(WASHINGTON) — The indictment of Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant, is roiling the ongoing impeachment inquiry being led by House Republicans against President Joe Biden.
Smirnov, once touted as a star witness by Republicans, was charged last week for allegedly making false statements about Biden and his son Hunter, including a story about both men taking $5 million in bribes from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.
New Justice Department court documents unveiled Tuesday allege Smirnov told investigators that Russian intelligence officials were involved in passing the story.
“I think the Smirnov revelations destroy the entire case,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told ABC News Senior Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas on Wednesday.
“Smirnov was the foundation of the whole thing,” Raskin continued. “He was the one who came forward to say that Burisma had given Joe Biden $5 million, and that was just concocted in thin air.”
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was also pressed by ABC News’ Thomas about the allegations surrounding Smirnov.
“Well, all I’m saying is you got to ask the FBI about that,” Jordan said. “He may, in fact, have given false I don’t know. But what I do know is everything we knew ahead of time.”
Jordan also told reporters that the Smirnov development “doesn’t change the fundamental facts.”
The comments came as the House Oversight Committee gathered Wednesday for a closed-door deposition with James Biden, President Biden’s brother. James Biden told lawmakers the president “has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest” in his family’s business ventures.
The Republican chairman of the Oversight Committee, James Comer, also sought to downplay the impact the Smirnov allegations would have on the impeachment probe.
In a statement last week, Comer said the “inquiry is not reliant” on Smirnov.
“It is based on a large record of evidence, including bank records and witness testimony, revealing that Joe Biden knew of and participated in his family’s business dealings,” Comer said.
Republicans have alleged that President Biden was directly involved in and benefited from his family’s business dealings — accusations staunchly denied by the White House — though they have not found evidence of a crime committed by the president.
Since formalizing the impeachment inquiry in mid-December, Republicans have held one public hearing and interviewed other witnesses, some of whom have similarly said President Biden wasn’t involved in his family’s business endeavors.
“It was that foundation that the whole house of cards has been built on and the entire thing has collapsed,” Raskin said Wednesday of the Smirnov revelations. “But of course, we don’t even have to rely on Smirnov’s own words because there have been somewhere near a dozen witnesses who have completely repudiated and refuted these essential allegations.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro has been ordered by a federal judge to return presidential records he has in his possession.
Navarro, who was then-President Donald Trump’s White House trade adviser, “continues to possess Presidential records that have not been produced to their rightful owner, the United States,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote on Tuesday.
The case is separate from Navarro’s criminal contempt of Congress conviction, where he was sentenced to four months in jail and ordered to pay a $9,500 fine for defying a congressional subpoena to cooperate with the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In a six-page opinion regarding the presidential records, Kollar-Kotelly asked Navarro to “show cause why he should not be held in contempt of the Court’s judgment” after he defied her order to return the records.
“Defendant is ordered to SHOW CAUSE why he should not be held in contempt of the Court’s judgment, on or before March 21, 2024,” wrote Kollar-Kotelly.
Navarro also has until March 20 to “reprocess” the remaining records in his possession, which the filing says amounts to approximately 600 records.
In testimony during Navarro’s contempt of Congress trial, former Jan. 6 committee staff director David Buckley said the panel was seeking to question Navarro about efforts to delay Congress’ certification of the 2020 election, a plan Navarro dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep” in his book, In Trump Time.
Earlier this month, a judge denied Navarro’s request to remain out of prison while he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction. The Bureau of Prisons has not yet set a date for Navarro to report to prison.
(NEW YORK) — By spring, Ukraine faces a potentially catastrophic shortage of ammunition and air defenses that could effectively turn the tide of the war and lend Russian President Vladimir Putin a significant advantage, according to an internal U.S. estimate.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, two U.S. officials described “late March” as being a particularly crucial time for the fate of Ukrainian troops if Congress doesn’t pass a new aid bill. A third official said it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly when the situation for Ukrainian troops could worsen but noted that the shortages were expected to grow more dire through spring.
“The juncture starts now and it just keeps getting worse progressively through the spring and into summer. So, this time period that we are entering is a critical time period,” said a senior U.S. defense official.
The U.S. assessment comes nearly two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and as support for Ukraine in Congress and in the American public is fading. The once-steady flow of cash and weapons from the U.S. — totaling some $44 billion since the invasion — has mostly dried up. A separate $60 billion aid package requested by President Joe Biden and passed by the Senate is in limbo in the House as some Republicans loyal to Donald Trump question America’s commitment to another far-away conflict entering its third year.
The White House this week directly blamed the hold up for Russia’s victory in the eastern city of Avdiivka. The town fell last weekend after Ukrainian troops there were forced to ration ammunition, handing the Kremlin its first major military victory since last May.
“It was because of congressional inaction,” said White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby on Ukraine’s loss. “And we’ve been warning Congress that if they didn’t act, Ukraine would suffer losses on the battlefield and here you go. That’s what happened this weekend.”
U.S. officials predict similar scenarios will play out elsewhere in Ukraine as the government there is forced to make tough choices on where to put its remaining air defenses — and as Russia makes greater use of its airpower, including lobbing satellite-guided glide-bombs much as it was in Avdiivka.
“The things that are protected today — they will not be able to protect all of these locations in the future if they don’t maintain supplies of interceptors,” the senior defense official said. And if Russia gains control of the skies, “it completely changes the nature of this fight.”
Added one Ukrainian official: “Our primary goal is to deter Russian aviation. If we can’t do that, it’s time to pack our things.”
The $44 billion in U.S. security assistance for Ukraine has supplied Kyiv with a long list of sophisticated weaponry including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Bradley and Stryker fighting vehicles, a Patriot air defense battery, advanced rocket launchers known as “HIMARS,” and 31 M1 Abrams tanks. The U.S. also is helping to train the first batch of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets donated by Denmark and the Netherlands.
But officials say Ukraine urgently needs both small and large munitions, including the GPS-guided rockets that make the HIMARS launchers effective.
Another concern is Ukraine’s air defense capability, including supplies to protect the donated F-16 jets slated for deployment later this year. Officials say the country also still needs money to build the infrastructure to support the fighters — including runways and hangers to store the jets. And while the U.S. is helping to train some pilots — described by one U.S. official as “fewer than 10” — there wouldn’t be enough money to bring on more in the future without additional U.S. aid.
Behind much of the GOP hesitation to support Ukraine is Trump, who has said it would be “stupid” to provide foreign aid to countries instead of loans. He also has encouraged Russia to attack NATO allies if they don’t contribute enough to their defense spending — a provocation quickly decried by U.S. allies in Europe as dangerous.
Complicating matters in the U.S. is that the Pentagon itself is set to run out of money on March 8 if Congress is unable to agree on annual spending legislation. House Republicans have insisted upon unspecified border policy provisions and deep cuts in domestic spending opposed by the Senate and White House.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is trying to make the case to lawmakers that Ukraine isn’t a lost cause.
The U.S. estimates Russian has spent up to $211 billion on military operations in the war and losing $10 billion in arms sales. That’s in addition to the heavy casualties: Of the 360,000 Russian fighters available before the war began, some 315,000 Russian fighters have been killed or wounded.
A separate Dec. 8 estimate by the Defense Intelligence Agency, provided to Congress and described by a person familiar with the findings, concluded that Russia has lost some 2,200 tanks out of the 3,500 it had in stock before the war began.
Analysts say those losses haven’t crippled Russian forces though because Moscow has been able to pull Soviet-era vehicles out of storage while also manufacturing new ones. At the same time, Russia’s economic alliance with China has been able to help the country to shrug off many international sanctions, keeping its economy and military industrial base afloat.
In one recent analysis, the International Institute for Strategic Studies didn’t see any sign Russia was buckling under the weight of such hefty losses on the battlefield.
“Russia will be able to sustain its assault on Ukraine at current attrition rates for another 2–3 years, and maybe even longer,” the institute wrote.
(NEW YORK) — More than four months since Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7, the Israeli military continues its bombardment of the neighboring Gaza Strip.
The conflict, now the deadliest between the warring sides since Israel’s founding in 1948, shows no signs of letting up soon and the brief cease-fire that allowed for over 100 hostages to be freed from Gaza remains a distant memory.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Feb 22, 3:35 AM One dead, several injured in shooting near Jerusalem, Israeli authorities say
At least one person was killed and several others were injured Thursday in a shooting on a main road just outside Jerusalem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to Israeli authorities.
Highway 1 was packed with cars when gunfire erupted Thursday morning near a checkpoint between Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. Three “terrorists” armed with automatic weapons pulled up in a vehicle, got out and opened fire at cars that were standing still in the traffic jam, according to the Israel Police.
Israeli security forces who were already on scene “neutralized” two of the suspects, police said. A third suspect who had tried to escape was later found and also “neutralized,” according to police.
Medics arrived and “ran from vehicle to vehicle” searching for victims, according to Israel’s rescue service MDA. A man in his 20s was pronounced dead at the scene while several others were transported to area hospitals, including four people who were moderately injured with gunshot wounds, MDA said.
Feb 21, 2:59 PM Israeli Minister Gantz expresses cautious optimism about new hostage deal
Israeli Minister Benny Gantz on Wednesday expressed cautious optimism that a new outline for a possible hostage deal could move forward.
Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, said at Israel’s Defense Headquarters Wednesday that there are “attempts” to “promote a new outline” for a hostage deal, and there are “initial signs that indicate the possibility of moving forward.”
“We will not stop looking for the way, and we will not miss any opportunity to bring the girls and boys home,” Gantz said.
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman and Dana Savir
Feb 21, 1:02 PM 8 bodies remain in Nasser Medical Complex among living patients, Gaza Ministry of Health says
Eight patients who died because of a lack of electricity at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza are still in their beds inside of the hospital among living patients, the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said Wednesday.
The Ministry of Health said the bodies are still in the hospital because Israeli forces refuse to remove them.
The bodies “have begun to swell and show signs of decomposition, posing a danger to other patients,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
Israeli authorities denied these claims and said no bodies are still inside Nasser Hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces has been operating inside of Nasser Hospital for the last week. On Monday, the IDF announced its soldiers had arrested 200 suspected Hamas members at Nasser Hospital.
ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman and Camilla Alcini
Feb 21, 8:28 AM Israel considering sending delegation to Egypt for new round of talks, source says
Israel is weighing the possibility of sending a delegation back to Egypt for continued negotiations over a potential cease-fire or hostage deal with Hamas, an Israeli political source told ABC News on Wednesday.
There is some cautious optimism over the latest round of talks in Cairo, the source said.
Egypt, along with Qatar and the United States, has been mediating talks between the warring sides.
Feb 21, 8:14 AM Israel preparing to reopen Karni border crossing to facilitate aid to northern Gaza, source says
Israel is preparing to reopen the Karni border crossing to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the northern Gaza Strip, an Israeli political source told ABC News on Wednesday.
Israel shuttered the Karni crossing, located on the border between southwestern Israel and northeastern Gaza, when Palestinian militant group Hamas came to power in the enclave in 2007 before permanently closing the crossing in 2011.
Northern Gaza has been isolated by the Israeli military and almost completely cut off from aid for weeks, according to the United Nations.
Feb 21, 7:56 AM UN food agency pauses deliveries to northern Gaza
The World Food Program, the food assistance arm of the United Nations, announced Tuesday that it is pausing deliveries of food aid to the northern Gaza Strip “until conditions are in place that allow for safe distribution.”
The decision came after a WFP convoy heading north from Gaza City was “surrounded by crowds of hungry people close to the Wadi Gaza checkpoint” on Sunday, the agency said. The same convoy faced “complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order” when it tried to resume its journey north on Monday, according to the WFP.
“Several trucks were looted between Khan Yunis and Deir al-Balah and a truck driver was beaten. The remaining flour was spontaneously distributed off the trucks in Gaza City, amidst high tension and explosive anger,” the WFP said in a statement Tuesday. “The decision to pause deliveries to the north of the Gaza Strip has not been taken lightly, as we know it means the situation there will deteriorate further and more people risk dying of hunger.”
An analysis released Monday by the Global Nutrition Cluster, a humanitarian aid partnership led by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), found that 15.6% of children under the age of 2 are acutely malnourished in northern Gaza, which has been isolated by the Israeli military and almost completely cut off from aid for weeks, compared to 5% in southern Gaza, where most aid enters the war-torn enclave. The acute malnutrition rate across Gaza was less than 1% before the war began last October, according to the report.
Feb 20, 2:21 PM Hostages held in Gaza have received medicine, Qatar says
Qatari officials said hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have received the medication that was part of a deal brokered last month.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said it has asked Qatar for evidence that the medicine was delivered.
“Israel will examine the credibility of the report and will continue to work for the peace of our abductees,” the office said in a statement.
Feb 20, 12:21 PM US draft resolution calls for temporary cease-fire
The U.S. voted against a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire at Wednesday’s United Nations Security Council meeting, The Associated Press reported.
The U.S. was the only nation of the 15 permanent Security Council members to vote against the measure, according to the AP.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said “an unconditional cease-fire without any obligation for Hamas to release hostages” was irresponsible.
“While we cannot support a resolution that would put sensitive negotiations in jeopardy, we look forward to engaging on a text that we believe will address so many of the concerns we all share — a text that can and should be adopted by the council, so that we can have a temporary cease-fire as soon as practicable, based on the formula of all hostages being released,” she said.
The U.S. has been circulating its own draft resolution on Gaza that calls for a temporary cease-fire conditioned on the release of all hostages, while also condemning Hamas for the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war, according to senior administration officials familiar with the matter.
If the proposal were to be adopted by the U.N. Security Council, it would mark the first time the body has formally condemned Hamas’ actions.
The officials say the draft also makes clear “that under current circumstances a major ground offensive into Rafah should not proceed” and that there can be no reduction in territory in the Gaza Strip or any forced displacement of Palestinians, while also calling on Israel “to lift all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance, open additional humanitarian routes, and to keep current crossings open.”
The senior officials signaled that American diplomats wouldn’t rush the text to a vote and that they intended on “allowing time for negotiations.”
While hostage talks have sputtered over the past couple of weeks, senior administration officials said they were making some progress.
“The differences between the parties, they have been narrowed. They haven’t been sufficiently narrowed to get us to a deal, but we are still hopeful and we are confident that there is the basis for an agreement between the parties,” one official said.
ABC News’ Shannon Crawford
Feb 20, 11:34 AM US votes against immediate cease-fire
The U.S. voted against a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire at Wednesday’s United Nations Security Council meeting, The Associated Press reported.
The U.S. was the only nation of the 15 permanent Security Council members to vote against the measure, according to the AP.
The U.S. has said an immediate cease-fire could impede the negotiations looking to free hostages and agree to a pause in fighting, the AP said.
Feb 20, 11:07 AM IDF operating inside Al-Amal Hospital
Israeli forces, which already entered Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, are also now operating inside the nearby Al-Amal Hospital, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed to ABC News.
“Al-Amal Hospital is currently under multiple attacks, as Israeli forces have directly targeted the third floor of the hospital, resulting in the burning of two rooms,” and “the hospital’s water lines were targeted,” the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.
Over 8,000 patients were evacuated from the hospital earlier this month, but almost 100 patients still remain inside, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.
Feb 20, 7:13 AM WHO helps transfer 32 critical patients out of Gaza’s besieged Nasser Hospital
The World Health Organization said Tuesday that it has helped to successfully transfer 32 critically ill patients, including two children, from besieged Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip.
The WHO said its staff led two “life-saving,” “high-risk” missions at the medical complex in Khan Younis on Sunday and Monday, in close partnership with the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “amid ongoing hostilities and access restrictions.” Staff at Nasser Hospital had requested the transfer of patients after the facility became “non-functional” following an Israeli military raid on Feb. 14 after a weeklong siege, according to the WHO.
“Weak and frail patients were transferred amidst active conflict near the aid convoy,” the WHO said in a statement. “Road conditions hindered the swift movement of ambulances, placing the health of patients at further risk.”
“Nasser Hospital has no electricity or running water, and medical waste and garbage are creating a breeding ground for disease,” the organization added. “WHO staff said the destruction around the hospital was ‘indescribable.’ The area was surrounded by burnt and destroyed buildings, heavy layers of debris, with no stretch of intact road.”
The WHO estimates that 130 sick and injured patients and at least 15 doctors and nurses remain inside Nasser Hospital. As the facility’s intensive care unit was no longer functioning, the only remaining ICU patient was transferred to a different part of the complex where other patients are receiving basic care, according to the WHO.
“WHO fears for the safety and well-being of the patients and health workers remaining in the hospital and warns that further disruption to lifesaving care for the sick and injured would lead to more deaths,” the organization said. “Efforts to facilitate further patient referrals amidst the ongoing hostilities are in process.”
Prior to the missions on Sunday and Monday, the WHO said it “received two consecutive denials to access the hospital for medical assessment, causing delays in urgently needed patient referral.” At least five patients reportedly died in Nasser Hospital’s ICU before any missions or transfers were possible, according to the WHO.
Nasser Hospital is the main medical center serving southern Gaza. Ground troops from the Israel Defense Forces stormed the facility last week, looking for members of Hamas who the IDF alleges have been conducting military operations out of the hospital. Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs Gaza and is at war with neighboring Israel, denies the claims.
“The dismantling and degradation of the Nasser Medical Complex is a massive blow to Gaza’s health system,” the WHO said. “Facilities in the south are already operating well beyond maximum capacity and are barely able to receive more patients.”
Feb 20, 5:26 AM Aid groups warn of potential ‘explosion in preventable child deaths’ in Gaza
A new analysis by the Global Nutrition Cluster, a humanitarian aid partnership led by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, found that 90% of children under the age of 2 in the war-torn Gaza Strip face severe food poverty, meaning they eat two or fewer food groups a day.
The same was true for 95% of pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza, according to the report released Monday. And at least 90% of children under 5 are affected by one or more infectious disease, with 70% experiencing diarrhea in the past two weeks, the report said.
In Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where most humanitarian aid enters, 5% of children under 2 are acutely malnourished, compared to more than 15% in northern Gaza, which has been isolated by the Israeli military and almost completely cut off from aid for weeks, the report said. Before war broke out last October between Israel and Gaza’s militant rulers, Hamas, the acute malnutrition rate across the coastal enclave was less than 1%, according to the report.
The report also found that more than 80% of homes in Gaza lack clean and safe water, with the average household having one liter per person per day.
“The Gaza Strip is poised to witness an explosion in preventable child deaths which would compound the already unbearable level of child deaths in Gaza,” Ted Chaiban, deputy executive director for humanitarian action and supply operations at UNICEF, said in a statement. “We’ve been warning for weeks that the Gaza Strip is on the brink of a nutrition crisis. If the conflict doesn’t end now, children’s nutrition will continue to plummet, leading to preventable deaths or health issues which will affect the children of Gaza for the rest of their lives and have potential intergenerational consequences.”
Feb 19, 12:31 PM Gaza’s health ministry accuses IDF of turning Nasser Hospital into ‘military barracks’
Israeli troops have turned Nasser Hospital, the main medical center serving the southern Gaza Strip, into a “military barracks” and are “endangering the lives of patients and medical staff,” according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
The health ministry said Monday that patients and medical staff inside Nasser Hospital are now without electricity, water, food, oxygen and treatment capabilities for difficult cases since Israeli ground troops raided the facility in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis last week.
The World Health Organization, which warned on Sunday that Nasser Hospital “is not functional anymore,” said more than 180 patients and 15 doctors and nurses remain inside the hospital.
The WHO said it has evacuated 14 critical patients from the hospital to receive treatment elsewhere.
The Israel Defense Forces alleges that Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs Gaza, has been conducting military operations out of Nasser Hospital and other medical centers in the war-torn enclave — claims which Hamas denies.
(PHOENIX) — Investigators believe they have solved a decades-old cold case, identifying the woman who allegedly killed her newborn baby and left her in an Arizona airport bathroom in 2005.
The baby’s mother, 51-year-old Annie Anderson, is in custody in Washington state on a warrant related to the investigation. She is now awaiting extradition before she is formally charged in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Genetic genealogy databases were used to identify family matches to the profile of the baby’s mother based on DNA evidence they had found at the scene. After identifying a possible relative through genetic genealogy, police approached the person, who then consented to providing a DNA sample.
The investigation began on Oct. 10, 2005, when police responded to a report of a dead baby in a Terminal 4 bathroom at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix police Lt. James Hester said at a press conference.
On the scene, police found a dead female newborn wrapped in newspapers and a white towel stuffed in a plastic bag with red Marriott lettering, Hester said. Police said it was likely the birth did not happen at the airport, according to evidence on the scene.
At the time, police were unsuccessful in identifying a suspect, Hester said. The medical examiner’s office determined the baby, dubbed Baby Skylar, died as a result of suffocation, ruling the death a homicide, Hester said.
DNA from the scene — that police identified as being from the mother — was run against DNA evidence in police databases, but authorities were unable to identify the suspect at the time, he said.
In 2020, the case was identified as one in which genetic genealogy could be used to identify new leads, according to Dan Horan, a supervisory special agent for the FBI’s Phoenix office.
After investigators were able to piece together a family tree for the suspect, she was confronted by investigators. Anderson identified herself has the mother of the baby and told police her account of what had occurred, ultimately admitting to killing the baby.
Anderson told police she was in Arizona on business at the time of the murder. The father of the baby has been identified, but police said they have no reason to believe he has criminal culpability in the murder.
(NEW YORK) — Poverty in New York City is rising at a startling rate and it’s affecting the city’s most vulnerable residents — children, according to a newly released report.
More than half of New York City residents, including a quarter of all children, live in poverty or are low-income, according to the Poverty Tracker Annual Report from Columbia University and the philanthropic organization Robin Hood.
Researchers surveyed a sample of 3,000 New York households for three months to track data on employment, assets, debts and health.
Overall, the city’s poverty rate increased from 18% to 23% and the number of New Yorkers living in poverty grew from 1.5 million to 2 million between 2021 and 2022, marking the largest single-year jump in poverty rates in a decade, according to the report.
The child poverty rate increased 66% from the previous year, according to the report.
Factors that influenced the poverty rate were the end of pandemic-era policies such as the Child Tax Credit and federal stimulus payments, the report noted.
“A clear path out of poverty requires a stronger safety net— and a policy of real investment in families with universal childcare,” Roberto Cordero, executive director of Grand Street Settlement, a nonprofit organization in New York, said in a press release. “One hundred percent of the 18,000 New Yorkers we serve at Grand Street are low income due to low wage jobs, inflation, and the cost of quality childcare and housing.”
The report also highlighted the disproportional rate at which minorities are experiencing poverty in relation to white New Yorkers.
Latino residents are twice as likely to live in poverty compared to white residents — 26% compared to 13%, according to the report.
Researchers said poverty rates for Asian and Black residents increased as well, by 24 and 23%, respectively.
The report found that women were more likely than men to be unable to afford their basic needs. It’s based on a metric called the Supplemental Poverty Measure, or poverty line, which is $43,890 per year. This figure represents what is needed for a NYC household with two adults and two children to afford a minimal basic standard of need.
The poverty threshold for a single adult renter was $20,340 in annual income, according to the report.
Poverty in New York City is nearly twice as high as the national poverty rate, which is 12%.
This is the sixth comprehensive Poverty Tracker Annual Report since 2012. Researchers monitored the impacts that COVID-19 and the related economic decline have had on New York City residents since the beginning of the pandemic.
“Our city is in the midst of an affordability crisis,” Richard R. Buery Jr., CEO of Robin Hood, said in a statement. “This would be deeply troubling at any point, but it is particularly disturbing given the steady progress New York City has made to reduce poverty in years prior.”
Buery noted that “temporary, stabilizing government policies” during the COVID-19 pandemic were able to help 500,000 children avoid poverty.
“But we have lacked the will to keep these policies in force,” he added. “We know that fully refundable tax credits, housing vouchers, and childcare subsidies can move millions out of poverty and hardship. We are calling on lawmakers to make investments that will help our neighbors live lives of opportunity.”
(WASHINGTON) — Republican businessman Eric Hovde officially entered the U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin this week, touting his entrepreneurial success as he tries to topple two-term Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin and help his party retake one half of Congress.
“Our country is facing enormous challenges: our economy, our health care, crime and open borders,” Hovde said in an ad that preceded a kickoff speech in his home town of Madison on Tuesday. “Everything is going in the wrong direction. All Washington does is divide us and talk about who’s to blame. And nothing gets done.”
“We need to come together to find common sense solutions to restore America,” he added.
Hovde’s announcement sets up what will be one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country this year, in a state where major races — for senator, for governor, for president — have sometimes been decided by razor-thin margins. Hovde is not the only potential GOP contender: Businessman Scott Mayer has said he is considering a campaign.
In each of the last two presidential elections, less than a percentage point divided the candidates in Wisconsin, the only state where that was the case.
Donald Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by less than 23,000 votes, while Biden took the state four years later by less than 21,000.
Further increasing the stakes is the two-seat edge Democrats currently hold in the U.S. Senate allowing them to approve Biden’s judicial picks and help further his legislative agenda.
“This [race] is for the 51st vote, for both sides,” Brandon Scholz, a Wisconsin Republican operative, told ABC News.
In his kickoff speech on Tuesdy, Hovde, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2012, argued that “politicians in large part don’t understand how an economy works,” suggesting he would bring “economic competency” to the Senate.
He serves as chief executive officer of multiple companies, including a real estate development firm and a bank holding company, according to a biography on one of the firms’ websites.
Hovde’s campaign site calls him a “classic entrepreneur” and notes that he founded his first company in his twenties.
But that same background — particularly the fact that some of Hovde’s businesses are based in states besides Wisconsin — has already become fodder for Democrats, who accuse him of being an out-of-touch elite who is too wealthy to understand the needs of everyday Wisconsinites, echoing past attacks on failed Senate candidates like Republican Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.
“California bank owner Eric Hovde is running for Senate to impose his self-serving agenda, putting ultra rich people like himself ahead of middle-class Wisconsinites,” Arik Wolk, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said in a statement, referring to the fact that Hovde owns a home in southern California.
Democrats believe that narrative around Hovde will contrast neatly with Baldwin, whom party leaders laud for paying heed to each corner of the state when she is in Wisconsin.
“She works tirelessly to get around the state and not ignore any community, any type of community that exists in Wisconsin, and because of that she has a proven track record of doing well all over the place,” Joe Zepecki, a Milwaukee-based Democratic strategist, told ABC News.
Moreover, Democrats have outperformed Republicans in statewide elections in recent years, a pattern Zepecki, who attributes it in part to the growth of liberal Madison, believes bodes well for Baldwin.
“I am feeling as good as I can about the Senate race here,” Zepecki said.
Republicans, meanwhile, are banking on Hovde’s economic message to break through at a time when Americans are still suffering from high inflation.
“This race is likely to be about the economy,” Scholz, the Republican operative, told ABC News.
Scholz said a challenge for Hovde will be how closely to tie himself to former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee for president, who, along with President Joe Biden, suffers from low favorability and approval numbers nationally.
“Trump is too much of a wild card,” said Scholz, who attributed Biden’s 2020 victory in Wisconsin in part to the president’s ability to rally a large anti-Trump coalition. “I think candidates have to stand on their own. You run on your record. If you don’t have a record, you run on your qualifications. You are your own person.”
Scholz, referring to the 12-year gap between Hovde’s Senate runs, said he “has to rebuild the Hovde name.”
“People have to talk about Eric Hovde, not anything else.”
(TEL-AVIV, Israel) — The number of humanitarian aid trucks entering the war-torn Gaza Strip has decreased over the past few weeks, with the delivery of food aid to the north almost completely stopped, according to the United Nations and the Israeli government.
The causes were not immediately clear but were likely due to a combination of factors. The entry and distribution of aid in Gaza have been disrupted since war broke out after Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the coastal enclave, launched a surprise attack on neighboring Israel on Oct. 7.
Israel has said it is conducting this war to dismantle Hamas and says they are doing everything in their power to protect civilian lives throughout the war.
Now, after five months of war, amidst an ever-growing outcry for aid to help the Palestinian people trapped in a warzone, the United Nations has warned that people are starving.
The Kerem Shalom crossing on the border of Egypt, Israel, and Gaza, one of two locations where aid trucks can enter Gaza after being inspected by authorities, has been impacted by Israeli protesters in recent days. Protesters stood in the way to stop trucks from entering Kerem Shalom, causing the crossing to be closed from Feb. 8-10 and again from Feb. 15-17, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) told ABC News in a statement on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Rafah crossing on the border of Egypt and Gaza, the second location where aid can enter Gaza, has seen a significant decrease in the number of aid trucks crossing into the territory over the past week, according to data compiled by UNRWA, which is the main U.N. agency operating in Gaza.
No food in the north
UNRWA said it has not been able to deliver food aid to northern Gaza since Jan. 23, almost a month ago. The U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP) announced Tuesday that it was pausing deliveries of food aid to the north of Gaza “until conditions are in place that allow for safe distribution.”
Nutrition screenings conducted at shelters and health centers in northern Gaza, which has been isolated by the Israeli military and almost completely cut off from aid for weeks, found that 15.6% of children under the age of 2 — or 1 in 6 children under 2 years of age — are acutely malnourished, compared to 5% in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where most aid enters, according to a report released Monday by the Global Nutrition Cluster, a humanitarian aid partnership led by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). The acute malnutrition rate across Gaza was less than 1% before the war began.
“Of these, almost 3% suffer from severe wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition, which puts young children at highest risk of medical complications and death unless they receive urgent treatment,” multiple U.N. agencies said in a joint statement alongside the release of the report. “As the data were collected in January, the situation is likely to be even graver today.”
Desperation and lawlessness are also hindering the transportation of aid inside the war-ravaged enclave, according to the agencies.
A WFP convoy heading north from Gaza City was “surrounded by crowds of hungry people close to the Wadi Gaza checkpoint,” on Feb. 18, the agency said in a statement Tuesday announcing that it would halt aid deliveries to the region. The same convoy faced “complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order,” when it tried to resume its journey north on Feb. 19, according to WFP.
“Several trucks were looted between Khan Yunis and Deir al Balah and a truck driver was beaten. The remaining flour was spontaneously distributed off the trucks in Gaza City, amidst high tension and explosive anger,” WFP said in a statement. “The decision to pause deliveries to the north of the Gaza Strip has not been taken lightly, as we know it means the situation there will deteriorate further and more people risk dying of hunger.”
Decrease in aid trucks entering Gaza
COGAT, the Israeli agency that oversees Palestinian affairs, also confirmed Tuesday that there has been a drop in aid trucks entering Gaza.
More than 450 trucks are waiting on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, according to Col. Moshe Tetro, an official with COGAT. Part of the problem is that U.N. staff in Gaza have not come to distribute the aid in the trucks, Tetro said during a press conference.
Several countries, including the United States, paused funding to UNRWA at the end of January after the Israeli government alleged several of the agency’s workers were involved in the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. UNRWA has said it is investigating the allegations and took swift action against the accused.
Tetro told reporters that politics are playing into why aid trucks are not entering Gaza and why aid is not being distributed in the way it was a few weeks ago. The U.N. also needs to hire more staff to distribute the aid, he added.
Meanwhile, more than 50 trucks entered via Rafah four out of seven days during the first week of February, while 87 trucks entered on Feb. 8, during the second week.
By the end of the week, no trucks had entered through Rafah for three consecutive days and no aid trucks entered on four different days from Feb. 12 through Feb. 18, according to the data. Israel conducted an intense military operation in Rafah during this time to rescue two hostages.
“Without more humanitarian assistance, the nutritional situation is likely to continue to deteriorate rapidly and at scale across the Gaza Strip,” multiple U.N. agencies said in a joint statement Monday alongside the release of the Global Nutrition Cluster report. “With the majority of health, water, and sanitation services severely degraded, it is essential that those that remain functional are protected and reinforced to stem the spread of diseases and stop malnutrition from worsening.”
ABC News’ Jordana Miller contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A 19-year-old has been charged with first-degree theft and unauthorized use of a vehicle in connection with the break-in of a Secret Service limo in November outside President Joe Biden’s granddaughter Naomi Biden’s home in Washington, court records show.
Robert Kemp, a 19-year-old Washington resident, was charged in early February after investigators recovered the sedan that Kemp is believed to have used in the break-in and then connected him to the crime, Kemp’s criminal complaint states.
According to the complaint, which was obtained by ABC News, two Secret Service agents first reported the incident at Naomi Biden’s residence late on Nov. 12.
While the complaint does not specifically name Naomi Biden, sources familiar previously confirmed to ABC News that the incident occurred outside her home.
Kemp’s criminal complaint states that the Secret Service agents said that they saw a red sedan stop on Nov. 12 near a “Secret Service limo used for members of the first family.”
One of the agents “observed a black male, legs hanging out of the broken driver side rear window” of the Secret Service vehicle, according to the complaint.
As the agent yelled police, the suspect fled in the sedan, “almost striking” one of the agents, who fired his weapon, the complaint states.
It is unclear if Naomi Biden heard the commotion but she was made aware afterward, sources have said.
Among the equipment stolen from the van were night vision goggles and a portable router, according to the complaint.
Investigators later found the sedan used in the break-in and discovered it had been stolen earlier in November, the complaint states. A McDonalds receipt and McDonald’s bag in the vehicle matched Kemp’s fingerprints and those of an unnamed juvenile, allowing law enforcement to trace back to Kemp himself.
The juvenile believed to have been with Kemp was also under GPS monitoring, which showed the juvenile was in the area at the time of the break-in, per the complaint.
Kemp agreed to speak with investigators at his home in December, according to the complaint, and he allegedly said that he’d been driving the sedan at the time of the break-in, which he blamed on someone named “JR.”
He “denied knowing the whereabouts of the items stolen and wasn’t sure of what was taken from the ‘black truck,'” the complaint states.
Kemp is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Feb. 29.
His attorney did not return a call seeking comment on Wednesday.
ABC News’ Adam Carlson contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The Justice Department unsealed new charges against a leader of the notorious Japanese Yakuza gang who they accuse of attempting to traffic weapons-grade nuclear materials from Burma to other countries, according to a newly announced superseding indictment.
Prosecutors in Manhattan say that beginning in early 2020, Takeshi Ebisawa conspired to transport material containing uranium and weapons-grade plutonium believing it could be used by countries like Iran in the development of their nuclear-weapons program.
“It is chilling to imagine the consequences had these efforts succeeded,” Assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen said in a statement announcing the charges.
The 60-year-old Japanese national and another co-defendant had already been charged in April 2022 with narcotics trafficking offenses. Ebisawa and his co-defendant were arrested in Manhattan on those charges with a U.S. judge in New York ordering both men detained. Both men pleaded not guilty.
According to their superseding indictment, Ebisawa told two undercover agents in early 2020 he had access to a “large quantity” of nuclear materials he wished to sell, and sent a series of photos of rocky substances next to Geiger counters that measured radiation levels.
One of the undercover agents told Ebisawa they had an interested buyer who they claimed was an Iranian general.
“They don’t need it for energy, Iranian government need it for nuclear weapons,” the undercover agent told Ebisawa, according to the indictment.
“I think so and I hope so,” Ebisawa allegedly responded.
Ebisawa further engaged with the undercover agent as he expressed an interest in buying other military-grade weapons such as surface-to-air missiles that he said could be used by an insurgent group inside Burma.
The arrangement resulted in a swap of sorts, with unnamed co-conspirators allegedly supporting Ebisawa telling the undercover they “had available more than 2,000 kilograms of Thorium-232 and more than 100 kilograms of uranium” – which the co-conspirators said “could produce as much as five tons of nuclear materials in Burma.”
In a meeting arranged by Ebisawa with the undercover agents in Southeast Asia, one of Ebisawa’s co-conspirators brought the undercover into a hotel room and allegedly showed him two plastic containers with samples of the nuclear materials. Thai authorities then assisted in the seizure of the materials which were handed over to U.S. law enforcement, which subsequently tested the samples and confirmed they contained uranium, thorium and plutonium.
“As alleged, the defendants in this case trafficked in drugs, weapons, and nuclear material – going so far as to offer uranium and weapons-grade plutonium fully expecting that Iran would use it for nuclear weapons,” Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration said. “This is an extraordinary example of the depravity of drug traffickers who operate with total disregard for human life.”
