(WASHINGTON) – Nancy Pelosi was the guest speaker at the unveiling of a new statue at Statuary Hall of Amelia Earhart, the famous aviator born in Atchison, Kansas in 1897, who made history as the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
The speaker of the house described Earheart as “an American who personifies the daring and determined spirit of our nation.”
Following Pelosi’s opening statements, the national anthem and a prayer from Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Kansas’ Gov. Lauren Kelly took the stage.
“Who better than to represent our great state in Statuary Hall than Dwight D. Eisenhower and now a native daughter of Kansas, Amelia Earhart,” Kelly said. “A woman who showed all of us what it means to reach for the stars.”
The bronze statue took seven years for brothers George and Mark Lundeen to create. Because only two statues are allowed to represent each state, and only one can be placed in Statuary Hall, Earhart’s likeness replaced that of U.S. Senator John Ingalls whose statue has occupied the hall since 1907.
This is just the 11th statue of 100 that represents a woman. U.S. Representative from Kansas, Sharice Davids championed her as a pioneer of women’s rights.
“Female pilots used to be called ladybirds, sweethearts of the air, and because of Amelia Earhart back then, now, and into the future, women who fly planes are now called pilots,” said Davids.
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., described the unveiled piece as “a statue of a determined woman with short cut hair, a curious smile, a bomber hat in hand and a sunflower on her belt buckle.”
(NEW YORK) — Country music superstar Shania Twain is sharing new details about the health battle she says she faced due to Lyme disease.
Twain, 56, said she thought she had lost the ability to sing after a tick bite she got while horseback riding in 2003 led to Lyme disease, a tick-borne infectious disease that, if left untreated, can affect the joints, heart and nervous system, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“My voice was never the same again,” Twain said in a new documentary about her life, Not Just a Girl. “I thought I’d lost my voice forever. I thought that was it, [and] I would never, ever sing again.”
Twain was in the height of her career when she was diagnosed with Lyme disease. She says in the documentary the condition affected her ability to perform.
“My symptoms were quite scary because before I was diagnosed, I was on stage very dizzy. I was losing my balance. I was afraid I was going to fall off the stage,” she said. “I was having these very, very, very millisecond blackouts, but regularly, every minute or every 30 seconds.”
In a 2020 appearance on ABC’s The View, Twain said it took “several years” for doctors to connect the problems with her voice to her Lyme disease diagnosis.
She said the disease caused damage to her vocal cords in the three weeks between when she was bitten by a tick and when she started treatment for the infection.
“There were seven years where I could not, for example, yell out for my dog. My voice would just cut out in certain places,” said Twain. “And it took another several years to determine what it was. It wasn’t anything obvious. Nobody connected the Lyme disease to it. In the end, a neurologist finally connected that it was the nerve to each vocal cord.”
Twain said that although her voice was permanently impacted, she feels grateful the disease didn’t attack another part of her body, like her heart.
“It was just a very unfortunate, ironic problem since I’m a singer, but I feel so grateful and so lucky that it didn’t attack somewhere else because it’s so debilitating,” she said, adding that she now has a “grip” on the disease. “I have a different voice now but I own it. I love my voice now.”
What to know about Lyme disease
Lyme disease, the most common vector-borne disease in the U.S., according to the CDC, has impacted other celebrities including Amy Schumer and Justin Bieber.
The illness, caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, is transmitted to humans via tick bites and is more likely to be contracted in the late spring, summer and fall. In most cases, the tick must be attached to the skin for at least 36 hours before the bacterium can be transmitted.
Symptoms generally appear after one week, with approximately 70% to 80% of people experiencing a classic “bull’s eye” rash which expands in size at the site of the bite.
Symptoms in the acute phase include fever, headache and fatigue. If left untreated, the infection can spread to joints, the heart and the nervous system. People also may experience lingering symptoms that last months or even years, such as muscle and joint pain, cognitive defects and sleep disturbances, according to the CDC.
Once confirmed with laboratory testing, most cases can be treated for a few weeks with antibiotics. According to the Mayo Clinic, Lyme disease should be treated immediately and may require intravenous antibiotics if the case is severe.
Lyme disease is most commonly found in the Northeast and upper Midwest, with 96% of all cases in 14 states — Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to the CDC.
The CDC recommends preventive measures to avoid ticks including avoiding “wooded and brushy areas with high grass and leaf litter,” and walking in the center of trails.
When hiking or in wooded areas, you can also treat your clothes and gear with products containing 0.5% permethrin, according to the CDC. They also recommend always doing a “tick check” after being outside and wearing insect repellent with Deet.
Ticks can also come into the home through clothing and pets, so the CDC recommends checking pets for ticks and tumble drying clothes on high heat for 10 minutes after coming indoors to kill ticks.
If you are ever in a situation where you are bitten by a tick, the Cleveland Clinic recommends tugging gently but firmly near the head of the tick until it releases its hold on the skin.
People who are outdoors in areas that may have ticks should also conduct a full body check when they return, including checking under the arms, in and around the ears, inside the belly button, behind the knees, in and around the hair, between the legs and around the waist, the CDC recommends.
John Smith, M.D., a psychiatrist and contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit, contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Leading gun manufacturing executives testified Wednesday morning before a House panel investigating the role of the firearms industry in the nation’s high rates of gun violence, maintaining that Americans — not firearms — cause mass shootings.
The hearing, beginning at 10 a.m. ET and helmed by House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, featured two top CEOs ahead of the consideration of legislation that would target the sale of semiautomatic weapons, a move that many gun rights supporters and Republicans oppose as unconstitutional.
Marty Daniel, CEO of Daniel Defense, said that he was at the hearing voluntarily but was “concerned” that the implied purpose of the hearing was to vilify and blame rifles for recent deadly shootings in Uvalde, Texas; Highland Park, Illinois; and Buffalo, New York, among others.
Two months ago, the Uvalde gunman used a Daniel Defense weapon to kill 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school.
Rep. Maloney asked Daniel if he had responsibility for the Texas shooting.
“Many Americans, myself included, have witnessed an erosion of personal responsibility in our country and in our culture. Mass shootings are all but what unheard of just a few decades ago,” Daniel said. “So what changed? Not the firearms. They are substantially the same as those manufactured over 100 years ago. I believe our nation’s response needs to focus not on the type of gun but on the type of persons who are likely to commit mass shootings.”
Maloney spoke with ABC News on Tuesday about the context of the hearing. She said it should be a “wakeup call” for Congress to act on gun reform “to hold these gun manufacturers accountable for the deadly weapons that they’re manufacturing that are killing innocent Americans.”
“Most industries have a responsibility for their products. We have liability on our cars. Every time there’s a car wreck, we study it. We should do the same thing with guns. We should have liability on guns. They’re far more dangerous than cars,” Maloney told “GMA3.”
Daniel and Christopher Killroy, president and CEO of Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc., were confirmed witnesses ahead of the hearing.
Maloney told ABC News that a representative for a third gun manufacturer, President Mark P. Smith of Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., was invited to the hearing. Smith is not confirmed to attend.
“I would say, ‘We have invited three manufacturers — CEOs — [and] two have accepted,'” Maloney said.
“One is dodging us and not responding to our requests for documents,” she contended. “And we intend to hold them accountable eventually in some form.”
The oversight committee sent letters on May 26 to Smith & Wesson, Daniel Defense and Sturm, among others, following mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.
The letters sought further information on the companies’ sale and marketing of assault-style semiautomatic rifles and similar firearms, “including revenue and profit information, internal data on deaths or injuries caused by firearms they manufacture, and marketing and promotional materials.”
On July 7, following the Fourth of July shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, Maloney sent additional letters to the CEOs of the three top gun manufacturers, requesting their appearance at Wednesday’s hearing.
Maloney’s request for the hearing with gun executives came ahead of the committee’s June 8 hearing with Uvalde and Buffalo survivors and victims’ relatives.
President Joe Biden a month ago signed into law a bipartisan gun safety package, which did not include the weapons ban he sought. House Democrats are pushing for more reforms.
Maloney told ABC News that she believed the additional legislation “will make America safer for our citizens.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Tuesday night and again Wednesday morning and will end “his strict isolation measures,” according to the physician to the president, Dr. Kevin O’Connor.
The negative test comes less than one week after the president’s first positive test on Thursday morning.
Biden finished his five-day course of Paxlovid 36 hours ago, O’Connor wrote in a memo Wednesday morning that was subsequently released by the White House.
“His symptoms have been steadily improving, and are almost completely resolved,” O’Connor wrote.
The president is set to address the public from the Rose Garden later Wednesday.
He “will give remarks after his negative test about a case that was mild thanks to the tools this administration has worked hard to make available to the American people,” an administration official told reporters. “He will discuss the progress we have made against COVID and encourage eligible Americans to get vaccinated and boosted.”
The president likely had the highly contagious BA.5 subvariant, and his symptoms had included a runny nose, cough, sore throat, a slight fever and body aches. O’Connor never reported any abnormalities in Biden’s pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate or oxygen saturation throughout his infection.
Biden told reporters Monday that all his test results were “good” and “on the button.”
Biden will now end his strict isolation measures after being confined to the White House residence since his diagnosis. Biden continued to work in isolation, posting a photograph on Twitter Monday of him and his dog, Commander, saying he “took some calls this morning with man’s best co-worker.”
The president tweeted a picture of his negative test on Wednesday and said that he’s returning to the Oval Office.
Biden “continues to be very specifically conscientious to protect any of the Executive Residence, White House, Secret Service and other staff whose duties require any (albeit socially distanced) proximity to him,” O’Connor wrote in his memo on Wednesday. “For this reason, he will wear a well-fitting mask for 10 full days any time he is around others.”
Biden will increase his testing cadence in light of the possibility of a Paxlovid “rebound,” O’Connor wrote, referring to a seemingly rare but increasingly reported phenomenon in which COVID symptoms recur or there is the development of a new positive viral test after having tested negative.
The president is fully vaccinated and has received two booster shots, but at the age of 79 was considered to be at a higher risk for severe illness.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, stressed after Biden’s diagnosis that all Americans should take advantage of vaccinations and treatments courses.
“This is a president who’s double-vaccinated, double-boosted, getting treatments that are widely available to Americans and has at this moment a mild respiratory illness,” Jha told ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “This is really good news, and this is both vaccines and treatments that are available to everyone. Really important that people go out and get vaccinated and avail themselves of these treatments if they get infected.”
First lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both tested negative for COVID-19 after spending time with the president before his diagnosis.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Tal Axelrod, Ben Gittleson, Alexandra Hutzler and Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top adviser to then-President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, has recently cooperated with the Department of Justice investigation into the events of Jan. 6, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The Justice Department reached out to her following her testimony a month ago before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the sources said.
The extent of her cooperation was not immediately clear.
Hutchinson becomes the latest known figure with knowledge of the actions of top Trump administration officials on Jan. 6 to cooperate with the Justice Department’s inquiry.
A lawyer for Hutchinson did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment. Officials with the DOJ also declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for the Jan. 6 committee.
Hutchinson publicly testified before the Jan. 6 committee earlier this month, spending some two hours recounting details about what she said went on behind the scenes at the White House leading up to, during, and after the Jan. 6 attack.
Her account included descriptions of events she both witnessed directly and other events she said were described to her.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jul 27, 9:32 AM EDT
Ukraine strikes key bridge in Russia-held Kherson
Ukrainian forces struck a strategic bridge in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson early Wednesday, according to local officials.
High-precision missile strikes by the Ukrainian military damaged the Antonivskiy bridge, forcing the occupied authorities to close the structure to civilian traffic. The mile-long bridge across the Dnieper River is an essential artery used by Moscow to supply its troops occupying southern Ukraine.
“Strikes were delivered on the bridge, on its road. The bridge is currently closed to the civilian population,” Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Moscow-appointed administration for the Kherson region, told local media on Wednesday.
The bridge’s pillars and spans were still intact as of Wednesday morning, according to Stremousov.
“It is simply that the number of holes on the road has increased. The strike on the bridge has affected only the civilian population,” he added.
According to Stremousov, Ukrainian forces hit the bridge with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) supplied by the United States. He said ferry crossings across the Dnieper River will be organized during the bridge’s restoration, and that traffic will resume in the near future.
“We have prepared a pontoon bridge. We have a ferry link,” he told local media.
Earlier on Wednesday, Ukrainian military officials said the number of Russian soldiers killed in the war has surpassed 40,000, just more than five months after Russia launched its invasion of neighboring Ukraine in late February.
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the family of slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on Tuesday amid renewed demands for justice.
Blinken had previously spoken to Abu Akleh’s relatives via telephone, but Tuesday was their first in-person meeting. The family traveled from their home in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem to meet with him at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C.
While the meeting was ongoing, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters during a press briefing that Blinken would “use the opportunity to underscore for Shireen’s family our deepest condolences on her tragic death and to reiterate the priority we attach to accountability — something we continue to discuss with our Israeli and Palestinian partners as well.”
“It is a priority for us that we see appropriate accountability,” Price added.
Lina Abu Akleh, the journalist’s niece, took to Twitter after the meeting with Blinken, saying: “Although he made some commitments on Shireen’s killing, we’re still waiting to see if this administration will meaningfully answer our calls for #JusticeForShireen.”
“Accountability requires action,” she tweeted. “We look forward to a US investigation that leads to real consequences. Shireen was my aunt and the voice of Palestine and she was killed by an Israeli soldier.”
She said her family also stressed to Blinken the importance of a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, who tested positive for COVID-19 last week.
“A meeting with him will demonstrate to our family that Shireen’s case is a priority for this administration,” she tweeted. “Since he didn’t meet with us in Jerusalem, we came to DC. We need him to hear from us directly.”
Abu Akleh, a veteran 51-year-old journalist working for Al Jazeera, was killed on May 11 while on assignment covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli Defense Forces said exchanges of gunfire erupted between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants, and Abu Akleh, who had been wearing a protective vest identifying her as a member of the press, was shot in the head. She was rushed in critical condition to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Abu Akleh’s death has sparked controversy as Palestinians claimed she was killed by Israeli gunfire, while the Israeli Defense Forces steadfastly denied that was the case.
So far, the United States has served as sort of an intermediary between separate Israeli and Palestinian investigations. The U.S. Security Coordinator’s office in Israel, which monitors Israeli and Palestinian security arrangements, recently analyzed the full investigations carried out by authorities on both sides and determined that gunfire from Israeli positions likely killed Abu Akleh but appeared to be unintentional.
Earlier this month, in an exclusive statement to Politico, Abu Akleh’s family called those findings “an affront to justice,” claiming it “enabled Israel to avoid accountability for Shireen’s murder.” They also accused the White House of failing to take their concerns seriously.
Abu Akleh’s family made clear on Tuesday that they want the Biden administration to launch its own probe into the circumstances surrounding her death. But the State Department showed no sign of reevaluating its stance.
“We have published the findings in this case. We believe that by publishing the findings it speaks to our commitment to pursuing an investigation that is credible, an investigation that is thorough, and, importantly, an investigation that culminates in accountability,” department spokesperson Ned Price said Tuesday. “And it is that question of accountability that we have continued to discuss with our Palestinian partners and, of course, with our Israeli partners as well.”
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI,JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Joe Biden and Donald Trump have been headed for another face-off since the day Trump lost to Biden in 2020 — but voters say they are upset with the direction of the country and just as ambivalent about having either Biden or Trump lead their political parties in two years, adding an unusual level of uncertainty to what could be a historic 2024 contest.
A New York Times/Siena College poll earlier this month showed abysmal numbers for both leaders: Biden’s job approval scraped 33%, a new nadir, and 64% of Democrats surveyed said they wanted a different nominee in 2024. Meanwhile, 51% of Republicans said they wanted someone other than Trump to be their standard-bearer in the next presidential election — and despite Biden’s unsteady footing, Trump still narrowly trailed him in a hypothetical head-to-head.
Such stark numbers only supercharged speculation, among politicos, over whether either of the two will be on the ballot come 2024. How unusual would it be for them to run against one another again? If not them, then who? And what can change between now and then?
“When you have such a sour, negative political environment, voters in general are looking for change,” said GOP pollster Robert Blizzard. “They’re looking for new voices, new people.”
The underlying reasons for this can be contradictory, given voters’ political differences. There is concern about the economy and rising inflation, about the persistence of the coronavirus, about crime and gun violence — including the habitual spasms of mass shootings — and about abortions, LGBTQ rights and more.
Gallup’s polling on how “satisfied” Americans are has consistently declined since the mid-2000s — but it has shown ever-sharper dissatisfaction since 2021. The most recent survey, in June, reported 87% dissatisfaction.
As those numbers refuse to budge — and, in particular, as voters increasingly focus on historically high inflation despite other good economic news — Biden’s approval rating has crumbled.
Steve Phillips, a progressive Democratic donor, said there was another factor influencing Biden’s intraparty weakness: Democrats want him to be more forceful in advocating for the base’s priorities.
In response, Biden and his administration have touted a range of executive actions he has taken but stressed that he is limited by Democrats’ fragile majority in Congress. Often, Biden will urge voters to elect more Democrats so he can do more.
Phillips, the donor, sees it another way.
“There’s 45-47% of people in the country who are going to hate Biden regardless. And then the worst is: What about those who elected him? And that’s where the disappointment comes in. And there’s such a reluctance to tackle the fights that are coming with the same intensity that they are coming. That’s what I think is responsible for the low poll numbers,” he said.
Still, Trump hasn’t seemed to reap many benefits from the drop in Biden’s support.
The same Times/Siena poll showing Biden only winning the approval of a third of all voters also showed that 92% of Democrats would back him if he faces off against Trump in a general election, where he would be expected — in this survey — to narrowly triumph.
Biden insists he’ll run again if he’s healthy. In an impassioned exchange with ABC News earlier this month, he said, “They [Democrats] want me to run.” Pressed on this, he noted that “92% said if I did, they’d vote for me.”
Still, his anemic approval ratings and advanced age — cited by a third of Democrats in the Times/Siena poll as the reason they wanted another nominee — have fueled a rumor mill over his second-term ambitions at the same time that other politicians have jockeyed for a bigger spotlight.
Observers say the potential 2024 short-list includes past candidates like Vice President Kamala Harris, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Democratic Govs. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Gavin Newsom of California, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer were also repeatedly mentioned by over a half-dozen Democratic aides who spoke to ABC News.
“I think there is a lot of people who could very quickly step into the spotlight who are qualified, who are dynamic and who I think could capture the public’s imagination,” said strategist Jon Reinish.
Some of the would-be candidates have, according to reports, privately acknowledged the possibility of 2024.
The Washington Post reported that it obtained a memo earlier this year written by a Sanders’ campaign adviser that Sanders would consider a third White House bid if Biden didn’t run in 2024.
Others have conspicuously swatted away the idea that they’re waiting in the wings.
During an earlier interview with ABC News, Newsom insisted he had no White House ambitions — which he reiterated while in Washington this month to accept an award on education. He said then that he supported Biden being on the ticket in 2024.
But Newsom — like Govs. Pritzker and Whitmer — has also seized on certain issues. All three have seen their profiles grow as a result. Pritzker, who recently made a trip to New Hampshire, spoke bluntly about why he supported gun control in the wake of a Fourth of July parade massacre in his state.
Meanwhile Whitmer has emerged as a forceful Democratic defender of abortion access and Newsom, despite playing down the 2024 possibilities, this month ran an ad in Florida berating Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — and casting himself as a culture warrior in the process.
Many party experts said that it was Harris who would start in a particularly strong position.
“Whereas you may hear people making waves or putting their toe in the water, there’s always the presumption and the courtesy that … we’ll wait to see what the current vice president is going to do,” said one Democrat with ties to the White House.
Some Democrats chalked that activity up to just laying the groundwork if Biden were to pass on 2024 — but observers said the candidates could be getting more emboldened as Biden’s footing worsens.
“I think that the poll numbers, the whispers, certainly I think do motivate people to float trial balloons,” said Phillips, the donor.
Across the aisle, Republican rumors over 2024 are flying just as fast.
Trump has openly teased a forthcoming comeback bid — telling New York magazine in an interview this month that “in my own mind, I’ve already made that decision” and that he was only debating the timing of his announcement.
Still, he would be running as the party’s most recent presidential loser — and one who faces not only intense scrutiny over his actions around last year’s Capitol riot but also a number of legal problems, including investigations in Georgia and New York. (He denies all wrongdoing and has cast the House Jan. 6 committee as politically motivated.)
Some critics also note that, like Biden, he has been dogged by questions about his advancing age and acuity.
On top of that, Trump seems fixated on his loss to Biden — a focus that some experts say keeps him from talking about issues like inflation that are currently motivating voters.
While Trump remains the de facto GOP leader and party kingmaker, offering or withholding a powerful endorsement in down-ballot races across the country, strategists are forecasting a crowded field for the 2024 nomination.
“By focusing on 2020 all the time and trying to litigate that election, he’s not presenting a positive vision for the future. And I think that there are some other Republican candidates out there who are making it pretty clear that they want to run in ’24 and that they have ideas as to where America should go and they’re not afraid to run, even if Trump is in the race,” said Bob Heckman, a veteran of several GOP presidential campaigns.
The list of other would-be 2024 candidates amounts to a who’s-who of Republican leaders, including Trump’s own Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida’s Gov. DeSantis and Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rick Scott of Florida.
Vocal Trump detractors like Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan — who sent nearly hourly tweets about a recent trip to New Hampshire — are also being floated.
Several of those politicians are endorsing their candidates in the midterms, even when it conflicts with Trump, and traveling to critical primary states.
And while many of them may stay out of a primary should Trump run, laying the groundwork early could be critical in case he doesn’t.
“Anyone who is thinking about running for president will realize that this could be their last best shot. Because if they don’t run, and another Republican wins, they’re effectively sidelined for the next decade,” said Alex Conant, a top aide on Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) 2016 presidential campaign. “If a Republican wins in 2024, the next time there’ll be an open White House is 2032.”
But timing is a delicate dance in the Trump-dominated GOP. While the former president is not anticipated to clear the field if he runs, being the first opposing primary candidate out of the gate could engender brutal attacks — a repeat of Trump’s approach to his 2016 opponents.
“I think there’s a recognition and a degree of respect for Trump’s political power of waiting. They have no choice. Those who step out too early can get slapped down really easy,” said former Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis.
Should Biden and Trump both run and win their respective nominations — as many expect — strategists of both parties are anticipating a highly unusual election.
A rematch between a current and former president, both of whom are facing popularity issues within their own party, would be virtually unheard of.
Historian Mark Updegrove said the closest comparison is President Grover Cleveland, who served from 1885 to 1889 before losing to Benjamin Harrison, only to reclaim the White House four years later.
But even that is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
“That’s the closest thing we come to this. But the circumstances here are highly unusual for so many reasons, not the least of which is you’d have to septuagenarians right now who are considering this race, and by the time the election comes around, Joe Biden will be 82 years old. So age becomes a factor in this as well as all the other unusual aspects of the matchup,” Updegrove said.
That being said, Updegrove noted that if current economic conditions continue, Trump has a wide opening to go on the offense given rampant inflation — but he may be undercutting himself by his singular focus on the 2020 election.
“Americans are going to be tired of it … And if he continues to harp on this message that something was taken from him, that election was stolen from him, I think it’s going to hurt,” Updegrove said. “I think the smart play would be to talk up what he could do to rejuvenate a foundering economy. That, to my mind, is Joe Biden’s true Achilles heel.”
Operatives, of course, warn against reading the tea leaves in the summer of 2022. The distance to the 2024 race is essentially a political lifetime. Trump himself proved that: The real estate mogul and reality TV host was on almost nobody’s radar as a sincere candidate in summer 2014.
“It’s good not to chisel your long-term plans in politics into rock,” said Jared Leopold, a former top staffer at the Democratic Governors Association. “It’s better left in pencil.”
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Jalal Noory, an Afghan refugee in Ukraine who serves in the Ukrainian armed forces, defended the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv from being captured by Russian troops at the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. Noory and his fellow soldiers succeeded, repelling all Russian attacks on the capital.
A Ukrainian citizen since 2005, Noory first went to the frontline in 2014 as a volunteer following Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the Donbas region. Noory said he was called to the front by a sense of patriotism.
“I simply could not stay away,” he added.
“I wanted to share my combat experience with my Ukrainian comrades,” Noory said, adding that “war is part of every Afghan’s nature.”
Noory was born in Afghanistan in the mid 1970s. He still recalls the Soviet invasion of his native country in 1979.
“I remember the Soviet army crossing through my city when I was a child. We bought cigarettes and gave them to the Soviet soldiers. They gave us bullets in return to play with,” Noory said.
The conflict morphed into a full-scale war that lasted 10 years and cost the Soviets around 15,000 troops, according to official estimates. More than 3,000 men lost in the war were from Ukraine.
Up to two million Afghan civilians died in the fighting — or about 10% of Afghanistan’s population in 1979. Millions of others became refugees, including Noory.
Russian military tactics witnessed today in Ukraine are identical to those used in Afghanistan, Noory said.
“At the time, the Russians claimed their Afghan friends were calling for help. Just like now in Ukraine,” he said.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February this year under the pretext of protecting the Russian speaking population in the country, among other justifications proclaimed by Russian officials as the invasion unfolded.
“But it’s a lie. I’ve lived in Ukraine for 23 years and I’ve only spoken Russian. I never had a problem with the language,” Noory said.
Frightening and terrorizing the civilian population is another staple of Russian warfare that stood the test of time, according to Noory.
“Absolutely nothing has changed. They are hiding behind women, children, houses, and villages. They destroy them by rockets, bombs and tanks,” he said.
Noory, having grown up in the middle of a war, absorbed military knowledge from his early childhood. But after fleeing to Ukraine in 1999, he led a peaceful life.
Noory became a successful athlete, winning several titles in martial arts competitions. He also got married and had children.
Yet he did not hesitate for a second when Russia invaded Ukraine both in 2014 and this year.
“Someone must stop the Russians. Now it is the Ukrainians, but Poland or Lithuania could be next,” Noory said.
Noory said he did not only fight for his life, family, friends, or Ukraine. He’s protecting something much bigger, he added.
“I fight for every human. Not just an Afghan, Ukrainian or American, but for every human,” he said.
The most important thing in life is freedom, Noory said.
“If you don’t have freedom, you have nothing. So I must be free and my children have to be free,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — The future of COVID-19 vaccines might not be shots in the arm or leg. Instead, picture a nasal spray or a patch stuck onto the skin for a few minutes.
A group of scientists, doctors and administration health officials gathered at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the next generation of inoculation against COVID and its viral cousins; they were in agreement that there is room for improvement.
The future could include vaccines that protect equally against all variants — or even vaccines that stop infections from happening in the first place.
“Innovative approaches are clearly needed to induce broad and durable protection against coronaviruses known and unknown,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser, told the audience.
There’s broad consensus that despite the benefit of the currently available vaccines, the “job is not done,” Fauci said.
“We’ve already averted well over 2 million deaths, approximately $1 trillion in health care costs and tens and tens of millions of infections, as well as close to 20 million hospitalizations. That’s the good news,” Fauci said. “What’s the sobering news? Sobering news is why we’re here today — because our job is not done.”
There are a few options on the table.
One is a pan-coronavirus vaccine, which could cover a broad array of future COVID variants and perhaps other coronaviruses, giving people protection for longer periods of time.
Another is a vaccine that people would spray into their noses, called a mucosal vaccine, or even a small patch that would be applied to the skin and carry the vaccine in microneedles.
All are promising innovations, with the potential to be combined with one another — but all are in very early stages of development.
The “holy grail,” Fauci said, is “not only to protect against disease, but to protect against acquisition, and by acquisition, transmission.”
Sprays and patches
Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, an expert on nasal vaccines from Yale University who spoke at the summit, said the only way to fully achieve that goal — Fauci’s “holy grail” — would be nasal vaccines.
She compared them to “stopping the virus from spreading right at the border,” because the virus enters through the nose.
“This is akin to putting a guard outside of the house in order to patrol for invaders, compared to putting the guards in the hallway of a building in the hope they would capture the invader,” Iwasaki said, contrasting the nasal vaccines to the current shots, which are injected and produce an antibody response throughout the body.
Mark Prausnitz, the chief scientific officer of Micron Biomedical, which is developing a vaccine administered through a skin patch, also pitched it as a better option to the current generation of vaccines.
“Leave it in place for a few minutes, peel it off and discard it. We think this can not only make vaccines more readily accessible, but improve immunogenicity,” Prausnitz said.
He said the microneedles in the patch are as long as a piece of paper is thick, and people barely feel them. The patches could be administered by people at home, he said, and wouldn’t require inaccessible cold storage.
A summit for ideas, but also a pitch to Congress
For both the new types of vaccines on the horizon, there are still huge scientific hurdles to developing such new innovations. And without significant resources, that could take upwards of three to five years, experts estimate.
So while Tuesday’s summit was a display of potential new advancements and an acknowledgement of where the current vaccines are falling behind, it was also in a pitch to lawmakers for substantial focus and investment.
“It’s very important to note that we need to move quickly to start testing these nasal vaccines in humans, and that requires a significant U.S. government input, both resources and help with manufacturing and delivery as well as acceptance across society,” Iwasaki told the audience.
Marty Moore, founder and chief scientific officer of another nasal vaccine company, Meissa Vaccines, said the benefits would significantly outweigh the risks.
“I think developing transmission-blocking vaccines, of course, will come with great challenges and some cost,” he said. “But I think the probability of success warrants this investment based on what we know about vaccines. And the potential benefits are just enormous, direct and indirect.”
White House COVID coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha has said he’s hopeful the timeline for these new vaccines could be drastically reduced — if investments are made.
But the Biden administration has faced reluctance from congressional Republicans to approve even more funding, with conservatives citing questions and objections over how past monies were spent.
