(NEW YORK) — A classic toy superstore is being brought back to life ahead of the holiday season.
Macy’s, in partnership with Toys “R” Us parent company WHP Global, announced Monday that it plans to bring the Toys “R” Us brand to every Macy’s store in the U.S. for the holiday season.
The rollout of the new pop-up stores is set to begin in late July, with all locations expected to be complete by Oct. 15, according to a press release. In-store shops will vary in size, but span up to 10,000 square feet in flagship locations like Atlanta, Chicago, Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco.
Toys “R” Us, a beloved toy chain, liquidated its U.S. stores in 2018 after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017. The brick-and-mortar toy megastore buckled under the competition from online retailers like Amazon.
According to a recent report by the U.S. Commerce Department, U.S. retail sales rebounded more strongly than expected in June, even amid historically soaring inflation. Retail sales rose 1% last month, and revised data from May showed sales falling only 0.1% instead of 0.3%, as previously reported.
As to where it stands, retail sales are 18% above pre-pandemic marks, according to data collected by Mastercard.
Since last summer, Toys “R” Us products have been available at Macy’s exclusively online. In Macy’s reported earnings for the first quarter of 2022, the retailer recorded that toy sales were 15 times higher than before its partnership with Toys “R” Us.
“Macy’s cannot wait to bring the Toys ‘R’ Us experience to life in our stores,” said Nata Dvir, Macy’s chief merchandising officer, in part of a statement. “The customer response to our partnership with Toys ‘R’ Us has been incredible and our toy business has seen tremendous growth.”
(WASHINGTON) — A man was arrested after allegedly attempting to access a roadway closed off for first lady Jill Biden’s motorcade, according to the United States Secret Service.
The man was charged with assault on police, failure to obey, crossing a police line and resisting arrest, officials said.
“A man was arrested near the White House after attempting to access a roadway that was temporarily closed due to a protectee motorcade,” the Secret Service told ABC News. “The individual struggled with uniform division officers and was ultimately placed into custody. Two officers were sent to an area hospital for evaluation following the minor physical confrontation.”
The first lady’s office declined to comment on Tuesday.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted approval on Monday for Opzelura, which is the first topical JAK inhibitor cream for the treatment of vitiligo for people 12 and older.
Vitiligo, which research estimates that 1.9-2.8 million adults in the U.S. have, is an autoimmune disorder caused by antibodies that attack a person’s pigment-producing cells. This causes patches of skin to lose color and become almost chalk white.
“There’s a large unmet medical need here in vitiligo,” Dr. Steven Stein, chief medical officer at Incyte, told ABC News. “This opens a completely new door, new avenue for them and for patients who want therapy to repigment.”
“With the approval of Opzelura in nonsegmental vitiligo, Incyte has once again delivered a treatment to patients with high unmet medical need who previously had no approved therapies,” Hervé Hoppenot, Incyte’s chief executive officer, said in a press release. “We are proud of Incyte’s scientists and development teams that have made this milestone possible, and we’re pleased that eligible vitiligo patients now have a choice to address repigmentation.”
The discoloration doesn’t usually cause a medical risk but can result in physical complications, such as eye issues, hearing problems and severe sunburn. It also can be challenging to deal with people’s reactions.
“Growing up with vitiligo has been pretty hard. Going around people seeing you with white patches. It’s very stressful that people judge you from your skin,” Berardo Rivas, a 41-year-old who’s been living with vitiligo for over 30 years, told ABC News. “It was traumatizing growing up.”
Rivas said he had minimal success with other treatments prior to joining the clinical trial for Opzelura, but he told ABC News he first started to see positive results after four months and more noticeable results in 1 year.
“My wife looked at me. She stared at me and she’s said, you know, you have pigment back on your eyes and I was like, I didn’t believe her. So I ran straight to the mirror. And I saw it … I was just jumping with joy. It’s like, oh, it’s working. You know, thank God,” he said.
Vitiligo can’t be cured and it’s difficult to control. Oral and topical steroids are a common treatment for vitiligo before this FDA approval, but most are not a long term solution, experts told ABC News.
“Since long-term use of steroids has a lot of side effects, dermatologists are always looking for steroid-sparing agents.” Dr. Mansha Sethi, a board-certified dermatologist in Houston, who was not involved in the clinical trial, told ABC News.
Doctors may also try phototherapy, which stimulates cells to make skin pigment, but this option is not always easy to implement as it can be expensive and involves going into an office equipped with phototherapy devices multiple times a week, every week.
“Emerging topical JAK-inhibitors, like Ruxolitinib (Opzelura), are a promising option,” Sethi said. “I personally have used JAK inhibitors off-label for several patients with vitiligo. Since it’s off-label, patients have to spend hundreds of dollars out of pocket to buy them from compounding pharmacies.”
But now, with FDA approval, insurance companies are expected to begin covering this prescription drug.
It’s difficult to predict how much the medication will cost depending on the plan you have, but as is common with pharmaceuticals, Dr. Stein says that Incyte plans to “provide copay cards that will limit the out-of-pocket cost to patients to hopefully as little as $10 or less.” And the company has a program that some may qualify to get Opzelura for free called IncyteCARES.
Dr. David Rosmarin, director of the Clinical Trials Unit at Tufts, and the principal investigator for the Opzelura vitiligo clinical trials, told ABC News he started searching for better treatments in 2013.
“We realized that the immune system is too active destroying the pigment cells,” he said.
He wondered if, Opzelura, which was already FDA approved for the treatment of mild to moderate eczema, would be able to stop the immune system from attacking the pigment.
It works as a JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor that targets specific immune system pathways specific to vitiligo.
Opzelura was tested in two Phase 3 clinical trials, which enrolled over 600 men and women ages 12 and older.
Results of the trial showed “Adolescent and adult patients with vitiligo achieved substantial facial and total body re-pigmentation within 24 to 52 weeks of therapy.”
Half of all participants had 75% improvement of their facial vitiligo after one year using the study’s measurement of repigmentation.
Rosmarin said the side effects were well tolerated.
“Six percent of patients will get some acne, which is usually mild. And about 6% can have an application site reaction, which could be some redness,” Rosmarin said. “It has a very favorable safety profile, topical easy to use, and has proven to work very consistently.”
The medication requires a prescription and is applied as a cream to clean skin on areas affected by vitiligo twice a day.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Emotions reached a roiling boiling point Monday during an open forum hosted by the school board in Uvalde, Texas, just one day after a 77-page report by a joint committee of the Texas Legislature slammed the police response to the incident and the school district’s lack of preparation for such an attack.
A special public forum held by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Board to allow community members to ask questions and voice concerns about the changes and updates for the 2022-2023 school year — including safety and security plans — quickly became a tinder box of emotion and anger.
Community members resoundingly said they want former Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo — currently on paid administrative leave — fired immediately. As the May 24 massacre unfolded, Arredondo allegedly failed to take on the role of incident commander or transfer the responsibility to another officer on scene, despite it being an “essential duty” he had assigned himself in the active shooter plan he helped write, the committee said.
Many called for members of Uvalde’s school district police force who were present during the shooting to be fired, for an independent investigation into the Robb Elementary School failures, and for answers and transparency about their specific concerns following the report.
On Monday night, parents threatened to pull their kids from Uvalde schools come September, and several also called for Uvalde CISD Superintendent Dr. Hal Harrell to resign.
The community also wanted answers on what was known about the Robb Elementary School door being locked or not.
“In violation of school policy, no one had locked any of the three exterior doors to the west building of Robb Elementary. As a result, the attacker had unimpeded access to enter,” the committee reported.
The committee also faulted the school district for failing to treat the maintenance of doors with known faulty locks with “appropriate urgency.”
Speakers at the forum also called for an independent investigation into the massacre. The group was united, calling several times to stand up together — to be courageous and voice their truth.
After apologizing in his introduction for not having held a forum like this sooner, Harrell, sitting on stage alongside the full school board, opened the floor to questions.
“First of all, I just want to say last time y’all had us on a time limit of sorts, and that’s not going to fly today,” said Brett Cross, the uncle of Uziyah Garcia. “There’s no other way to put it. We have a lot to say, and we won’t be silenced and we won’t be stopped. So if y’all had the idea of a time limit, it’s not going to get followed this time.”
Cross was referencing a press conference held by the special committee report Sunday on the failed police response to the shooting that saw 19 children and two teachers killed. Families were invited to attend and ask questions Sunday, and those invited — including the media and families — had to fill out compulsory paperwork required by the committee to ask a question. Many members of the community did, but due to time constraints, they were not given the opportunity to ask their questions.
Before the forum began Monday, attendees from the community sporting “Uvalde Strong” matching shirts placed photos of the victims on the seats in the front row facing the school board members.
When later asked by Cross if Arredondo was going to be fired, Harrell said, “That will be a decision… We will take the report into consideration, it will be a closed session.”
“I’ll tell you this: If he’s not fired by noon tomorrow, then I want your resignation and every single one of you board members,” Cross responded.
Vincente Salazar, the grandfather of Layla Salazar, addressed the school board saying, “Your system failed these families” and “it didn’t save our children. Your closed sessions that… didn’t save our children.”
“What we need to do now is put families in your sessions so we know what’s going on, what’s going on. And the way you’re spending your money for the security of our children,” Salazar continued. “We pay over 40% of the city budget for the school and for the police, and you hired trash. That’s not right.”
“I lost a loved one right here. My only granddaughter, I can hold myself together now because I’ve done my crime. Now it’s time to do my fighting. And you have seen me in the papers and you will see me in the papers a lot more. Because this isn’t the end. This is just the beginning of a war that you guys created for our children,” he added, to cheers from community members in the crowd.
(WASHINGTON) — With Tuesday’s primary, a contentious race to succeed Maryland’s term-limited Gov. Larry Hogan is about to enter its next phase as Republicans seek to hold the seat of a popular incumbent while Democrats work to retake the governorship — in part by trying to influence the contest to get the GOP nod.
The front-runners in the Republican gubernatorial primary are state Del. Dan Cox, an attorney endorsed by former President Donald Trump, and former state Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz, who was endorsed by Hogan.
The contest is something of a proxy battle between Trump and Hogan (a possible 2024 presidential contender and a major voice in the GOP’s anti-Trump minority) and their contrasting visions for their party’s success in Maryland.
Schulz could become the state’s first female governor. She has focused her campaign on issues such as the economy, education and creating a safer community, and she has leaned on her endorsement from Hogan — who is widely popular in the state — and her work in his Cabinet.
After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Schulz said that she would not change Maryland law, which allows for abortion, but reaffirmed that she was personally opposed.
Her current stance on abortion is much different than the one she held in 2011, when she sponsored the “Maryland Personhood Amendment,” which would have allowed voters to decide to amend the state’s constitution to give rights to people “from the beginning of their biological development.” That amendment failed in the state’s Democratic legislature.
Cox says he is “running to restore freedom” and has focused in part on education, saying he supports parental rights in schools, opposes critical race theory (though that academic framework is not widely taught outside of universities) and has supported legislation against teaching gender identity in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.
Cox opposes abortion without exception and he tried to sue Hogan over the state’s COVID-19 restrictions.
His record has been spotlighted by Democratic advertising during the primary — a tactic that Hogan criticized, arguing it was an attempt to boost Cox in the eyes of conservatives even though he may be weaker in the general election.
Cox called then-Vice President Mike Pence a “traitor” in a since-removed tweet after Pence certified the 2020 election results. In another deleted tweet, Cox also said he was arranging two buses to drive constituents to Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, appearance near the White House shortly before a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol. (Cox said he wasn’t at the Capitol.)
In the Democratic gubernatorial primary, three leading candidates have emerged: former Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez, state Comptroller Peter Franchot and Wes Moore, an author and former nonprofit CEO who held a virtual fundraiser with Oprah Winfrey.
Another race drawing notice is the Republican primary for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District. Currently held by Democrat David Trone, several GOP contenders are fighting for the chance to go against him in November.
State Rep. Neil Parrot, who lost to Trone in 2020, is hoping for a rematch in November. However, the race could be shaken up by 25-year-old Matthew Foldi, a newcomer who has received a string of notable endorsements including from Hogan as well as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the No. 3 House Republican, Elise Stefanik, Donald Trump Jr. and others.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — Thousands of beer bottles cascading off a five-ton container truck seems like a disaster. But average citizens who came to the rescue are earning praise across South Korea for making the best of a bad situation.
The accident, which took place in June but is now gaining traction on social media as people try to track down the good Samaritans, came as a truck driver made a sharp turn in Chuncheon city, flooding the street with a torrent of beer and broken glass and engulfing the road in white foam in seconds.
The spill, which took place about 46 miles north of Seoul, the capital, could have easily precipitated a chain of additional accidents and an hourslong traffic jam — but 18 good Samaritans saved the day.
Immediately after the 2,000 bottles shattered on the road, the driver pulled over, then trudged toward the heap and began to gather the remains together.
Moments later, a passerby approached the driver and started to pile the crates up on one side. The owner of a local convenience store then brought brooms and dustpans and joined the effort.
The rain — along with their lack of umbrellas and raincoats — didn’t stop 16 more passersby from coming together and sweeping the road clean in less than a half-hour. When the work was done, they nonchalantly returned to their own affairs — as though it was just a matter of course.
Six days after the incident, Oriental Brewery Company revealed the footage of the beer spill cleanup captured by surveillance cameras. The company published notices and ads with footage of the incident to track down the good Samaritans and thank them. They used the slogan, “We are looking for the real heroes of Chuncheon city.”
“We wanted to find the citizens and express our gratitude to each of them in person,” Joo-hwan Baek, associate public relations director of Oriental Brewery Company, told ABC News. “We also hoped to spread the word of the good they did. It was very inspiring for us as well.”
The footage of the cleanup has been trending on South Korea’s social media and news ever since.
Viewers said the thoughtful gesture by passersby has warmed their hearts and restored their faith in humanity amid calamitous times.
“No one asked the citizens to jump in the rain and pitch in; it was a collective, voluntary effort with a selfless motive,” 20-year-old Se-yeon Hwang told ABC News. “The video was a powerful reminder of the good a supportive community with an altruistic heart can do.”
Seoul may now be seeing a butterfly effect.
A similar accident occurred less than a week after Oriental Brewery Company revealed the video. Another truck spilled hundreds of bottles of Korean vodka in the middle of a busy street in Incheon Metropolitan City.
Given the long tail of cars and buses following the truck, collateral damage appeared inevitable, but dozens of citizens who witnessed the accident came together and helped clear the highway in about a half-hour.
“It’s heartwarming to see pure goodwill like this, especially in an era of war, violence and widespread hate,” 52-year-old Mei Lee told ABC News. “I hope to see more acts of kindness in this world.”
(NEW YORK) — BrandStorm Inc. has announced a voluntary recall of two lots of its organic freeze-dried blueberry pouches due to “the presence or potential presence of lead above the FDA’s recommended limits; per the serving size specified on the nutritional facts panel.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration shared the company’s recall announcement on Thursday, stating that the two affected products were sold under the brand Natierra.
The recalled items include Natierra Organic Freeze-Dried Blueberries in 1.2-ounce packages and the issue was isolated to products with “best by” dates 12/2024 and 01/2025. According to BrandStorm Inc., the products used the following codes:
Lot 2021363-1, Best By Date: 12/2024; 1 serving, 1.2oz (34g), UPC 812907011160
Lot 2022026-1, Best By Date: 01/2025; 1 serving, 1.2oz (34g), UPC 812907011160
Both batches were distributed in the U.S. through retail and online stores services, according to the company.
Click here for more information on how to identify the label, lot codes and UPC numbers from the FDA recall notice.
“The concern was identified upon testing conducted by a lab in Maryland,” BrandStorm Inc. stated Thursday. “An investigation was conducted by the packing site. The original heavy metal reports received for the crop year showed no presence of lead and-or cause for batch testing. After further investigation it was found that the products’ [country] of Origin is Lithuania and aggressive monitoring of heavy metals may be deemed necessary.”
The company added that “as an immediate action, the packing site is actively working to enhance food safety system by implementing mandatory batch testing for heavy metal.”
According to the Food and Drug Administration, lead in the environment may be “naturally occurring,” but is often present due to “past industrial uses that contributed to environmental contamination.”
“Most intentional uses of lead in products and processes are banned in the United States, including the use of lead solder to seal the external seams of metal cans,” the FDA states on its website. “However, lead does not disappear from the environment over time and therefore these past uses can combine with natural levels to contaminate our food supply.”
Exposure to larger amounts may cause lead poisoning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Lead exposure is particularly harmful to children, the CDC states on its website.
“No safe blood lead level in children has been identified,” it says. “Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to negatively affect a child’s intelligence, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement.”
To date, BrandStorm Inc. said it “has not received any reports of adverse events related to use of the product as part of this proactive recall.”
The company has urged consumers who purchased the two impacted Natierra Organic Freeze-Dried Blueberries to discard and not consume the product.
Refunds will be available to customers at the location of purchase, provided at the point of sale through validation of lot codes on the affected pouches.
For online purchases, BrandStorm Inc. stated that customers may email salesadmin@BrandStormInc.com to request a refund. Those with additional questions may call 310-559-0259 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. PT and email salesadmin@BrandStormInc.com or send a direct message through the product website.
Consumers who experience any symptoms listed on the FDA recall should seek immediate medical advice from a physician.
“First and foremost, we remain focused on the health and welfare of our employees, customers, and partners,” BrandStorm said in Thursday’s recall announcement. “We are committed to taking the appropriate steps to ensure our network and services continue to operate seamlessly for our customers.”
(WASHINGTON) — Two more aides in Donald Trump’s White House are expected to testify before the House Jan. 6 committee during its public hearings, sources say — this time an ex-spokeswoman for the former president as well as one of his previous security advisers.
Former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger, a member of the National Security Council during the Trump administration, are slated to speak at the committee’s hearing on Thursday, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News.
Their planned appearances were previously reported by CNN.
Both Matthews and Pottinger resigned from their positions in the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, in the wake of the Capitol rioting by a pro-Trump mob.
Neither a committee spokesperson nor representatives for Matthews or Pottinger responded to ABC News.
Numerous other Trump advisers and aides have already spoken with the committee either in recorded closed-door depositions or the public sessions. Those include his daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner; his White House counsel Pat Cipollone; his former Attorney General Bill Barr and more.
Committee members have said Thursday’s hearing — the eighth of the latest sessions held by the panel since June, following a year-long investigation — will focus on the Trump White House’s reaction to the insurrection as it unfolded.
“You will hear that Trump never picked up the phone that day to order his administration to help,” Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said last week. “This is not ambiguous. He did not call the military. The secretary of defense received no order. He did not call his attorney general. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security. [Vice President] Mike Pence did all of those things.”
Rep. Elaine Luria, a member of the committee who will be co-leading Thursday’s hearing, told “GMA 3” last week that the plan was to “go through that 187 minutes” — the gap, as the committee describes it, between when Trump incensed his supporters at a speech near the White House on Jan. 6 and later sent public statements trying to tamp down the rioting.
Luria, a Virginia Democrat and Navy veteran who will be leading the hearing with Rep. Adam Kinzinger R-Ill., told “GMA 3” that Americans can expect the most detailed timeline of the riot.
“Mr. Kinzinger and I plan to go through that 187 minutes. What happened between the time that [former President Trump] left the stage, gave these inflammatory remarks and gave people the impression … that he was going to himself march with this crowd to the Capitol,” Luria said.
This week’s hearing is expected to be “the last one at this point,” the committee chair, Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, said last week. He said Monday that more hearings will be held once the committee is prepared to present its report later in the year.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and has repeatedly assailed the committee as one-sided and politically motivated.
ABC News’ Mariam Khan and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Among the priorities for congressional Democrats after the demise of Roe v. Wade are bills to protect someone’s digital health data from being subpoenaed for civil and criminal court cases as a dozen states — and counting — impose widespread restrictions and even bans on abortion.
Under consideration, according to a “Dear Colleague” letter sent on June 27 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is a proposal that would shield “women’s most intimate and personal data stored in reproductive health apps,” which may contain information that “could be used against women by a sinister prosecutor in a state that criminalizes abortion.”
Privacy experts told ABC News that the concern — as seen, for example, in viral social media warnings to delete your period-tracking apps – isn’t unfounded in a post-Roe digital age, where states have discretion to regulate or restrict abortion and to consider prosecuting violators.
“A user can log a lot of information in health apps, not just the day you start your period,” said Korica Simon, an associate at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law. “It tracks when you last had sex, what your mood was, what symptoms you felt and your alcohol consumption levels. This is all information that law enforcement could be interested in when building a case against someone charged with a crime related to abortion.”
“It’s important to note, though, that as of yet we haven’t seen a case where law enforcement has been using these apps to go after people,” Simon said. “What authorities are mostly relying on is Google searches, internet history, online communication, text messages, online transactions and location data. All of this information can be found in people’s phones. Research shows that Big Tech usually handed over this information without a fight.”
Both leading advocates for overturning Roe and, conversely, local prosecutors who support abortion access — such as South Dakota’s Republican Gov. Kristi Noem and DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston in Georgia, where a reinstated law bans abortions after the detection of embryonic cardiac activity — have said they do not want to prosecute women who seek abortions.
Still, some women have been prosecuted in recent years — including what a Washington Post report described as a “a handful [of cases] in which American prosecutors have used text messages and online research as evidence.”
Among these is the case of Mississippi resident Latice Fisher.
According to news reports and court documents reviewed by ABC, Fisher was initially indicted for second-degree murder after her husband called 911 in April 2017 to say she had given birth at their home. Prosecutors said in court papers that Fisher told an EMT she didn’t know she was pregnant — but soon reversed herself, telling a nurse at the hospital she had known she was pregnant for weeks.
However, according to prosecutors, Fisher also told the nurse she didn’t realize she was about to give birth.
Prosecutors told the court she had searched online for “abortion pills” and the medical examiner ruled that the baby was alive when it was born, rather than a stillbirth, and died of asphyxiation, likely “positional asphyxia and mechanical asphyxia” related to the manner of birth.
However, there was reportedly no evidence Fisher took any medication, and the “float test” the medical examiner used to determine it wasn’t a stillbirth can also produce false positives. Prosecutors decided to dismiss Fisher’s charge — saying the first grand jury “did not have access to complete information about the medical evidence in this case.”
They re-presented her case to a second grand jury, which did not indict her.
Beyond criminal charges, there are potential civil liabilities when a pregnancy ends.
Texas passed a novel law in 2021 that empowers residents to sue anyone they suspect of being connected to an illegal abortion to seek monetary — rather than criminal — penalties. Plaintiffs are entitled to at least $10,000 in a successful suit. Notably, the Texas law prohibits the plaintiff from bringing suit against the person undergoing the abortion.
In May, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a law that criminalizes abortion after fertilization — one of the strictest bans in the country. Like Texas’ law, the statute relies on civilian enforcement and rewards at least $10,000 in damages to residents who successfully sue people involved in illegal abortions.
Such complaints would also enable plaintiffs to try and subpoena digital health care information about the defendants.
Big Tech, hardly a passive observer in data collection, constructed privacy barriers in response to Supreme Court’s decision reversing Roe. Jen Fitzpatrick, the senior vice president for Google Core Systems & Experiences, recently announced that Google would delete entries involving visits to medical clinics, including abortion clinics and domestic violence shelters, from their location history systems “soon after” a Google user visits.
However, not all major companies behave similarly.
The Markup and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting found that Facebook was collecting personal data from people who visited “crisis pregnancy centers,” which abortion access advocates describe as thinly veiled anti-abortion rights clinics that work to dissuade visitors from receiving abortion services. The data on visits to the clinics could potentially be used to support anti-abortion rights campaigns — or, after Roe, used against abortion seekers in states where the procedure is now illegal.
Meta — Facebook’s parent company — declined to comment on the record about its data filtration system. But its privacy policy prohibits businesses from using their tools for certain types of sensitive information, including sensitive health information, which includes sexual and reproductive health and medical procedures, treatments and testing.
According to their website, if Meta’s filtering mechanism detects information that could be sensitive, health-related data, the filtering mechanism is “designed to prevent that data from being ingested into our ads ranking and optimization systems.”
Reproductive health care apps have had their share of legal troubles related to data privacy. In 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled with popular fertility app Flo after allegations that the company had shared user data with third-party data brokers, including Google and Meta. Flo denied any wrongdoing and said at the time it does not share users’ health information without their consent.
Democratic lawmakers detail plans for data post-Roe
Skeptical of the changes made to shield intimate user data from law enforcement, three members of Congress up for reelection in November have asked technology companies about what health and location data can be accessed by data brokers — and how to prevent intimate information from being shared to prosecute people who seek to end their pregnancies.
Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., who is running to represent the state’s 51st Congressional District, warned that app users may not have their data searched solely by law enforcement. Even if Google clears location history data, Jacobs said she suspects that seemingly-menial “search data” could be used in lawsuits “to suggest whether someone has had or is seeking to have an abortion.”
“This risk is most elevated in the thirteen states with ‘trigger laws’ … as well as other states that are likely to ban and criminalize abortions very soon,” Jacobs said in a statement to ABC News.
Referring to Texas’ example, enabling private lawsuits as punishment for abortions, Jacobs said: “If some states enact bounty laws that provide financial rewards for bringing suits against people that have abortions, like the one already enacted in Texas, this will further elevate the risk–and put those accessing reproductive health care in significant danger.”
In Jacobs’ home state, voters will have the opportunity to amend their constitution to add the right to abortion access. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed an executive order to protect people who seek abortions from other states. Jacobs plans to continue introducing similar measures, featuring reproductive health care as a centerpiece issue in her election campaign.
Most recently, she introduced to the House the My Body, My Data Act, which would limit how much sexual health data a company could disclose or collect without the express consent of the user in question. The bill has since been relayed to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. An identical bill was introduced to the Senate by Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, but shows unlikely prospects of passage due to GOP opposition.
Similar measures have been cosponsored in the Senate by Democrats Patty Murray of Washington and Ron Wyden of Oregon. Supporting Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the two helped introduce the Health and Location Data Protection Act, which would ban brokers from selling health- and location-related information collected from app data. If passed into law, the FTC would receive $1 billion to “ensure robust enforcement of the bill’s provisions.”
Warren and Wyden, along with Jacobs in the House and Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, of New Jersey, also signed a letter to the FTC on June 24 asking the commission to investigate how Apple and Google have collected and used mobile phone users’ digital information. The letter accused data brokers of “already selling, licensing and sharing the location information of people that visit abortion providers to anyone with a credit card.”
“Selling people’s most sensitive data to turn a profit isn’t just wrong—it’s dangerous, and risks Americans’ safety as they seek the care they need,” Murray, the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat, said in a statement.
Murray last week also chaired a Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing “to make crystal clear how [the Roe reversal] will harm patients, providers, and communities across the country—and what is at stake in November.” At the hearing, she pushed back against a call for a nationwide abortion ban, which is supported by some conservatives, and the possible surveillance of people traveling to other states for abortion services: “Health care providers aren’t sure when or even if they will be able to treat ectopic patients without being sent to prison.”
Separately, Murray called for a vote urging passage on the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act, which would protect a person’s ability to travel across state lines to receive an abortion, as well as protect the medical providers who offer the procedure. That bill was blocked by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who urged colleagues to consider the life of what he described as unborn babies.
“This move shows that [the Senate GOP] stand with extreme politicians trying to hold women captive in their own states rather than defending the right to travel within our country,” Murray said.
Siavosh Hosseini/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — In a dramatic midterm split-screen, former President Donald Trump and his former Vice President Mike Pence will hold dueling campaign events this weekend in Arizona as Trump seeks revenge in the battleground he narrowly lost to President Joe Biden, a state that served as ground zero to perpetuate his “big lie.”
Pence’s endorsement Monday of Karrin Taylor Robson, a wealthy GOP donor and former member of the Arizona Board of Regents, over Kari Lake, a former Fox 10 Phoenix anchor whom Trump endorsed last fall, marks the latest break between the two leaders, both with 2024 aspirations, who were close the entirety of their administration — until Pence wouldn’t submit to Trump’s pressure campaign to intervene to overturn the 2020 election.
In his statement, Pence called Robson “the best choice for Arizona’s future” and candidate to “promote conservative values,” mirroring language from Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, term-limited to run again, supporting Robson one day after early voting started. Ducey has called Robson “the real conservative” in the race.
While it’s unclear if Ducey will join him, Pence is expected to hold at least one event for Robson on Friday, while Trump rallies for his candidates in Prescott. The details of Pence’s plans are still being worked out, a source familiar told ABC News.
A slate of Trump endorsees who espouse his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, without evidence, are running for statewide offices in charge of overseeing and certifying elections in the state, raising concerns about election integrity within the Republican Party — the very issue those Trump-backed candidates claim to be running on. The former president’s rally with them, rescheduled from last Saturday due to the death of his ex-wife, Ivana Trump, now comes one day after the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack will hold a prime-time hearing to lay out the timeline of Trump’s actions on Jan. 6.
“This is a battle for the soul of the Republican Party in Arizona,” Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona, told ABC News on Monday.
But he offered a caveat to Trump and Pence coming to town just 10 days before the primary election on Aug. 2.
“The thing to really note in Arizona is that we are early voters, and so the impact of both the Trump and Pence endorsements are a bit muted,” he said.
As of last Friday, 253,000 ballots have been returned early in the state with about 26,500 more votes in the Democratic primary than the Republican, according to Uplift Data, which pulls reporting from the Arizona Democratic Party Voter File and Arizona County recorders.
What has made a difference in Arizona’s gubernatorial race is State Rep. Matt Salmon dropping out of the race in June, a week before early voting began in an apparent effort to consolidate votes around Robson. Salmon has criticized Lake for a handful of hypocrisy scandals, such as having donated in the past to Democratic candidates in the past. Since he left the race, Robson has seen a boost in polling, though Lake still holds a narrow lead.
Back in May, in their first major collision of the 2022 midterm cycle, the former vice president last held a rally counter to Trump ahead of Georgia’s gubernatorial primary, breaking from Trump to stump for incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Kemp beat David Perdue, the former senator Trump recruited, and soared to victory without a runoff — dealing a blow to Trump’s endorsement power which will be tested again in Arizona in two weeks.
The ongoing endorsements highlight the midterm divide between Trump and the Republican Party.
Pence’s endorsement of Robson on Monday follows endorsements from former Republican Gov. Chris Christie of Arizona, an ABC News Contributor, as well as Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who, with presidential aspirations of his own, has said he does not think Trump should be the Republican nominee in 2024.
Ducey, also under Trump’s ire since certifying Biden’s victory (and infamously sending Trump to voicemail while doing it), has come out swinging against Lake, casting her campaign as “all an act” and using the nickname “Fake Lake.”
“She’s been putting on a show for some time now, and we’ll see if the voters of Arizona by it,” Ducey said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “Kari Lake’s misleading voters with no evidence.”
As chair of the Republican Governors Association, Ducey refused to say whether the RGA would support Lake in the general election if she wins the primary on Aug. 2, though the organization historically does not get involved in open primary races.
“We’re on offense, but we don’t support lost causes,” he said, adding that he doesn’t classify any Republican candidates in the “lost cause” category yet.
Nicole DeMont, campaign manager to current Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the likely Democratic nominee for governor, in a statement to ABC News on Monday reacting to Pence’s endorsement, referred to their potential opponents as “Lobbyist Karrin Taylor Robson” and “MAGA Kari Lake,” who she said “are focused on their primary race to the bottom,” while Hobbs “is working to bring Arizonans together to solve our biggest challenges,” such as inflation, securing abortion access and public education.
The apparent schism in the GOP is not limited to races for governor.
In Arizona’s secretary of state race, Ducey, again, broke from Trump last week with his endorsement of advertising executive Beau Lane against Trump’s pick, State Rep. Mark Finchem, calling Lane someone who “can’t be bullied.”
As opposed to other GOP candidates, including Finchem, State Sen. Michelle Ugenti Rita and State Rep. Shawnna Bolick, Lane does not subscribe to the belief that the 2020 election was stolen and has said he’s pleased to have Ducey’s support.
Finchem, on the other hand, was in Washington on Jan. 6, though he says he did not enter the Capitol, and was among 30 GOP lawmakers in Arizona who signed a joint resolution calling on Congress to accept an “alternate” slate of electoral votes for Trump.The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack issued Finchem a subpoena earlier this year for “information about efforts to send false slates of electors to Washington and change the outcome of the 2020 election.”
The far-right lawmaker has repeatedly touted Trump’s endorsement since last year and recently boasted on Twitter that he’s the candidate “NOT” endorsed by Ducey, as Trump-backed candidates seek to distance themselves from those not in Trump’s good graces. He and Lake have laid the groundwork to call their primary races “rigged” if they do not win.
Marson, who lives in Phoenix and is voting for Robson, warned that if Lake does win the primary, Republicans will have a harder time in the general election against Hobbs.
“Kari Lake embodies the Trump experience. Famous on TV, a former liberal who became a conservative overnight and energized the far-right base of the Republican Party. She has taken the Trump playbook and tried to replicate what Trump did nationally in Arizona — but Trump lost 2020 in Arizona,” he said. “Lake trying to replicate that isn’t a winning strategy. Maybe it is for the primary — we’ll find that out in two weeks — but it is definitely not a winning strategy for the general election.”
ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.
