with at least 623 Palestinians killed and over 5,400 injured, according to data collected by the Palestinian Health Ministry and the U.N.
While settler violence also contributes to the death toll, over 75 percent of the total fatalities since Oct. 7 have taken place during operations by Israeli forces in cities and villages, the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, told ABC News.
The number, which includes militants as well as stone-throwing youth, comprises 145 children, averaging one child killed every two days in the West Bank since the war in Gaza started, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem is considered by Palestinians as the core of a future independent state along with Gaza. Last month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the top UN court, ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories is unlawful and called for the immediate end of settlements, in what is considered an unprecedented condemnation of the decades-long occupation. Israel rejected the ruling, with the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it “false”.
While the international community weighs in on the decision of the ICJ, raids such as the one in Jenin on May 21 risk making parts of the West Bank unlivable for Palestinians, humanitarian agents and local government said.
Jenin City Mayor, Nidal Obeidi, told ABC News that the city’s essential infrastructure has been more heavily damaged in the months following October than ever before. Obeidi underlines the lack of electricity as well as the economic loss of Jenin residents, unable to conduct their businesses. “The streets are so destroyed that people can barely walk or drive with their cars,” Obeidi said.
The destruction that happened during the two-day raid in May was further exacerbated by more operations in the months that followed, with Israeli forces relentlessly returning to Jenin for what they said was part of a wider anti-terrorism operation at least four times, on June 6, June 13, June 22 and August 5, each time for less than a day.
11 were killed as a result, some were detained and over 30 were injured with bullets and shrapnel wounds as well as by an airstrike, according to reports by the local PRCS reviewed by ABC News. The IDF said in different statements that they targeted and eliminated terrorists with these operations.
On June 22, video footage that ABC News geolocated to Jenin appeared to show an injured Palestinian man tied to the hood of an Israeli military jeep, in what human rights experts called a case of “human shielding.” The Israeli military said the incident was under investigation.
With over 302 Palestinians killed in the Jenin Governorate alone since Oct.7, the city and its surroundings have the highest number of victims across the West Bank governorates, according to OCHA.
“Reports of exchanges of fire are frequent. Houses are damaged, infrastructure is destroyed, and people are left homeless. Ambulance access is delayed as people are killed and injured,” an OCHA spokesperson told ABC News. “De-escalation is a must.”
ABC News’ Helena Skinner, Samy Zayara, Nasser Atta, Diaa Hamdi, Latifeh Abdellatif and Will Gretsky contributed to this report.
(CHICAGO) — With more than 50,000 people estimated to descend on Chicago next week for the Democratic National Convention, the city said it is prepared to make sure the week is a success, not just for visitors, but for city residents themselves.
“Our plan is to make sure we keep everyone within the city safe. We want this to be successful,” Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling told an audience at the City Club of Chicago.
While thousands of protestors are expected in Chicago, Snelling said the city is better prepared than it was in 2020, when street protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis led to arsons, looting, and rioting downtown.
Officers and police leadership have been engaged in extra training for more than a year to prepare for civil disobedience, he said. Hundreds of extra law enforcement from across the state will also be on hand, not just to strengthen security around the United Center on Chicago’s west side, but also to make sure 50 neighborhoods in the city are protected.
“We have a city to protect. The Chicago Police Department will be in every single neighborhood protecting the neighborhoods so we will not deplete resources from our neighborhoods,” he said.
Still, concerns remain among downtown business owners, some of which are boarding up office spaces and storefronts out of fear the convention will ignite looting sprees like those that spread throughout the business district during the 2020 summer.
“This city has a poor track record when it comes to protecting businesses,” Scott Shapiro, owner of menswear shop Syd Jerome, told ABC News affiliate WLS.
Meanwhile, activists have been battling the city of Chicago in federal court over permitting rights. The Coalition to March on the DNC, which represents 200 social justice organizations from throughout the Midwest, filed for permits in 2023, however, they sued the city for violating its First Amendment right to protest.
While permits for the coalition are approved, the organization said the city, citing safety reasons, is unfairly restricting them by preventing the organization from constructing stages, connecting sound equipment and having portable toilets at Union Park.
During an emergency hearing on Friday, however, the city agreed to allow for the stage and speaker system for both rallies. U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood also ruled last week that activists must follow a protest route outlined by the city which is shorter and a further distance from the United Center.
The first of two major protests next week starts at noon on Monday in Union Park, located about four blocks from the United Center. Buses arriving early Monday will bring “tens of thousands of people” from Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana to march, said Coalition spokesperson Hatem Abudayyeh. The coalition’s second march is 5 p.m. on Thursday.
A third march, scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, and approved by the city, is sponsored by the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, a local organization representing Chicago area Muslim groups and mosques.
Abudayyeh said the coalition’s route, which stretches 2.4 miles, is safer because its length will accommodate the massive turnout of people expected to march whereas the city’s approved route, which stretches 1.1 miles, includes two sharp turns that will create bottlenecks which Abudayyeh said will leave people standing for up to 90 minutes. The standstill, Abudayyeh said, will encourage people to wander off the route and be subject to arrests.
“Our argument is, why does the city want to take a chance for that to happen?” he asked. He said his organization has years of experience designing protest marches that are safely executed and include trained security and legal observers.
Monday’s march will represent “the broadest and biggest march for Palestinian rights in the city of Chicago. That’s why we have the slogan ‘We keep us safe.’ We don’t need anyone else to do that. The only role and responsibility of the police and the feds is to not infringe on our First Amendment constitutional rights,” he said.
Snelling said his department is “prepared” for a quagmire should there be bottlenecks in the approved route.
“We have to be fluid. Things are ever-evolving, and we will make necessary adjustments to accommodate that,” he said. The scenario presented by the coalition is “not something I’m really worried about now. We knew didn’t want to tie up additional resources to prolong a protest of that nature. But we’ll make sure … we will protect them, and we will protect the neighbors.”
Another pressing issue for the city is neighborhood violence, which could spill into areas where delegates are staying or visiting — and it could also spill into the headlines, which for the Democratic Party, could tarnish the positive message of the convention.
Over the Fourth of July weekend, more than 100 people were shot in Chicago, with 19 people killed, according to police.
Snelling, who previously served as the department’s counterterrorism director and who led field force training for the 2012 Chicago NATO Summit, said the city has remained calm during recent summer events — Lollapalooza, the Chicago Air and Water Show and the Bud Billiken Parade on the South Side — were enjoyed by thousands of Chicagoans with minimal disruption, he said.
“That tells where we’re deploying our people has been helpful,” he said. “We’re ready to go.”
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled a sweeping economic agenda on Friday, vowing to ease inflation, fix the housing market and slash taxes for middle-income families.
The plans include eye-catching proposals such as a ban on grocery price gouging and a $25,000 subsidy for first-time homebuyers.
Economists who spoke to ABC News offered up a mixed assessment of the newly released agenda. Some experts lauded the effort to slow rising costs and restrain corporate power in key sectors, while others criticized what they consider a misguided attempt to override market forces that risks worsening the nation’s debt.
Less than three months before the presidential election, the economy tops lists of voter concerns. Growth is slowing but remains solid. Price increases have cooled dramatically but remain higher than the Federal Reserve’s target level.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Here’s what to know about how economists assess three key pillars of Harris’ economic plan: fighting inflation, recalibrating the housing market and cutting taxes for families.
Fighting inflation
The campaign aims to rein in price increases for everything from groceries to prescription drugs to homes.
Harris points to the market power of large corporations as a key cause of rapid price increases for essential goods, saying companies use their outsized role in a given market to raise prices without fear of a competitor offering a comparable product at a more affordable price. Consumers, the Harris campaign says, are left with nowhere to turn.
The grocery industry exemplifies the damage caused by mega corporations, according to the campaign. “Extreme consolidation in the food industry has led to higher prices that account for a large part of higher grocery bills,” the campaign said in a statement on Friday.
Grocery store profit margins surged in 2021 and rose even higher two years later, even after price increases had begun to cool, a Federal Trade Commission study in March showed.
To control the price hikes, Harris proposed a federal ban on price gouging for food and groceries. While details remain limited, the plan could resemble price-gouging bans in place in 37 states, which prohibit a sudden spike in prices for scarce goods.
Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collective, in a statement on Friday echoed the Harris campaign’s criticism of the broken market for groceries.
“Price gouging, price fixing, and just plain profiteering are rampant in the food and grocery sector,” Owens said. “There is still more the government can do to reduce food and grocery concentration and stop the cheating that is costing families dearly.”
Some economists, however, rejected the notion of corporate power as an important cause of inflation, saying a limit on price hikes could result in shortages of goods.
“Most of the inflation over the past few years has been caused by increases in costs,” Steven Hamilton, a professor of economics at George Washington University, told ABC News. Hamilton acknowledged that price increases for some groceries may owe to corporate concentration, but said it doesn’t stand as a primary cause of overall inflation.
“You have to be careful not to cherry pick,” Hamilton said.
Michael Jones, an economics professor at the University of Cincinnati, said a government-imposed ceiling on prices could cause stores to run out of goods in times of scarcity.
“If there’s a restriction on the prices that companies can charge for products, they simply won’t supply them,” Jones told ABC News.
Fixing the housing market
In recent years, the housing market has suffered from a convergence of high mortgage rates and elevated home prices, shutting out prospective buyers with high costs.
The Harris campaign proposed restoring affordability through a combination of boosting home supply and easing the price pressures for some homebuyers.
Plans to grow the supply of homes include a tax incentive for companies that build starter homes and affordable rental homes, the Harris campaign said. The campaign’s plans to aid buyers feature a $25,000 subsidy for first-time homebuyers.
Economists who spoke to ABC News lauded the Harris campaign’s effort to boost housing supply, but offered differing opinions about the support for homebuyers.
“The reason that housing prices have gone up in most places in America is that supply is limited,” Hamilton, of George Washington University, told ABC News. “That commitment to increase supply is rare among politicians but it’s something that economists should praise.
Some economists said the subsidies for homebuyers threaten to undermine the price cuts achieved through additional supply. If prospective buyers know they’ll receive a subsidy of $25,000 from the government, they’ll boost their asking price by that amount, said Jones, of the University of Cincinnati. As a result, he added, home prices will rise.
“If they have $25,000 more to spend on a house, they’ll submit bids up to $25,000 higher for the home,” Jones said. “That policy in particular is a bad idea because it won’t bring the price of housing down.”
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said the combination of supply growth and homebuyer support could work effectively as long as Harris focuses on boosting supply before she bolsters consumers.
“You’ve got to put the horse before the cart,” Zandi said. “It’s a matter of timing.”
Cutting taxes for middle-class families
The Harris campaign said it aims to keep some money in middle-class consumers’ pockets by reducing their tax burden.
The plans include a restoration of the expanded child tax credit of $3,600 per child that expired in 2022. Harris also proposed an additional, new $6,000 child tax credit for families with a child in the first year of life.
The tax cuts for families drew wide support from economists who spoke to ABC News, though some emphasized the importance of accompanying those proposals with revenue-raising measures that will offset the tax reductions.
“A child tax credit expansion is fantastic and I would fully support it, as long as they find way to pay for it,” said Hamilton, of George Washington University. “This is a policy targeted toward people who really need it, and families who really need it.”
For its part, the Harris campaign said on Friday that it would safeguard the federal government’s financial health, in part by increasing taxes on wealthy individuals as a means of offsetting middle-class tax cuts.
Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, will “fulfill their commitment to fiscal responsibility, including by asking the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations to pay their fair share,” the campaign said.
Zandi, of Moody’s Analytics, voiced support for the tax cut but also urged caution about the potential loss of tax revenue. If the tax credits end up adding to the national debt, it would undermine the savings for consumers by risking an increase in overall inflation.
“I don’t think you can do anything without it being paid for,” Zandi said. “That would be counterproductive.”
(NEW YORK) — Cases of whooping cough are more than three times higher this year than they were at the same time last year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
So far this year, there have been 10,865 recorded cases of whooping cough, or pertussis, compared to the 2,918 recorded during the same time in 2023, CDC data shows.
The number of cases is closer to the 8,271 cases of whooping cough recorded this time in 2019, indicating a return to pre-pandemic levels.
Doctors said that reported cases of whooping cough were lower than usual over the past few years, likely due to COVID-19 mitigation measures including masking, remote learning and social distancing.
“During the pandemic itself, we really had a low point in transmission of pertussis, and that was just because of all of the social distancing and isolation,” Dr. Mike Patrick, an emergency medicine physician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told ABC News. “If kids aren’t around each other, and also around adults, then they’re not able to pick up the disease, since it’s an infectious disease and transmitted from one person to another.”
“So, I think, we’re just getting back up there because people are back doing the normal things that we do, and that’s just the pattern that we see with the vaccine that we have. But I will say, without the vaccine, we’d see a whole lot more pertussis than 10,000 cases,” he added.
Dr. Lori Handy, an attending physician in the division of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said the uptick in cases of whooping cough post-pandemic is similar to those seen in the U.S. with other diseases as mitigation measures started to disappear.
“I honestly think it was a little surprising that it took this long, recognizing we lifted [many] measures close to two years ago,” she told ABC News. “I think many folks remember the increase in RSV cases that we saw back in 2022, so this has lagged behind some other respiratory infections, but definitely now has resurfaced and looks very typical to 2019.”
Whooping cough is a very contagious respiratory illness caused by a type of bacteria called Bordetella pertussis.
These bacteria attach to the cilia — the tiny, hair-like structures found on the surface of some cells –of the upper respiratory system that help clear mucous and other debris in the airway, and release toxins. The toxins damage the cilia and cause the upper airways to swell, according to the CDC.
“You get airway swelling and a terrible, terrible cough because the cilia aren’t working, and so your body resorts to coughing to try to keep stuff out of the lungs and to bring things up,” Patrick said. “Oftentimes, babies will have a little bit difficulty breathing. They’re having the cough…and then they take a big, deep breath, because they hadn’t breathed during all those coughs, and that’s why it’s called whooping cough, because that’s the [sound] when they’re coughing.”
Whooping cough is spread from person-to-person through coughing and sneezing. Infected people can be contagious for weeks without knowing they have whooping cough.
Early symptoms often resemble a common cold — runny nose, cough and low-grade fever — and typically last for one to two weeks. Symptoms, however, can progress to rapid, violent coughing fits that can last up to 12 weeks.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics and receiving treatment early can reduce the severity of the infection. Most whooping cough symptoms can be managed at home, according to the CDC.
Although anyone can contract pertussis, infants under age one, pregnant women and immunocompromised people are at highest risk for severe illness.
“In the younger kids, and especially in infants, they can have apnea, so they stop breathing. They can be hospitalized in the intensive care unit, and unfortunately, children can and have died from pertussis,” Dr. Robert Frenck, a professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio, told ABC News. “So, these are not innocuous infections. They can be very serious, and they can be deadly.”
A vaccine for whooping cough was introduced in the late 1940s and the number of cases each year has since dropped dramatically, decreasing more than 90% compared to the pre-vaccine era.
Before the vaccine, there were an estimated 200,000 cases annually among children and up to 9,000 children died, according to the CDC.
There are two types of vaccines currently used to protect against whooping cough: diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTaP) vaccine for babies and children younger age 7 and tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap) vaccines for older children, adults and pregnant women.
A recent report from the CDC found that exemptions for routine childhood vaccination among kindergartners during the 2022-23 school year were at the highest level ever, including for the DTaP vaccine. Frenck said the increase in whooping cough cases are a reminder that vaccines are effective, but said he doesn’t discourage vaccine-hesitant patents from asking questions.
“Parents want to do what’s best for their children, and so they want to keep their children healthy,” he said. “Unfortunately, there has been a fair amount of misinformation about vaccines to where people are confused. So, my recommendation really is to talk with your health care provider, ask your questions, get your answers, feel comfortable about having your children vaccinated. Vaccines are well-tested, vaccines are safe, vaccines are protective.”
Handy said she also encourages everybody who is eligible to get vaccinated and for health care providers to be on the lookout for pertussis cases
“For health care providers … recognize this is back, like five years ago, and the only way we will detect it is by testing it and then using our public health measures to prevent spread,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Friday he is launching an investigation into what he says is Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s “extensive engagement with China.”
The probe into Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate is a sign of what the House Republican majority will focus its attention on regarding the new Democratic presidential ticket in the months leading up to Election Day.
Walz was a former public school teacher and served in the Army National Guard before being elected to Congress in 2005 and later becoming Minnesota’s governor.
Comer, in his announcement on Friday, cited recent articles from the New York Post and Newsweek examining ties between Walz and China — including comments he made about visiting the nation 30 times, some of which were teaching trips, and a 2016 interview where he said he didn’t “fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship.”
“The CCP has sought to destroy the United States through coordinated influence and infiltration campaigns that target every aspect of American life, including our own elected officials,” Comer wrote.
“Walz’s connections to China raise questions about possible CCP [Chinese Communist Party] influence in his decision-making as governor — and should he be elected, as vice president,” he said.
A Walz spokesman shot back.
“Throughout his career, Governor Walz has stood up to the CCP, fought for human rights rights and democracy, and always put American jobs and manufacturing first. Republicans are twisting basic facts and desperately lying to distract from the Trump-Vance agenda: praising dictators, and sending American jobs to China. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will ensure we win the competition with China, and will always stand up for our values and interests in the face of China’s threats,” said Teddy Tschann, a spokesperson for Walz.
Comer sent a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray requesting documents and information no later than Aug. 30.
A spokeswoman for Democrats on the Oversight committee also criticized Comer, calling his action “nothing more than a political stunt.”
“For the umpteenth time, Chairman Comer shows the American people that his only real priority in Congress is doing Donald Trump’s bidding. Rather than tackling issues that matter to Americans—like protecting our children from the epidemic of gun violence, holding the perpetrators of the climate crisis accountable, or even investigating Donald Trump for his own record of selling out the White House to foreign autocrats and turning the presidency into a corrupt money-making enterprise — Chairman Comer is doing his part to ensure that the 118th Congress will go down as the least productive in history,” the spokesperson said.
Previously, Comer took the reins of House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. The probe stalled as lawmakers failed to substantiate their allegations that Biden used his office to participate in and profit from his family’s foreign business dealings — which Biden adamantly denied.
As a congressman, Walz served on Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which was responsible for monitoring whether acts of the People’s Republic of China violated human rights.
Walz, in the 2016 interview that’s been a focus of recent news coverage, said the commission came to be after the U.S. normalized trade relations with China to “try to keep a focus that we’ll trade with China but they have to play by the rules both from an environmental, fair trade but also human rights perspective.”
The FBI did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment on Comer’s request.
(AUSTIN, TEXAS) — A 78-year-old man has now been charged with a murder committed over 40 years ago after genetic genealogy helped investigators identify him as a suspect.
Deck Brewer Jr., a man already imprisoned in Massachusetts, has been charged with the 1980 murder of 25-year-old Susan Leigh Wolfe, according to the Austin, Texas, Police Department.
Wolfe had just enrolled as a nursing student at the University of Texas at Austin when she was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed on Jan. 9, 1980, according to police.
Wolfe was kidnapped one block from her home while walking to a friend’s house at around 10 p.m. A witness saw a car stop before the driver exited and grabbed Wolfe in a “bear hug,” placed a coat over her head and forced her into the back of the car, police said.
Wolfe’s body was found the next morning in an alley in Austin. Her body had evidence of ligature strangulation and the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head, police said.
During an autopsy, a pathologist found evidence of a sexual assault by one of two unknown suspects seen in the car, police said.
For a year after the murder, investigators followed dozens of leads and tracked down dozens of cars that fit the witness’s description. Police said over the years they had over 40 persons of interest and conducted interviews with at least six suspects.
In April 2023, detectives submitted evidence related to Wolfe’s sexual assault to the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory, where forensic experts evaluated it and determined it was suitable for testing, police said.
In February, Austin police received the test results — which produced a male profile for the suspect — and eliminated the six suspects who were not a genetic match with the evidence police had, police said.
Police then entered the profile into the Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, which operates local, state and national databases of DNA profiles from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scene evidence and missing persons, police said.
In March, Austin police received a notification for a possible match in Massachusetts, where Brewer is currently incarcerated on unrelated charges, police said.
Detectives conducted a short interview with Brewer in which he said he had been in Austin and San Antonio, Texas, around the time of the murder, police said. Brewer asked for his right to a lawyer when he was told DNA was found at the scene of a murder, police said.
After the DNA comparison was conducted, an Austin court found probable cause to charge Brewer in the murder of Wolfe, police said.
