(BALTIMORE) — Survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic Church leaders rallied in front of Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh’s office, calling for the release of preliminary findings of an investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
Teresa Lancaster said she was interviewed four years ago upon the launch of the investigation. She told investigators she was abused at Archbishop Keough High School, but she has yet to be given any answers.
“It’s hard not to see any action,” she said, according to the Baltimore Sun. “I would like to hear something, please.”
Jean Wehner, who says she was also abused while a student at Archbishop Keough High School, said that without any updates over the past four years, survivors who spoke with investigators are finding themselves “in an old familiar place where the silence turns to fear.”
“The fear is that we told the secret and that the disclosure will bring harm to us and our loved ones, or that we are not believed, or that we’ve been duped,” she told the Baltimore Sun.
The school, which merged with Seton High School and was renamed Seton Keough in 1988, closed its doors in June 2017.
Lancaster and Wehner were both featured in “The Keepers,” a popular Netflix docuseries released in 2017 that explored the 1969 murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik and its suspected link to her knowledge of sexual abuse of minors within the church.
Frosh, who is not running for re-election, is set to leave office in January 2023 and survivors are urging him to share the findings before his term comes to a close.
A spokesperson for Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh’s office told ABC News in a statement on Wednesday that while the AG’s office cannot comment on ongoing investigations, they can confirm that they have conducted hundreds of interviews and reviewed thousands of documents.
“We have made significant progress in the investigation and expect to make an announcement in the coming months,” the spokesperson said.
The investigation into the abuse of children in Baltimore became public in 2018 after Archbishop William E. Lori informed priests and deacons that the archdiocese has been cooperating with the AG’s office in an “investigation of records related to the sexual abuse of children,” according to a statement released by Lori in September of that year.
Lori added, “Based on my conversations with people throughout the Archdiocese…it is clear that we are a Church in crisis and that crisis is one of trust. It is my hope and prayer that this independent review and other acts of transparency by the Archdiocese will bring about greater trust in the Church among those who are understandably skeptical about the Church’s handling of allegations of abuse.”
The Maryland investigation became public after a two-year probe in Pennsylvania ended with a bombshell grand jury report released in August 2018, accusing hundreds of Roman Catholic priests of assaulting children.
So far, no indictments have been announced in Maryland.
Members of “Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests” (SNAP), who joined Lancaster and Wehner at the rally on Tuesday, called on the AG to hold abusers accountable, while Maryland SNAP director David Lorenz questioned why the Maryland investigation has taken so long.
“We have perpetrators walking the streets of Maryland, preying on children in Maryland, and the [Office of the Attorney General] is sitting on this information. Why is that?” said Lorenz, according to ABC affiliate station in Baltimore, WMAR.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is still testing positive for COVID-19 four days into his rebound infection, White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor reported Wednesday.
Biden “continues to feel well,” O’Connor said, noting the exam was conducted after the president completed a light workout.
“He is still experiencing an occasional cough, but less frequently than yesterday. He remains fever-free and in good spirits,” O’Connor wrote. Biden’s temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation also remain normal.
O’Connor said Wednesday that Biden will continue to follow strict isolation measures, but it’s not clear if he will go beyond the recommendations laid out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — as the White House vowed to do the first time he tested positive.
Biden initially tested positive for the virus on July 21, and emerged from isolation after completing a five-day course of Paxlovid and testing negative. But on July 30 he tested positive again in what O’Connor called “rebound positivity” — referring to a relapse of COVID-19 some patients experience after taking the antiviral treatment.
The White House said after Biden’s initial diagnosis that he would end isolation only after testing negative on an antigen test. The CDC recommends that an individual stop isolating after five days if they are fever-free and symptoms are improving. It doesn’t suggest testing within 90 days of a positive case unless new symptoms develop.
For Biden’s rebound case, the White House has said the president would again isolate for five full days, but it hasn’t said if he would end isolation only after testing negative.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told ABC News’ Ben Gittleson on Wednesday she couldn’t say if that would be the case.
“I would have to check to see exactly what the CDC guidance is, but we are gonna follow CDC guidance,” she said.
When asked if the White House wants the CDC to urge Americans to test to end isolation, too — and if they want the public to use the president’s behavior as a model — Jean-Pierre said they’ll “leave it to the experts.”
“That is for the experts and they follow the science which changes on this,” she said. “You know, this is COVID, as we know, once-in-a-generation pandemic, so we leave it to them to make that decision.”
(SCRANTON, Kan.) — Officials in Scranton, Kansas, suspect heat played a role in the death of a 2-year-old, who died after being found unresponsive in a car Sunday afternoon.
It would mark the 14th hot car death this year, based on data from Kids and Cars Safety, a national nonprofit that tracks hot car deaths and aims to prevent vehicle-related risks to children and pets.
Osage County Sheriff Chris Wells said the child apparently “got into the car” by themself and had not been left in there by an adult, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported.
Details on the child’s name and gender have not yet been released.
Every year, approximately 38 children die from being left in a hot car, according to Kids and Cars Safety, with 87% of them age 3 and under.
As the U.S. copes with more heat waves this summer and temperatures in the Midwest, South and West continue to soar into the triple digits, there is a concern for parents about hot car deaths. One parent, Peter Hansen, opened up about the issue on social media.
“I have severe anxiety about leaving our kids in a hot car on accident,” Hansen, a father of three in Chicago, wrote in a LinkedIn post. “It’s 100 degrees in Chicago today and the heat is intense across the country. Working from home has me multitasking more than usual, which can distract me from the kids some days, especially if driving on a work call. This is simply a post to make sure your kids are not left in your car in this heat.”
The 40-year-old told “Good Morning America” an episode with two of his three kids one morning gave him a scare and prompted him to reflect on the dangers of hot cars and how easily things can go wrong.
“We got doughnuts and came back in the house,” Hansen recalled. “It’s still 7 in the morning — it wasn’t 100 degrees yet — but five minutes later, I was in the house and my 4-year-old walked through the door five minutes later, she’s like, ‘Daddy, you forgot me.’ And it was like, I swear I saw her get out of the car … but I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ It really terrified me that I thought both of them got out of the car together like they normally do.”
Why do hot car deaths happen?
Amber Rollins, a director at Kids and Cars Safety, said the issue is often misunderstood and even dismissed by many parents and caregivers.
“I think the No. 1 misconception is that this will never happen to me and that it only happens to bad parents and nothing could be further from the truth,” Rollins told “GMA.” “I’ve worked with families that this has happened to for 16 years and they are engineers, school teachers, principals, nurses, doctors, you name it. It’s the type of people that I aspire to be as a parent, the kind that read every safety book about the most expensive car seat and strapped him in so tight and covered every outlet. That’s the kind of person this is happening to.”
According to Rollins, hot car deaths have also been trending upwards for the last three decades, with an exception during the last two years of the pandemic when more families stayed at home.
“In the ’90s, we realized children were being killed by overpowered airbags and children are still safer riding in the back seat. We moved them to the back seat because that’s where they’re the safest. However, now they’re out of sight of the driver,” Rollins explained. “So they’re in the back seat, they’re rear-facing now until age 3 or even longer, depending on the size of the child. And that car seat looks the same for the driver whether there’s a baby in there or not.”
“This is not like parents didn’t just all of a sudden overnight become neglectful and irresponsible,” she added. “This is an unintended consequence of moving them to the back seat.”
How to prevent hot car deaths
Multiple solutions have been proposed to avert a hot car death before they occur. Among the high-tech options include carbon dioxide detection, lidar or light detection and ranging technology, car alarm systems, car camera systems and car seats with weight sensors, each with its own pros and cons.
A new idea, called “Cabin Awareness,” from Toyota would use radar technology, powered in part by a car’s battery, to notify drivers who have left a Toyota vehicle that a child or a pet remained inside the car.
Brian Kursar, chief technology officer for Toyota Connected North America and Toyota Motor North America, has led the “Cabin Awareness” project since its inception in 2018 and said the project is moving now toward a testing phase with May Mobility, a Michigan-based company that develops autonomous technology, including vehicles.
“The ‘Cabin Awareness’ concept uses millimeter-wave radar to detect micro-movements and so micro-movements really are the things that a camera can’t see. So it’s also able to understand breathing, heartbeat, and ultimately provides us a solution to something that we’ve not been able to really touch, which is the ability to understand life in a vehicle,” Kursar explained to “GMA,” adding that radar could “see through things like cloth” and go beyond a camera’s line of sight.
Toyota’s “Cabin Awareness” could link up to a driver’s cell phone, a smart device – such as smart lights, a smart speaker, or smart TV – inside their home, or possibly other Toyota vehicles in an environment such as a parking lot and ultimately, contact emergency services when other alerts go unanswered.
“Based on our algorithms, we’re able to understand where in the vehicle that movement is coming from. And then we’re able to now take a number of options to escalate, to let the customer know that there is life potentially at risk in a vehicle,” Kursar said.
“We see this as an opportunity not just to contact the customer. You can give the system a list of contacts such as grandma, right, such as your neighbor, right, and these are additional folks that can start helping to resolve this problem with the vehicle,” Kursar added. “Maybe we can now do a vehicle-to-vehicle ping to say, if you’re within proximity of a child or an adult at risk in a car, now you have this almost community outreach where people in their cars, they turn on their cars, and it says, [someone in] a green Sienna within your proximity, may be at risk for heat exhaustion.”
For now, “Cabin Awareness” is not available in Toyota vehicles just yet and the timeline for a potential rollout will depend on testing results.
In the meantime, Kids and Cars Safety’s Rollins recommends several solutions that parents can keep in mind and adopt this summer.
Adopt the “look before you lock” habit.
“We want to use that habit system to prevent it from happening,” Rollins said. “No matter what, even if the child is not with you, open the back door and check the back seat. Every single time you leave the car.”
“It takes two seconds,” she continued. “And it’s a great way to make sure you’re never forgetting anything, including your children or inanimate objects that aren’t as important but make that a 100% habit.”
In addition to being left in a car, a child or pet can gain access to a car when they’re unlocked, so Rollins also emphasized the importance of utilizing car door locks. “You want to keep your car locked 100% of the time, even if you don’t have children. Little ones can get into neighbors’ cars. It happens all the time. You want to keep keys and remote openers out of reach of children 100% of the time and childproof your home.”
“You want to check the inside trunk and floorboards of all vehicles in the area immediately, even if they’re locked,” Rollins added. “A lot of times, kiddos will get in and they try to get out and they push the lock button. And so people don’t think they’re in there if it’s locked, but they definitely can be.”
Use a visual reminder.
Rollins suggests keeping a physical object, like a diaper bag, in the front seat or playing a kid’s song to remember that you’re traveling with your child. “If you’re not a diaper bag person 100% of the time, create a reminder object in your car. So throw a stuffed animal in the car seat. And then anytime you put the child in the car seat, that stuffed animal comes up to the front seat with you as your visual cue that the baby is with you,” Rollins said.
Enlist the help of others.
“If you take your child to daycare or anyone, a family member that watches them, whoever it is, you want to make a policy with them. They would call you immediately if your child didn’t show up as scheduled and I mean immediately,” said Rollins. “That one phone call could have been the difference between life or death for hundreds of children.”
Make kids aware of the hazards of a hot car.
“Talk to your kids about how dangerous it is to get into a car without a grown-up and talk to them about never allowing a grown-up to leave them in the car,” Rollins said.
Use stick-on door alarms.
Inexpensive door alarms can be more accessible for parents than full-fledged home security systems in the short term and peel-and-stick options are sold online and in stores.
(ELKHART COUNTY, Ind.) — Indiana Rep. Jackie Walorski and three others were killed Wednesday afternoon in a car crash, according to authorities.
Walorski, 58, was traveling southbound on SR 19 in an SUV with two other people when a car traveling northbound crossed the dividing line and slammed head on into the SUV. All three people in the SUV were killed.
The Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office identified the victims as Walorski; Zachery Potts, 27; and Emma Thomson, 28.
The driver of the other vehicle, Edith Schmucker, 58, was also killed in the crash.
Thomson was Walorski’s communications director and Potts was previously Walorski’s campaign manager and was currently a district director in Indiana for the House of Representatives.
GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Twitter shared a statement — “with a heavy heart” — that he said was from Walorski’s office.
“Jackie was killed in a car accident this afternoon. She has returned home to be with her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers. We will have no further comment at this time,” the statement read.
According to the statement, Walorski’s husband was notified of her death by the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana.
A former state lawmaker, Walorski had represented Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District since 2013.
According to her House biography, she and her husband “previously spent four years as missionaries in Romania, where they started and ran a foundation to provide food and medical supplies to impoverished children there. Jackie also worked as a television news reporter in South Bend and as a development director for colleges and universities in Indiana.”
Walorski’s Republican colleague Adam Kinzinger, of Illinois, mourned her death in a brief tweet Wednesday.
“My heart is heavy, and i don’t have the words. But all I can say is prayers for her family,” he wrote. “She was a good and honorable public servant.”
The Elkhart County Coroner’s Office and the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office continue to investigate the crash.
ABC News’ Davone Morales contributed to this report.
(DALLAS) — A Dallas City Council committee passed a resolution Tuesday looking to limit the impact of Texas’s strict abortion law.
The council’s Quality of Life, Arts, and Culture Committee voted to adopt the ordinance, which directs law enforcement to make investigating or prosecuting any allegation related to abortion outcomes their lowest priority.
It also limits city funds from being used to compile reports of abortions that were performed, to “conduct surveillance” to determine whether an abortion has occurred and to relay the information to any governmental agencies.
The resolution will be presented to the full council for a vote Aug. 10.
“I believe that we have to do what we can at every level of government to push back on legislation that takes away our rights, specifically when it comes to women’s rights,” Councilman Adam Bazaldua, who spearheaded the resolution, told ABC News. “It’s our job as local leaders to preserve quality of life for residents and access to health care.”
Bazaldua said it was vital the resolution was passed before Texas’s so-called trigger law goes into effect.
Most abortions were already illegal in the state prior to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June. However, after the decision, a near-total ban went into effect with very limited exceptions.
When the “trigger law” is enforced on Aug. 25, performing an abortion in Texas will become a felony punishable by a fine of up to $100,000 and possibly up to life in prison.
Dallas is not the only Texas city that has attempted to affirm its support of abortion rights.
In June, Denton — 40 miles northwest of Dallas — was the first in the state to adopt a resolution directing police to make investigating abortions a low priority and, last month, the Austin City Council approved a resolution similar to the one passed in Dallas known as the Guarding the Right to Abortion Care for Everyone or GRACE Act, which effectively decriminalized abortion within city limits.
In addition to the measures also passed in Dallas, the Austin resolution also launched a public information campaign about vasectomies, explaining that the burden of preventing pregnancies “disproportionately falls on women.”
Lastly, the Austin resolution prevents employment and housing discrimination based on whether someone is pregnant or has had an abortion.
“As a father of a 10-year-old daughter, I find it unfathomable to raise a young woman in a time when she has less rights afforded to her than her grandmother did in her lifetime,” Bazaldua said. “And I think it’s important for this issue to be strongly considered when voters go to vote this November.”
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said water and electricity systems across the state remain heavily damaged Wednesday from intense flooding, an issue raising concerns as scorching heat replaces rainfall.
National, state and local authorities are working to bring food, water and electricity to those in the affected areas, he said.
“These are proud, hardworking folks that have just lost it all, and I think the least we can do as human beings, as people of values, is to give and do what we can to get them back on their feet,” Beshear said.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Beshear also said 1,300 people have been rescued from flooded areas and 3 have been confirmed as missing, although that number is likely higher than what has been reported.
The death toll hasn’t risen since Monday, with 37 people reported to have died due to the floods, according to the governor.
Beshear said that a total of 219 people have been temporarily housed in Kentucky’s state parks and another 221 in shelters, to account for 440 displaced individuals. However, there are many more displaced persons that are staying with friends and family that are not included in that total, he said.
Cooling centers have been established across eight counties region braces for severe heat on Wednesday and Thursday, according to Beshear. The governor encouraged residents, especially elderly, high risk and displaced individuals without electricity to use the cooling centers in order to stay safe in the heat.
Restoring the damaged water systems will require “significant time and significant dollars,” Beshear said.
Beshear added that power outages were cut almost in half on Tuesday, with a remaining 5,058 hookups without power. Water outages remain at just over 1,800 service connections and 45,600 are under boiled water advisories, he said.
The most essential relief right now, Beshear said, is to get people water.
The National Guard has distributed over 2,400 cases of water as of Wednesday morning. Crews continue to deliver supplies and conduct welfare checks, officials said.
Jeremey Lowe, a Kentucky National Guard detachment sergeant and critical care flight paramedic, said the role of his crew has changed from emergency rescues to health and welfare checks over the last couple of days.
At the height of the flooding, Lowe’s crews worked to hoist people off roofs and out of trees using aircraft to take them to a safe area. The paramedics are now working to help elderly and medication dependent residents, he said.
Lowe told ABC News the majority of their welfare checks require no further assistance from the team, as “the people affected are self-sufficient and independent.”
While many people have been evacuated throughout the flooding, some are now sheltering in isolated areas, relying on food and water deliveries from authorities, Kentucky National Guard crew chief Shaun Morris told ABC News.
Morris said flooding conditions seem to be improving, but that debris and damages have left many roads and bridges impassable, making his airborne crews essential to the relief effort.
Beshear said many roads and bridges have been “just eaten away.”
There is a Team Kentucky Flood Relief Fund that has raised over $3 million in donations for affected families, Beshear said.
The first funds will go toward funerals for those who were killed in the floods, Beshear said.
“A lot of the grief that we’ve suppressed these last seven days trying to get the mud out and take care of each other…it’s going to come to the surface,” Beshear said. “Remember it’s okay not to be okay. I don’t think our brains or our hearts are designed to deal with trauma and loss at this level.”
(NEW YORK) — Children as young as 9 years old have engaged in disordered eating behaviors, according to a new analysis published in JAMA this week.
The analysis, which was published Monday and based on data from nearly 12,000 children, showed that 5% of children — both boys and girls — engaged in binge eating, one of many types of disordered eating behaviors.
“It starts younger than a lot of us may think,” ABC News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton said on “Good Morning America” Wednesday.
Disordered eating behaviors can lead to eating disorders, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, where someone may avoid or severely restrict the amount of food they eat; bulimia nervosa, where someone may overeat and then vomit or overexercise afterward; and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), an extreme version of picky eating, where someone is selective about the foods they eat.
Researchers say such issues are common: More than 28 million in the U.S. are living with an eating disorder, which often starts during the teenage years.
“When they found 9- [and] 10-year-olds starting to engage in binge eating, that really shifts our timeline to try to be more aware earlier and try to intervene,” Ashton said.
How to spot warning signs of an eating disorder
Parents may often be the first to notice disordered eating behaviors at home. Here are some red flags to watch out for:
A sudden change in appetite
Sudden avoidance of meal times
Frequent calorie counting
Overexercising
Poor body image or constant focus on weight or talk of weight gain or weight loss
What parents can do
If parents notice their child may be developing or already have an unhealthy relationship with food, Ashton recommends seeking professional help. As a starting point, parents can begin by initiating a conversation with their child’s pediatrician.
Ashton added that parents should keep their child’s privacy in mind and anticipate kids may act out, especially when they’re nearing their pre-teen years.
If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) at 1-800-931-2237 or NationalEatingDisorders.org.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday that paves the way for Medicaid to pay for abortion services for people having to travel out of state.
Speaking from the White House virtually, Biden continued to criticize the Supreme Court’s June 25 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“Today, I’m signing the second executive order that responds to the healthcare crisis that has unfolded since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, and that women are facing all across America,” he said.
The executive order comes just one day after abortion rights activists secured a major win in Kansas, where voters on Tuesday rejected removing the right to abortion from the state constitution.
Biden said the Supreme Court “practically dared women in this country go to the ballot box and restore the right to choose that the Court just ripped away after 50 years.”
“The voters of Kansas sent a powerful signal that this fall the American people will vote to preserve and protect the right and refuse to let it be ripped away from politicians,” Biden said.
The executive order comes just one day after abortion rights activists secured a major win in Kansas, where voters on Tuesday rejected removing the right to abortion from the state constitution.
Biden said the Supreme Court “practically dared women in this country go to the ballot box and restore the right to choose that the Court just ripped away after 50 years.”
“The voters of Kansas sent a powerful signal that this fall the American people will vote to preserve and protect the right and refuse to let it be ripped away from politicians,” Biden said.
The new directive allows the secretary of health and human services to “invite states to apply for Medicaid waivers, so that states where abortion is legal could provide services to people traveling from a state where abortion may be illegal to seek services in their state,” the official said. Technically, these states would apply through what’s known as a “Medicaid 1115 waiver,” according to a senior administration official.
The official noted that when the White House looked into declaring a public health emergency for abortion and what that would allow the federal government to do, this change to Medicaid — an assistance program for low-income patients’ medical expenses — was one of the options. But the White House realized the president could also do it through an executive order instead, which he plans to do Wednesday, the official said.
But the timeline for these changes remains unclear.
ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega pressed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday for more details on the implementation of the executive order for women who want to seek abortion care soon.
“Are we talking about days, are we talking about weeks, are we talking about six months?” Vega asked.
Jean-Pierre said the administration didn’t “have the details to share today but [Health and Human Services] will soon have more on what a waiver could look like and the timeline.”
Biden’s order also directs the health and human services secretary to make sure “health care providers comply with federal non-discrimination laws so that women receive medically necessary care without delay,” according to the White House. That could include “providing technical assistance for health care providers who may be confused or unsure of their obligations in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs,” or providing other info and guidance to providers about their obligations and consequences of not complying with non-discrimination laws.
The order also directs the health and human services secretary to improve research and data collection on maternal health outcomes, according to the White House.
Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. is currently in a race to have the necessary tools and medicines to stop the growing spread of monkeypox, and it may be an uphill battle, according to one vaccine expert.
Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, spoke with ABC News Live Tuesday about the latest developments in the spread of the virus. Hotez said he’s concerned about the trajectory of new cases that are being reported throughout the country and the world.
As of Wednesday, 6,326 monkeypox cases have been confirmed in all states except Montana and Wyoming, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. No American has died from the virus, according to health officials. There have been 25,391 cases worldwide as of Wednesday, according to the CDC.
Hotez said the current monkeypox vaccine, JYNNEOS, is effective, but said the current supply may not be enough.
“It’s not dire yet, but the feeling is unless we work pretty quickly we could get there,” he told ABC News.
Monkeypox is spread through skin-to-skin contact, and although most known cases in the current outbreak are among people who identify as gay or bisexual, anyone can get it, Hotez said. As of Wednesday, five children have contracted the virus, the CDC said.
Hotez said the small supply of the vaccine, which was commissioned a decade ago, is the result of U.S. health officials letting a stockpile expire “inexplicably” and doing nothing to replenish it.
“When the outbreak began we only had a few thousands doses and we’re playing catchup ever since,” Hotez said.
The Food and Drug Administration announced last week that it had inspected and approved the manufacturing of 786,000 more doses of JYNNEOS for distribution in the U.S. and that more than a million doses will be available in the coming weeks.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced FEMA administrator Robert Fenton would serve as the White House National Monkeypox Response Coordinator and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis would serve as the White House National Monkeypox Response Deputy Coordinator.
The pair will “will lead the Administration’s strategy and operations to combat the current monkeypox outbreak, including equitably increasing the availability of tests, vaccinations and treatments,” according to a statement from the White House.
Hotez said Biden’s appointees are qualified to lead the task and said one of the issues that they’re going to have to tackle is the vaccine supply. In addition, he said they will have to determine if there will be an increased call to use the antiviral drug tecovirimat, a.k.a. TPOXX, to treat patients while the country replenishes the vaccine supply.
“The problem is this: We don’t have the full armamentarium of tools to control it,” he said. “So we’re in a race trying to…accelerate the control tools, [so] that we have the diagnostics, the drugs and the vaccines versus that steep trajectory of cases.”
(WASHINGTON) — Abortion rights activists on Wednesday were relishing a major victory after Kansas voters soundly rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to roll back abortion access in the first state-level test since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade.
That win — in a red state former President Donald Trump carried by double digit margins in 2020 — is a clear warning shot for conservative candidates and state lawmakers alike who campaign on Roe’s downfall: Put the fate of abortion in the voters’ hands and suffer the political consequences.
Kansas voters choose to protect abortion access
Several factors may have motivated Kansas voters to defeat the amendment 59%-41%, but left-leaning strategists are likely to paraphrase Barack Obama famously observing, “elections have consequences.”
Those sorts of consequences can be measured in turnout.
On Tuesday, an eye-popping number of voters took to the polls, in near presidential general election-levels. So far, about 900,000 Kansans sounded off — compared to numbers in the 300,000 range in the 2016 and 2014 primaries. The turnout was stunning by any measure, for a primary night in the middle of summer vacation season.
Can Democrats repeat the results in other states?
Beyond the headline there’s layered impact here, as those seeking an abortion in a handful of states bordering Kansas — states that have implemented trigger law restrictions — can legally travel across state lines for the procedure.
While it might be a stretch for Democrats to do too big a victory lap for the cause, never in this midterm cycle has the left had a flare so bright and powerful, especially as down-ballot Democrats inherit the baggage of a generally unpopular president in Joe Biden, staggered inflation numbers, and mounting concerns about inflation.
The White House is championing this win, with Biden releasing a statement that the vote “makes clear” that “the majority of Americans agree that women should have access to abortion.”
But several questions remain, a chief one being whether this voter enthusiasm can be replicated in other deeply red states. And will Republican-controlled legislatures dare to push amendments for fear of the same sort of result?
A winning strategy forward for Democrats to preserve abortion rights remains unclear and will surely be tested in the upcoming August primaries.
Plus, the result in the rest of Tuesday night’s primaries will likely give Democrats more headaches than produce high-fives.
A mixed night for impeachment backers, but a big night for election deniers
Elections in Michigan, Missouri, Arizona and Washington made way for big wins for “the big lie” and saw the end of the reelection road for Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer, one of the few Republicans who broke party ranks and voted to impeach Donald Trump. Meijer’s loss is something of a grim prescription for the remaining anti-Trump Republicans — Rep. Liz Cheney take note — who have staked their reputations and job security on the anything-but-MAGA line.
Instead of Meijer, ultra-conservative election-denier John Gibbs advances to the general election. The embers of Democrats’ stoking far-right flames burned in this race, too, with the party’s congressional campaign arm pumping $500,000 in ads boosting Gibbs’ profile in the hopes he would be easier for Democrats to beat in November.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, another vocal anti-Trump Republican who decided to back out reelection, told CNN that “the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) needs to be ashamed of themselves.”
Tricky news in any event for Cheney, who faces her own set of hurdles in the Wyoming at-large primary on Aug.16. A quirk of the Wyoming election rules where Democrats and Independents can change party affiliations at the time of voting introduces a safeguard not accessible to someone like Meijer, however.
If the Republican primary cycle has taught anything, it’s that there is legitimate appetite for election conspiracy among the GOP electorate – or at least, a willingness to support “big lie” candidates despite everything that’s been revealed. FiveThirtyEight estimates at least 120 nominees deny the credibility of the election.
Arizona is something of the ground zero of election denial, where candidates at nearly every level champion a flavor of “election integrity.” In the GOP primary for attorney general, former prosecutor Abe Hamadeh, with a blessing from Trump, will effort to make Arizona great again.
It’s too early to call the results for the Republican gubernatorial primary, where former tv anchor Kari Lake has made a questioning of the election her mantra, turning interviews back on journalists to make her case.
Which sort of Democrat is left to fend off someone like Lake? In Arizona, it will be former secretary of state Katie Hobbs, who already is campaigning against “conspiracies of the past.”
“We need leaders who will look to the future, not conspiracies of the past. Leaders who are doers, not whiners. Do you want a governor whose entire platform boils down to being a sore loser or a governor who will get the job done for Arizona?” Hobbs pitched in her victory speech Tuesday night.
