(LEE COUNTY, Fla.) — Transgender students in Lee County School District in Florida who want to be identified by teachers and principals with pronouns that correspond with their gender identity will now have to fill out a Gender Support Plan.
“If a student does complete a gender support plan, which will by law require their parents’ involvement, it is a confidential document and available only to the school counselor and student,” said Rob Spicker, the assistant director of media relations and public information at Lee County Schools.
Without a completed gender support plan, with a parent’s signature, school staff will use the student’s name and gender as it is identified in the school’s system. Students who are 18 or older will not be required to have a parent’s signature.
Local parent Crystal Czyscon told ABC affiliate WZVN that she believed the document was discriminatory and “frightening,” fearing that students may be singled out.
The plan, a copy of which was acquired by WZVN, is to be filled out between a student and their counselor. It asks questions like whether the parents know about the student’s trans or nonbinary status, whether the student has support at home, how public is the student’s gender status, which school employees will be designated support systems and what will be the plan if a child is outed.
In defense of the district, Spicker said the plan is tended to protect LGBTQ students and denied that the plan is some form of registry of trans students. It is not required for trans students to fill out the form, he said. However, if they do not fill it out, they may only be identified by school faculty with their gender assigned at birth.
The move comes amid the implementation of the Parental Rights in Education law , dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by critics. The measure was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in March.
It bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade and states that any instruction on those topics cannot occur “in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” according to the legislation, HB 1557.
Under this law, parents can also decline any mental, emotional and physical health services available to their children at school, and schools will be required to notify parents of their child’s use of school health services unless there is reason to believe “that disclosure would subject the student to abuse, abandonment or neglect.”
The law also requires parents to be involved if a transgender student seeks to have the school use a preferred name or pronoun, Spicker noted.
The Gender Support Plan is part of the school’s Equity Guide, which was created in response to the Parents Bill of Rights law. It was intended to outline how LGBTQ students will be protected by the district in a way that follows the guidelines of the new law, Spicker said.
“The School District of Lee County’s Civil Rights and Equity Guide was developed to protect the rights of all students,” he said. “The guide helps our school staff manage that request to protect the student and follow the law.”
(WASHINGTON) — In a surprise move Wednesday, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin announced that not only had he reached a deal with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on a major health care-focused spending package — he had also signed onto climate and energy provisions.
It was a reversal of sorts for the conservative Democrat who just two weeks ago backed away from climate measures being included in any spending bill, telling a radio host that inflation was “absolutely killing many, many people” and that he would have to wait until July inflation numbers were out before considering such measures. Democrats were sure then that they would be left with a health care-only bill. Some other Senators had openly begun making their peace with it.
It was unclear Wednesday why Manchin had changed course.
“Today, we are pleased to announce an agreement,” Manchin and Schumer said in a joint statement, noting “many months of negotiations.”
The pair said they had “finalized legislative text” that, if approved, would reduce the deficit by some $300 billion while investing $369.75 billion in “Energy Security and Climate Change programs” over the next decade.
“The investments will be fully paid for by closing tax loopholes on wealthy individuals and corporations. In addition, the expanded Affordable Care Act program will be extended for three years, through 2025,” the senators said.
With Manchin’s approval, Democratic leaders in the evenly-divided chamber are now aiming to have the bill approved by the end of next week using a fast-track process known as reconciliation that allows passage of such legislation with a simple majority (and Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote).
The House, according to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, would then return sometime in August to pass the measure.
If approved, it would be a major victory for President Joe Biden, who announced his support for the deal in a statement Wednesday night after speaking to both Manchin and Schumer. Biden had tried but failed to get his party united behind a sweeping $2 trillion “Build Back Better” economic and social safety net bill that included provisions like universal pre-K, Medicaid expansion and paid family leave, but Manchin previously balked at that price tag amid rising inflation, tanking that bill.
Similar, if scaled-down, proposals since have all failed to garner sufficient support among Democrats, with Republicans opposed.
Wednesday’s deal was likewise swiftly condemned by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who tweeted, “Democrats have already crushed American families with historic inflation. Now they want to pile on giant tax hikes that will hammer workers and kill many thousands of American jobs. First they killed your family’s budget. Now they want to kill your job too.”
While Democrats await the Senate’s rule-keeping parliamentarian scrubbing through the new deal to ensure all provisions meet the strict guidelines of reconciliation, details of what exactly are in the bill are not yet known. But according to Schumer and Manchin’s portrayal, the bill “lowers energy costs, increases cleaner production, and reduces carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030,” measures that Democrats say will cost roughly the $369 billion.
Democrats also plan to extend for three years the pandemic-era subsidies for those lower-income Americans who buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. It was important for Democrats to push through those changes, they said, because insurance companies typically announce their premium increases in August.
The agreement, known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, brings in far more revenue — $739 billion — than the government would spend under this measure, according to Democrats. Together, the climate and ACA provisions would cost the government roughly $433 billion, and Democrats plan to put at least $300 billion of that toward deficit reduction.
That was at the insistence of Manchin, in a bid to bring down record inflation.
To bring in the needed money, Democrats said they plan to target big corporations and the “ultra-wealthy” by implementing a 15% corporate minimum tax as well as collecting more through IRS tax enforcement, both measures bringing in nearly $440 billion.
Republicans for weeks have warned that those tax hikes would hit small and mid-size businesses disproportionately, but Sens. Manchin and Schumer insisted in their news release that under their plan, there will be “no new taxes on families making $400,000 or less and no new taxes on small businesses” — a key campaign promise by President Biden.
“Senate Democrats can change the name of Build Back Broke as many times as they want, it won’t be any less devastating to American families and small businesses. Raising taxes on job creators, crushing energy producers with new regulations, and stifling innovators looking for new cures will only make this recession worse, not better,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in a statement.
Most Senate Democrats have not yet seen the legislative text, though many appeared to be supportive.
Chris Coons of Delaware said he was “very encouraged.”
“I am pleased to report that this will be, by far, the biggest climate action in human history,”said Hawaii’s Brian Schatz. “Nearly $370 billion in tax incentives, grants, and other investments in clean energy, clean transportation, energy storage, home electrification, climate-smart agriculture, and clean manufacturing makes this a real climate bill.The planet is on fire. Emissions reductions are the main thing. This is enormous progress. Let’s get it done.”
A meeting of the entire Senate Democratic caucus is expected at 9 a.m. Thursday to run through the details of the new plan.
But not every member of the caucus was happy with the deal.
Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, bristled, telling reporters on Wednesday: “Last I heard, Sen. Manchin is not the majority leader, despite what you may think. Last I heard, he is not the only [a] member of the Democratic caucus. I will look at it and we’ll go from there.”
Democrats need each of their 50 votes to remain united and healthy to seal the deal — not an easy feat considering Manchin himself has been quarantined this week with COVID-19.
(TOPEKA, Kan.) — When Kansans head to the polls on Aug. 2 to vote in their primary election, they will also decide on a critical ballot measure that could impact the future of abortion legislation in their state.
Kansas is the first state in the nation to vote on reproductive freedom after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion. It is one of at least five states voting on reproductive rights this year, alongside California, Kentucky, Montana and Vermont. A measure that would amend the Michigan constitution to guarantee the right to reproductive freedom has also been proposed.
If the amendment passes, Kansas will be the fifth state to amend its state constitution to say it does not grant the right to abortion, joining Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia.
The amendment has drawn national attention, particularly in the wake of the last month’s Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“I think a lot of people see the vote here as a kind of indicator of where politics might be headed,” Richard E. Levy, JB Smith Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Kansas School of Law, told ABC News.
Here’s what to know about the Kansas ballot measure, dubbed Value Them Both.
2019 state Supreme Court decision
The ballot measure is in response to a 2019 state Supreme Court decision on abortion restrictions. The ruling stemmed from a 2015 case challenging a Kansas law that aimed to largely ban dilation and evacuation, a method used in most second-trimester abortions.
In striking down the ban on the procedure, the judges ruled 6 to 1 that the Kansas constitution protects the “right of personal autonomy.”
“This right allows a woman to make her own decisions regarding her body, health, family formation, and family life — decisions that can include whether to continue a pregnancy,” the opinion states while prohibiting Kansas from restricting the right to an abortion “unless it is doing so to further a compelling government interest and in a way that is narrowly tailored to that interest.”
“The court adopted the most rigorous form of constitutional analysis, known as strict scrutiny,” Levy said. “So that in Kansas, under current law, regulations on abortion are valid only if they serve a compelling governmental interest and are narrowly tailored to that interest.”
Since the ruling, a lower court has upheld that a ban on dilation and evacuation is “unconstitutional and unenforceable.” Another law pertaining to abortion in the state has also been blocked. The statute, what would be considered a TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) law by abortion rights advocates, would impose certain requirements on abortion providers.
Nearly a dozen other regulations on abortion remain in effect and have not been challenged, including mandated waiting periods and ultrasounds for patients, required parental consent, a ban on abortion after viability except where necessary to preserve a woman’s life or health, and limits on the use of public funding for abortion.
What’s on the ballot
In the wake of the 2019 ruling, the Republican-led state legislature attempted to pass a ballot measure that would reverse the decision. That measure failed in 2020 before passing the state House and Senate in 2021 to get on the ballot this year.
This is what voters will see as they head to the polls:
Explanatory statement. The Value Them Both Amendment would affirm there is no Kansas constitutional right to abortion or to require the government funding of abortion, and would reserve to the people of Kansas, through their elected state legislators, the right to pass laws to regulate abortion, including, but not limited to, in circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or when necessary to save the life of the mother.
A vote for the Value Them Both Amendment would affirm there is no Kansas constitutional right to abortion or to require the government funding of abortion, and would reserve to the people of Kansas, through their elected state legislators, the right to pass laws to regulate abortion.
A vote against the Value Them Both Amendment would make no changes to the constitution of the state of Kansas, and could restrict the people, through their elected state legislators, from regulating abortion by leaving in place the recently recognized right to abortion.
If the amendment wins with a simple majority, this passage, included on the ballot as well, will be adopted into the state constitution:
§ 22. Regulation of abortion. Because Kansans value both women and children, the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion. To the extent permitted by the constitution of the United States, the people, through their elected state representatives and state senators, may pass laws regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, laws that account for circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or circumstances of necessity to save the life of the mother.
What voting ‘yes’ means
Voting “yes” on the ballot measure supports amending Kansas’ constitution to state that it does not grant the right to an abortion and leaves regulation in the hands of the state legislature.
“The Kansas state Supreme Court overreached in 2019,” Mallory Carroll, a spokesperson for SBA Pro-Life America, which is part of a coalition working to pass the amendment, told ABC News. “The purpose of the amendment is to neutralize this decision so that this is an area for the people to use the tools of democracy to decide through their elected officials, not judges.”
The ballot measure is not an abortion ban. However, opponents, including the coalition Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, argue that the bill’s language could open the door to one.
“If the amendment passes, there will be an effort by the legislature to quickly ban abortion with no or very few exceptions,” Ashley All, a spokesperson for Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, told ABC News, pointing to a failed bill introduced in the last legislative session that would have criminalized abortion in most cases.
“The language very clearly says that legislators may pass any law they want regarding abortion, and even in situations of rape, incest and the life of the mother. So we’re pretty confident that that’s where we’re headed,” All said.
Carroll said “anything is possible” when it comes to future abortion legislation if the amendment passes.
“That’s exactly because they’ll be using the tools of democracy to debate and find consensus,” she said. “We don’t know what consensus is going to look like in Kansas.”
One thing is clear — if the amendment passes, the laws targeting abortion providers and the second-trimester abortion procedure will “go into effect almost immediately,” Levy said. With no “trigger law” in place in Kansas, a general abortion ban would require further legislative action, he said.
What voting ‘no’ means
A “no” vote would maintain the status quo and affirm that reproductive rights are protected by the state constitution. The current enacted regulations on abortion would remain in effect, Levy said.
“There would still be a lot of regulations in place,” he said. “Some of those limitations might be vulnerable, but it’s unlikely.”
Opponents of the amendment have argued that abortion is already “heavily regulated” in Kansas even after the state Supreme Court ruling, while proponents are pushing for stronger pro-life policies.
If the amendment fails, Levy wagers that the state legislature might work to “test the limits” of the abortion protections in the state constitution.
Voter turnout a question
The ballot measure is being voted on in a primary election, which is expected to favor abortion opponents. Primary elections also historically draw fewer voters than general elections and might alienate independents, who otherwise have no reason to show up to the polls.
The primary coming weeks after the Dobbs decision may have helped generate interest in the ballot measure, Levy said. Early voter turnouts have been reported to be higher than usual in some areas as well.
“People are paying attention,” Levy said. “Whether that translates into high turnout, that’s another question.”
(CHICAGO) — The young man accused of carrying out a mass shooting at a suburban Chicago Fourth of July parade, killing seven people and injuring dozens of others, has been indicted on 117 counts, prosecutors in Lake County, Illinois, said Wednesday.
Robert “Bobby” Crimo III is charged with 21 counts of first-degree murder (three counts for each victim) as well as 48 counts of attempted murder and 48 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm (for each person hit by a bullet, bullet fragment, or shrapnel), prosecutors said.
“Our investigation continues, and our victim specialists are working around the clock to support all those affected by this crime,” Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said in a statement.
Crimo, 21, allegedly took his legally purchased high-powered rifle and opened fire from a roof, shooting people who were enjoying the Highland Park parade.
Crimo has not entered a plea. His arraignment is set for Aug. 3.
Authorities said they believe the mass shooting had been planned for weeks.
Crimo told police he wore women’s clothing during the shooting and used makeup to hide his facial tattoos and blend in with the crowd during the chaos, prosecutors said. Crimo was apprehended hours later and prosecutors said the 21-year-old confessed to the shooting.
After the shooting, the suspect’s father, Bobby Crimo Jr., told ABC News he was “shocked,” adding, “I had no — not an inkling, warning — that this was going to happen.”
“This isn’t Bobby,” he said. “I guess that’s why it’s so hard to wrap yourself around it. It doesn’t add up.”
Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering last week pleaded with Congress to pass a federal assault weapons ban.
“Less than a minute is all it took for a person with an assault weapon to shoot 83 rounds into a crowd, forever changing so many lives,” Rotering told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “And the most disturbing part, this is the norm in our country.”
(WASHINGTON) — Two leading House Democrats are requesting a government watchdog step away from an investigation into deleted text messages sent by the Secret Service around the time of the U.S. Capitol attack.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of House Homeland Security Committee, and New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent the request Tuesday to the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.
In their letter, Thompson and Maloney wrote they have “grave concerns” about Joseph Cuffari, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general — including what they said was his failure to promptly notify Congress of “crucial information” while investigating Jan. 6.
“Inspector General Cuffari failed to provide adequate or timely notice that the Secret Service had refused for months to comply with DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) requests for information related to the January 6 attack and failed to notify Congress after DHS OIG learned that the Secret Service had erased text messages related to this matter,” Thompson and Maloney wrote.
“These omissions left Congress in the dark about key developments in this investigation and may have cost investigators precious time to capture relevant evidence,” Thompson and Maloney argued.
The letter raises other concerns about Cuffari’s performance, including “reports that he sought to censor findings of domestic abuse and sexual harassment by DHS employees” and his past refusal to investigate Secret Service actions.
The inspector general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Thompon and Cheney’s request for a new inspector general to complete the Jan. 6-related investigation comes amid myriad questions about how and why the Secret Service texts were deleted — after being sought — and why they may not be able to be recovered.
The DHS watchdog had requested the messages sent and received by 24 Secret Service members between December 2020 and January 2021, the period around the Jan. 6 attack.
But the agency said the texts in question were deleted as part of a “device-replacement program” even as the inspector general said that the deletions occurred only after his office requested the messages. The Secret Service insisted they had not acted “maliciously” and sought full cooperation with investigators.
A letter to the House Jan. 6 committee obtained by ABC News last week showed that the Secret Service ultimately provided a single text exchange from that day.
A criminal probe was opened by the DHS inspector general earlier this month.
The House committee subpoenaed the agency for the records on July 15.
The Secret Service has said it is working with the Jan. 6 committee, and spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told ABC News last week that the agency also delivered an initial set of records in response — including “thousands of pages of documents, Secret Service cell phone use and other policies, as well as operational and planning records.”
But the House panel has gone so far as to suggest the agency’s handling of the electronic communications may be a violation of federal record-keeping laws.
“Four House committees had already sought these critical records from the Department of Homeland Security before the records were apparently lost,” the Jan. 6 committee said in a statement last week. “Additionally, the procedure for preserving content prior to this purge appears to have been contrary to federal records retention requirements and may represent a possible violation of the Federal Records Act.”
Thompson and Maloney are asking the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency to respond to their request by Aug. 9.
The Secret Service has already been under heightened scrutiny amid the Jan. 6 hearings.
Testimony from several witnesses suggested former President Donald Trump wanted to join his supporters at the Capitol last year and clashed with members of his security detail when they refused to take him there.
The agency has said it will respond to the testimony but has yet to make any official statement.
Last week, in the Jan. 6 committee’s second prime-time hearing, witnesses revealed that members of the security detail for Vice President Mike Pence were greatly concerned for his safety and well as their own as the violence at the Capitol escalated.
“The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives,” a witness the committee identified only as a “White House security official” said in an interview.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — Texas’ “trigger” law, which raises the penalty for performing abortions, is set to go into effect on Aug. 25, after the U.S. Supreme Court formally issued its judgement overturning Roe v. Wade on Tuesday.
“Trigger” laws only take effect when certain events occur, in this case the law required a judgement overturning Roe, which had established a constitutional right to abortion at the federal level, or a case establishing states’ right to regulate abortion.
The so-called trigger law will establish civil and criminal penalties for performing banned abortions and prohibit nearly all abortions, with few exceptions including cases where a pregnancy poses a risk of death or serious impairment of a pregnant woman. The law will not apply to individuals seeking or attempting abortions, according to the law’s documentation.
The law criminalizes any attempt by a medical professional to perform, induce or attempt an abortion, making it a second-degree felony. However, if the pregnancy is successfully aborted, the offense becomes a first-degree felony, according to the law.
According to the Texas Penal Code, the punishment for a first-degree penalty could be up to life in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. The penalty for a second-degree felony is up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
The law also states that the Texas attorney general “shall file an action” seeking civil damages for those who perform abortions of no less than $100,000 per abortion performed, in addition to the possibility of requesting attorneys’ fees and costs incurred.
Any physician or provider who attempts, performs or induces an abortion could also have their medical license revoked. Medical licenses are regulated at the state level, not by the federal government.
While the court had released its opinion overturning Roe in June, it formally issued its judgement in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health on Tuesday, allowing so-called trigger laws in states, including Texas, to take effect.
The Texas “trigger” law, passed in September 2021, will go into effect 30 days after the Supreme Court issued its judgement, according to the Texas State Law Library.
Another Texas law in place, called SB8, places a near-total ban on abortions at 6 weeks and allows people to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an illegal abortion, to collect a bounty of at least $10,000.
Idaho and Tennessee also previously enacted laws that would ban nearly all abortions 30 days after the Supreme Court issues its judgment overturning Roe.
At least 13 states have ceased nearly all abortion services. Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas have near-total bans. Abortion providers in Arizona and Wisconsin have suspended abortion services due to confusion over the law. Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee have banned abortions after embryonic cardiac activity is detected — which is generally around six weeks — before many women know they are pregnant.
Earlier this month, Texas’ attorney general sued President Joe Biden’s administration after it issued an executive order telling doctors to perform abortions in medical emergencies.
-ABC News’ Devin Dwyer and Ely Brown contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Another day, another TikTok trend, and the most recent beauty craze comes in the form of calamine lotion.
Content creators have been sharing videos of themselves using the over-the-counter medication, which is typically used to treat itchy skin, as a makeup primer.
Videos tagged with the #calamineprimer hashtag have racked up millions of views so far on the social platform, with users curious to know whether the method actually works.
Beauty influencers and content creators like @tiasamudaa have been using calamine lotion under their makeup for some time now, but the trend has picked up steam in recent months.
One digital creator, who goes by @brittanybowmann1 on TikTok, posted a now viral video of herself applying the lotion to treat “acne scars + dark marks” back in May (a process she later said dried out her existing blemishes but didn’t lighten any of the discoloration). The video currently has more than 7.3 million plays.
A few days later she posted another video in which she’s seen applying the calamine lotion with a makeup brush before adding on a layer of foundation on top. Toward the end of the video, which Bowman says was filmed following an “8-hour shift,” her makeup appears to still be perfectly in place.
“10/10 would recommend,” Bowman captioned the clip.
Other TikTokers have been swapping calamine lotion into their routines as well, with similar results. In a video on April 28, TikTok user Whitcharae tested out the trend on half of her face while using her regular primer on the other half, beneath a full face of makeup. She reported that, by the end of the day, the side of her face with the calamine lotion seemed to be “way more matte” than the side with regular primer.
While the TikTok trend continues to grow in popularity, skin care experts and dermatologists aren’t too keen on the idea.
“Calamine lotion acts like an astringent, meaning that it dries out the skin,” board-certified dermatologist Dr. Whitney Bowe told “Good Morning America.” “That could be good in the short-term if you’re treating something like a bug bite, but if you consistently use it over time, it can damage something called the skin barrier. Think of it as a smart protective shield. It traps moisture in the skin, but it blocks out things like allergens, irritants and pollutants — and you don’t want those in the skin because they can drive inflammation.”
Bowe explained that a damaged skin barrier “can show up as blotchy skin, breakouts, it can even accelerate the aging process and you just lose the elasticity in the skin.”
To keep your skin looking healthy, Bowe instead recommends an alternative called “skin cycling.”
Here’s how to incorporate skin cycling into your routine:
Night 1: Exfoliation
On the first night of the “skin cycle,” you should cleanse and follow with an exfoliating product — “one that contains ingredients like glycolic acid, salicylic acid,” Bowe said.
“It’s going to just slough away that dead layer of skin,” she added.
This process helps to brighten the skin overnight and prep it for night two.
Night 2: Use a retinoid
To build collagen and smooth fine lines, take a tiny pea-sized amount of retinoid, dab it all over your face and rub it in. “This is going to help with texture, fine lines, wrinkles,” she said.
Night 3 & 4: Recovery
On the third and fourth nights, Bowe advised cleansing and dabbing on a product with ingredients such as hyaluronic serum to help nourish and repair the skin barrier.
During this time, Bowe said the most important step is moisturizer. She recommended her own recently launched Bowe Glow Microbiome Nourishing Cream, which includes ingredients like squalane, ceramides and sunflower seed oil, which help nourish and repair the skin barrier, she said.
ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — In a sharp reversal, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday that he will hold a call with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “in the coming days,” which will mark the first time the two have spoken since the war in Ukraine began and will be a meaningful step toward reopening high-level diplomatic channels between the two countries.
Blinken told reporters during a press briefing that a critical topic of discussion will be securing the freedom of WNBA superstar Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan, both of whom are held in Russia.
The secretary revealed that the U.S. has already put forward a plan to accomplish that and is hopeful for a breakthrough on their cases.
“[They] have been wrongly detained and must be allowed to come home,” Blinken said. “We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release. Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal, and I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally and I hope move us toward a resolution.”
Blinken has not spoken to Lavrov — or indeed, any top Russia officials — since January, when they were locked in a flurry of talks as the U.S. tried to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The men were in the same room during the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia earlier this month but had no direct contact.
Blinken was asked at the time if there was a cost to pay for the Americans wrongfully detained in Russia by freezing out Lavrov.
“The problem is this: We see no signs whatsoever that Russia is prepared to engage in meaningful diplomacy,” he responded, adding that the U.S. would seize the opportunity should it detect a shift from the Kremlin.
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Reserve significantly raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, the latest in a series of hikes meant to tackle sky-high price increases last seen more than four decades ago.
But rate hikes at the Fed risk widespread financial pain. An increase to the benchmark interest rate raises borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, which in theory should slash inflation by slowing the economy and eating away at demand.
That means borrowers will face higher costs for everything from car loans to credit card debt to mortgages. More alarmingly, the approach risks tipping the economy into a recession.
These significant risks, however, come along with potential financial benefits, experts told ABC News. First, the hike in borrowing costs directly benefits savers, who stand to gain from an uptick in the interest yielded by accounts held at banks, they said.
Plus, the effort to bring down inflation holds financial promise, since lower prices would relieve economic hardship and enhance spending power, especially for low- and middle-income households, they added.
“When interest rates rise and money becomes more scarce, people can receive payments for the money they keep on hand at a bank,” James Cox, a financial advisor and managing partner of Virginia-based Harris Financial Group, told ABC News.
“Many Americans will like to have interest on their savings for the first time in many years,” he added.
The series of rate hikes so far this year has spurred an increase in interest rates for savings accounts at banks, Greg McBride, the chief financial analyst at the research firm Bankrate, told ABC News. The top-yielding savings accounts at the beginning of the year maxed out at 0.55% — now they stand above 2%, he said.
“They’re still climbing,” he added. “Another big rate hike from the Fed this week — that only sustains the upward momentum.”
Online banks and small banks, especially, have raised interest rates on savings accounts as they try to win over customers, McBride said. He contrasted those banks with the larger brick-and-mortar players, which feel less pressure to raise interest rates in this environment because of their strong market position.
“Online banks are among the most competitive out there,” he said. “That’s where we see banks leapfrogging each other as they continually raise their payouts.”
To be sure, the interest rates on savings accounts that hover around 2% still fall far short of the inflation rate, which as of June stood at 9.1%. That means that the increasingly strong returns on savings accounts continue to be heavily devalued by skyrocketing price increases, the experts said.
In theory, however, as interest rates rise, inflation should come down and savings accounts should yield better returns, improving their prospects as a financial option, they added.
“Much of the benefit is illusory at a time when inflation is running north of 9%,” McBride said. “But savings accounts are on the rise.”
U.S. adults on average hold $62,000 in personal savings, according to a study released by Northwestern Mutual in May. The savings grant many individuals a sizable cushion and potential for taking advantage of rising interest rates on savings accounts.
But high prices have already taken a toll on savings. The average savings have fallen 15% since last year, when they stood at $73,000, Northwestern Mutual found.
In addition to prompting higher yields on savings accounts, Fed rate hikes should eventually deliver lower prices, which will improve the financial outlook of Americans straining under the weight of high costs, the experts said.
In the meantime, rate hikes could cause substantial financial harm, they added. As the central bank slows down the economy and chokes demand, it could bring layoffs that put millions of people out of work and force households to draw down whatever savings they had set aside.
While rate hikes at the Fed address the upward pressure that consumer and business demand places on prices, the hikes do not affect the supply shortages behind some of the cost increases, which owe to COVID disruptions and the Russia-Ukraine war. This dynamic could limit the effect of rate hikes and prolong the downturn.
Highlighting the limitations of rate hikes, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Sunday called them “largely ineffective against many of the underlying causes of this inflationary spike.”
But the risk of entrenched inflation outweighs the costs of short-term financial pain, said Cox, the managing partner of Harris Financial Group.
“It’s either raise rate hikes very fast to bring down the rate of inflation, or inflation becomes anchored in the economy and all of your personal savings get eaten away by it,” he said.
“Unfortunately, it’s not without pain,” he added. “But it’s far less painful to take your medicine upfront than to let the disease take hold.”
(NEW YORK) — Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri doubled down on recent changes to the app Tuesday, despite backlash from scores of users, including Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian – two of Instagram’s most prominent users.
In a video posted to social media Tuesday morning, Mosseri said the company is “experimenting with a lot of different changes to the app, and so we’re hearing a lot of complaints from all of you.”
On Monday, Jenner, who has 361 million Instagram followers, and Kardashian, with 326 million Instagram followers, shared a post from photographer “@Illumitati” urging the platform to stop “trying to be tiktok,” and to “Make Instagram Instagram Again.”
“History shows that when a Kardashian or a Jenner talks about your platform, you should probably listen,” Jack Appleby, author of Morning Brew’s “Future Social” newsletter, told ABC Audio.
The complaints come as the company – launched in 2010 as primarily a photo-sharing app – continues to push new types of posts to the app’s main feed, including Reels videos from recommended creators. Reels, introduced in 2020, mimics TikTok’s app, presenting users with a vertical scrolling feed of videos. Appleby said Reels are often from accounts recommended by Instagram – not from accounts users themselves follow – and this changes the app’s “value proposition.”
“It was a friend-to-friend network. Now it is a – I am seeing content from people I did not elect to follow, and that effects how users view the platform,” he said.
Instagram may have good reason to worry about what the stars of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” have to say. In 2018, Kylie Jenner tweeted that she was no longer using Snapchat — sending shares of the app plunging 7% and erasing over $1 billion of value, Bloomberg reported at the time.
Instagram’s parent company, Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, is set to report quarterly earnings on Wednesday after the closing bell.
Despite the backlash, Mosseri said his company remains committed to video content.
“I got to be honest, I do believe that more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time,” Mosseri said in the video.
“If you look at what people share on Instagram, that’s shifting more and more to video over time. If you look at what people like and consume and view on Instagram, that’s also shifting more and more to video over time – even when we stop changing anything. So we’re going to have to lean into that shift.”
“The reality is that Instagram is going to be able to make more money based on more video content than static or photo content,” said Appleby. “It’s really that simple.”
Whether that explanation will be enough to change Instagrammers’ feelings about the new features remains to be seen.
“I just want to see cute pictures of my friends,” the original post shared by Jenner and Kardashian goes on to read. “Sincerely, everyone.”
