(LAKE WALES, Fla.) — A mother and her three children have been gunned down in a Florida apartment in a “senseless” mass shooting, according to authorities.
On Tuesday night, after family members called 911, officers responded to the Sunrise Apartments and found a mother, her son and two daughters shot dead, said Lake Wales police.
The victims were ages 40, 21, 17 and 11, according to police.
Al Stenson, who knew the victims, allegedly shot them in the apartment around 5 a.m. Tuesday and then fled, according to police.
The motive is unknown, police said.
“Completely senseless. It makes absolutely no sense,” Lake Wales Police Chief Chris Velasquez said at a news conference.
When authorities tracked 38-year-old Stenson to the Slumberland Motel in Sanford, “Stenson made statements that he would kill himself or force law enforcement to kill him,” police said in a statement.
An hourslong standoff ended with an officer-involved shooting and Stenson was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
ABC News’ Robinson Perez contributed to this report.
(JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla.) — Florida prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty for the man who is accused of masterminding the murder of Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan, prosecutors said at a court hearing Wednesday.
Mario Fernandez Saldana, the new husband of the victim’s ex-wife, committed the crime for “pecuniary gain” and did so in a “cold calculated and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification,” prosecutors alleged.
Those “aggravating factors” allow Florida to seek capital punishment pursuant to Fernandez Saldana’s first-degree murder charge, prosecutors added.
Under Florida’s new death penalty law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in April, only eight out of 12 members on a jury would be needed to send Fernandez Saldana to death row. First, he would have to be convicted unanimously by a jury, or plead guilty.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Fernandez Saldana was arrested in March after prosecutors discovered a link between him and Henry Tenon, who was previously charged in the murder of Bridegan.
Fernandez Saldana was Tenon’s landlord, authorities said, and wrote three checks to Tenon, according to his arrest warrant. Authorities also discovered dozens of phone calls between Saldana and Tenon in February 2022, the month of the murder.
Bridegan, 33, a father of four, was driving with his then-2-year-old daughter in Jacksonville Beach when he came upon a tire “purposefully” blocking his path, police said earlier this year. When he stepped out of the car he was “gunned down in cold blood,” police added.
Tenon has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors.
(NEW YORK)– Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell welcomed the first police officers to work a new flexible schedule as the department attempts to increase morale and slow an exodus of veteran officers.
Sewell addressed the officers at Wednesday morning’s roll call at the 47th Precinct in the Bronx, selected as one of the first to allow officers to work the extended tours — a quality of life initiative that emerged from recent contract negotiations with the Police Benevolent Association.
Sewell told the officers — the first to be on a 12 hour tour — that the schedule brings “more time with your family and friends with no compromise to public safety.”
The flexible schedule comes amid a mass exodus of veteran officers retiring or taking jobs at other departments for better pay and benefits. The department is experiencing high overtime costs as the rest of the force picks up the slack with extra hours.
“We recognize that you coming to work and then being told you have to stay extra hours is a hardship. You have families. You have things in your lives that matter that you want to get back to,” Sewell said.
“We look forward to making sure this works best for you, and we look forward to broadening it to the rest of the NYPD.”
The pilot is also a way to address most NYPD officers’ inability to work from home, a discrepancy with other employees that emerged during the pandemic.
PBA President Pat Lynch called the flexible schedules “a historic moment.”
“Many folks said no. Most administrations wouldn’t even talk about it. This administration would. This commissioner said yes. For the next generation of the NYPD, this will become the norm,” Lynch said. “You can live your life better. Its important we talk about your home life. Its important we talk about the mental health of each and every one of you and your family. Well, today is the start of that real discussion. but more importantly, the real solution.”
Under a six-month pilot program, about 400 officers will work longer 10- and 12-hour tours, with more days off.
Under the 12-hour shift option, officers work three days on and three days off within the NYPD’s scheduling framework.
In the 10-hour option, officers would work 10-hour shifts for four days, followed by two days off.
Officers based in the Bronx — in the 45th and 47th precincts and in Transit District 11 and Public Service Area 8, which serves city housing projects in the 43rd, 45th and 47th precincts — are participating in the pilot program. If the program works, the city hopes to expand it.
(NEW YORK) — A judge has denied Montana state legislator Zooey Zephyr’s motion to have her legislative privileges and duties reinstated after being censured by House Republicans.
Zephyr said her attorneys are unlikely to appeal the ruling since the legislative session is coming to a close.
“Throughout the last two weeks, my constituents, Montanans, and the world have witnessed a gross miscarriage of justice here in Montana, as the Speaker of the House refused to recognize me and ultimately barred me from partaking in any debate on the house floor, effectively removing my constituents right to representation,” Zephyr said in a statement to ABC News.
Zephyr had urged House Republicans to vote against a gender-affirming care ban for transgender youth.
Zephyr is the state’s first openly transgender lawmaker.
Some legislators, including Speaker of the House Matt Regier, argued Zephyr had broken House rules of decorum when she said legislators would have “blood on your hands” if they passed the transgender youth care ban.
Demonstrators in support of Zephyr interrupted House business several days later to protest her silencing. Zephyr showed her support by holding up her mic and failing to leave the House floor.
House Republicans voted to censure her in response.
“What this ruling implies is that the legislature isn’t beholden to the constitution–that there is no right to free speech in the face of a supermajority,” Zephyr said.
Regier applauded the ruling from the court.
“The Montana courts have recognized that the Judicial Branch has no power to revise or overrule the power expressly held by the Montana State Legislature to conduct its business,” Regier said in a statement to ABC News. “The House is continuing its work for the people of Montana.”
State Attorney General Austin Knudsen called Zephyr’s lawsuit “nothing more than an attempt by outside groups to interfere with Montana’s lawmaking process.”
(NEW YORK) — In a sea of quality job candidates, you need to make sure your resume is up to snuff and easily skimmable for recruiters to quickly decide to pull yours from the pile.
It can take just six seconds to make an impression with your resume, according to The Wall Street Journal, which spoke to a career coach executive.
ABC News Chief Business Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis shared a few tips that can help make your resume stand out:
Change the bio paragraph into a punchy headline
First, Jarvis suggested swapping that professional statement for a one-line headline.
The days of including a short paragraph to summarize your experience, skills and achievements are gone. Instead, create a headline that will match the role you are applying for.
In the past, a resume might have included something that looks like this: “Sales manager with a decade of experience. … Eager for an opportunity to bring my experience leading a team and launching successful campaigns to market a valuable product.”
The new update for a similar resume should simply state: “Senior software sales manager.”
Trim your work experience
For applicants with a range of work experience, think about altering it for the job you’re applying for and cut out any irrelevant experience to help give hiring managers a clearer understanding of how you’ll fit into the job.
Jarvis explained that you don’t need to pack your resume with every job you’ve ever had, but focus on relevant work history. Customize your resume a bit for the job you’re seeking. Pointing out twists and turns in a career can make some experts think you might be overqualified, which can exclude you early on. Make the resume make sense to help get your foot in the door to sell yourself.
Basic do’s and don’ts to keep in mind
Do: Update your LinkedIn profile.
Do: Brush up on your interview skills.
Do: Take advantage of LinkedIn features and make sure you’re active on the site. For example, Jarvis suggested changing key words in your profile every two weeks to prompt the algorithm to scan your profile and thus help keep you at the top of searches.
Don’t: Experts warn against using the “open to work” banner to avoid discrimination against people between jobs.
Don’t: Use ChatGPT or artificial intelligence to write your resume.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Marshal leading the investigation for the two Virginia inmates that escaped from jail earlier this week detailed how he believes the two men escaped from jail.
Alder Marin-Sotelo, 26, and Bruce Callahan, 44, both federal detainees, escaped over the weekend from the Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville, which is about 70 miles west of Richmond, according to law enforcement.
“They somehow, we think, were potentially able to manipulate some locks, crawled through an opening that led them out into the rec-yard area. And then from there, they scaled two fences to get away from the jail,” U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of North Carolina Larry Moltzan told ABC News in an exclusive interview.
Moltzan told ABC News one left 20 hours before the other, but he believes they might’ve talked about the escape.
“I think it’s like it’s fair to reason that they may have talked about it, given that it was so similar,” Moltzan said. “But they did not escape at the same time and didn’t necessarily help each other in that way.”
Law enforcement believes both are “dangerous men.”
“Bruce Callahan has an extensive criminal history involving firearms and drug offenses,” he said. “Mr. Sotelo was charged federally with weapons possession by an illegal alien, but he is also wanted in Wake County, North Carolina, for a homicide of a law enforcement officer. So we certainly believe that they’re both dangerous men. They certainly could pose a danger to the community. And we would ask that if anybody sees them to contact law enforcement immediately.”
He believes they both have the ability to obtain weapons.
“We would certainly believe that both of them have a potential to be armed and both of them are extremely dangerous,” he said. “The nature of chasing fugitives is they could really be anywhere. We believe there’s a strong possibility that they could be in North Carolina and may be looking to go elsewhere.”
(NEW YORK) — More than a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the countries are fighting for control of areas in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s forces are readying a spring counteroffensive, but Putin appears to be preparing for a long and bloody war.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 03, 8:31 AM EDT
Russia says Ukraine tried to kill Putin in Kremlin with two drones
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has accused Ukraine of trying to strike Putin’s residence in the Kremlin with two drones overnight, but said they were brought down before they could reach their target.
No injuries were reported, Kremlin officials said. Putin was not at the residence at the time, they said.
Videos released on official social media channels appeared to show a drone strike the roof of the Senate Palace at the Kremlin.
The Kremlin said “the Russian side reserves the right to retaliate whenever and wherever it deems necessary.”
May 03, 1:30 AM EDT
Ukrainian drone hits Russian port, causing fire
A Ukrainian drone hit a Tamanneftegaz fuel tank in the Port of Taman, Russia, at about 2:30 a.m. local time Wednesday, Kirill Fedorov, a pro-Russian blogger, said on his Telegram channel. The Port of Taman is in the Black Sea near the Kerch Strait.
The fire could be seen in a video circulating online.
Local authorities confirmed the fire, which “has been assigned the highest rank,” the governor of the region said. A tank with petroleum products was hit by the drone and is burning, the governor said. No injuries were reported and there was no threat to residents, he added on his Telegram channel.
May 02, 11:45 PM EDT
All drones targeting Kyiv shot down; third attack on capital in six days
All drones that were used by Russians to attack Kyiv early Wednesday morning local time were shot down by Ukrainian air defense systems, the Kyiv City Military Administration said on Telegram.
There were no reported injuries or casualties, the military administration said.
This was the third attack on Kyiv in six days, the administration added.
May 02, 6:58 PM EDT
Explosions reported in Kyiv
Explosions were reported in Kyiv around 1:00 a.m. Wednesday local time, according to Suspilne, the Ukrainian public broadcaster.
The Ukrainian Air Defense Forces were activated in response, the Kyiv City Military Administration reported.
S-300 missiles belonging to Ukrainian Armed Forces were hit in Zaporizhzhia, the spokesman of the Odesa Regional Military Administration, Serhiy Bratchuk, said on Telegram.
Reports of damage, and number of people injured or killed were not immediately available.
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman and Max Uzol
May 02, 6:12 PM EDT
Explosions reported in Kyiv
Explosions were reported in Kyiv around 1:00 a.m. Wednesday local time, according to Suspilne, the Ukrainian public broadcaster.
The Ukrainian Air Defense Forces were activated in response, the Kyiv City Military Administration reported.
Reports of damage, and number of people injured or killed were not immediately available.
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman and Max Uzol
May 02, 12:38 PM EDT
Marine veteran killed while evacuating civilians in Ukraine
A 26-year-old U.S. Marine Corps veteran was killed in a mortar strike last month in Ukraine while working to evacuate civilians, his family confirmed to ABC News this week.
Cooper Andrews died on April 19 in the Bakhmut area, his cousin Willow Pastard, who is speaking on his family’s behalf, told ABC News.
The State Department announced Monday that an American citizen died in Ukraine, though did not provide more details or an identity “out of respect for the family’s privacy during this difficult time.”
“We are in touch with the family and providing all possible consular assistance,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement.
At least nine deaths of U.S. citizens who have volunteered to fight in Ukraine have been officially reported since the war began last year, according to the State Department.
-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford
May 01, 3:54 PM EDT
2 dead, 40 wounded in latest Russian strikes
Two men were killed and at least 40 people, including children, were injured after Russian missiles struck Pavlograd, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other officials said.
Serhii Lysak, the head of the military administration of the Dnipropetrovsk, said 19 high-rise buildings, 25 private houses, six schools and preschool education institutions and five shops were hit by the missiles.
Five children were among the wounded officials said. The youngest victim is 8 years old, according to officials.
-ABC News’ Wil Gretsky
May 01, 3:07 PM EDT
Russia suffered 100K casualties in Bakhmut since December: White House
The U.S. estimates that Russia has suffered over 100,000 casualties, including over 20,000 killed in action, from the battles in Bakhmut since December, White House spokesman John Kirby said Monday
Half of the 20,000 killed in action were members of the Russian-backed private military Wagner Group, according to Kirby. The majority of Wagner fighters killed were allegedly ex-convicts, according to Kirby.
Kirby said that the data came from “some downgraded intelligence,” that the U.S. has been able to collect. He was unable to provide data on deaths of Ukrainian fighters.
Kirby emphasized that the U.S. thinks Bakhmut holds “very little strategic value for Russia” and if captured by Russia it “would absolutely not alter the course of the war in Russia’s favor.”
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
May 01, 1:41 PM EDT
State Department confirms US citizen dies in Ukraine
The State Department announced Monday that an American citizen died in Ukraine.
“We are in touch with the family and providing all possible consular assistance,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement.
The State Department declined to provide more details or an identity “out of respect for the family’s privacy during this difficult time.” It is not immediately clear when the death took place.
At least 10 U.S. citizen deaths in Ukraine have been officially confirmed by the State Department since the war began last year. The majority of those deaths were of Americans who volunteered to fight alongside Ukrainians, according to officials.
-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford
Apr 30, 5:48 PM EDT
Russian missile attack in Dnipropetrovsk region hits Ukrainian cities: Reports
A Russian missile airstrike was reported in different areas of Ukraine Sunday evening.
Sixteen Russian Tu-95 bombers were reported in the air from various airfields and explosions were reported in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine at 10:51 p.m. local time.
“Presumably, Kh-101 cruise missiles are actively flying at the Pavlograd-1 and Pavlograd-2 railway stations, where trains with APU (Ukrainian Armed Forces) equipment and people were located,” a Russian Telegram channel, Military Chronicle, said.
Several explosions were heard in the city of Pavlograd, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, local Ukrainian media reported.
An air alert was announced for the region at 9:30 p.m. local time and about 10:00 p.m., social networks began to report explosions in Pavlograd.
According to local media, repeated explosions were heard in the city at 10:20 p.m.
The strikes destroyed Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles for the S-300 complex on Pavlograd, Russian Telegram channel Intel Slava reported.
S-300s are long-range surface-to-air missiles.
Supply vehicles with reserve ammunition that belong to the Ukrainian Armed Forces were also hit, the channel said, citing eyewitness accounts.
Intel Slava is funded by the Russian government.
“The detonation of rockets has been going on for almost an hour,” the Intel Slava post said.
It’s unclear how many people were injured or killed.
-ABC News’ Fidel Pavlenko and Anastasia Bagaeva
Apr 30, 2:00 PM EDT
Leader of Russian mercenary group threatens mutiny
The Russian oligarch behind the Wagner private paramilitary group fighting for the Kremlin in Ukraine is threatening a mutiny if his forces are not resupplied with ammunition soon.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner and curator of the Wagner group, penned a letter to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigue, demanding ammunition be provided to his forces on the battlefield.
In the letter, Prigozhin wrote that if supply problems are not fixed fast, he will complain to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his mercenaries would abandon their positions in Bakhmut, Ukraine, where heavy fighting has been going on for weeks, The Moscow Times reported.
“I appeal to Shoigu with a request to immediately issue ammunition. In case of refusal, I consider it necessary to convey to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief information about the existing problem in order to make a decision and about the advisability of further presence of Wagner PMC in Bakhmut in the conditions of a shortage of ammunition,” Prigozhin wrote.
He added, “If the deficit is not replenished … we will be forced to withdraw part of the units from this territory, and then everything else will crumble. Therefore, the bell is already ringing — it is called an alarm.”
Emphasizing the urgency, Prigozhin noted that Ukraine is planning to launch a counteroffensive soon.
There was no immediate public response from Shoigu or the Kremlin.
“We need to stop deceiving the population and telling that everything is fine with us,” Prigozhin wrote. “I must honestly say: Russia is on the brink of disaster. If these screws are not adjusted today, the ‘aircraft’ will crumble in the air.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday wished Ukrainian military forces success in what he described as the “main battles” that are “coming soon.”
Zelenskyy’s statement came a day after he said at a news conference in Kyiv that Ukrainian forces will soon launch a counteroffensive, likely before F-16 fighter jets promised by Western allies arrive.
“Dear warriors, the main battles are coming soon. We must free our land and our people from Russian slavery,” Zelenskyy said at an event where he bestowed medals to members of the county’s Border Guard forces.
Apr 30, 5:52 AM EDT
Counteroffensive expected ahead of Western jet deliveries
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian counteroffensive will start before Ukraine receives F-16 fighter jets promised by Western countries.
“Frankly speaking, it would help us a lot. But we also understand that we can’t drag it [the counteroffensive] out, which is why we’ll start before we receive F-16 [aircrafts] or other models,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference for Scandinavian media held in Kyiv on Saturday, according to a script provided by Reuters.
He added, “But to calm Russia down with the fact that we’d still need a couple of months to train on the aircrafts and only then we’d start; No, this won’t happen. We’ll start and go forward, while at the same time, simultaneously, I think this is very important [to receive western fighter aircrafts.]”
He said Ukraine is “capable of putting an end to this war.”
Also on Saturday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Ukraine received a signal from some countries about the readiness to start training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets.
According to Kuleba, the F-16 fighter jet is the ideal aircraft due to its technical characteristics, although Kyiv does not overlook other aircraft, either. The minister added that the decisive word on issuing F-16s will be with the United States, because these are American fighters.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres and Max Uzol
Apr 29, 1:49 PM EDT
23 dead in Russian attack on high-rise building, 17 saved from rubble
A Russian attack on a high-rise building in Uman has left 23 people dead. Among the dead were six children between the ages of one and 17 years old, according to the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs, Ihor Volodymyrovych Klymenko.
Rescuers, policemen and volunteers managed to save 17 people from the rubble. Heavy machinery and special equipment were involved, according to officials.
Two more women are considered missing, officials said. But the search and rescue operation has concluded, officials said.
“My sincere condolences to the relatives of the deceased. We will punish this evil. We will not allow it to grow. We will definitely stand up and win,” Klymenko said.
-ABC News’ Tatyana Rymarenko
Apr 28, 12:18 PM EDT
Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities kill 24, including children
Russian airstrikes targeted several cities across Ukraine early Friday, killing at least 24 people, Ukrainian officials said.
The city of Uman in central Ukraine’s Cherkasy Oblast was the worst affected. Several buildings were damaged or destroyed. One of the strikes hit an apartment building, killing at least 22 people, including three children, and injuring another 18 people, according to Cherkasy Oblast Gov. Ihor Taburets. The attack happened at around 4:30 a.m. local time, when most people would have been asleep. An entire section of the nine-story building collapsed, with 27 apartments completely destroyed. There were 109 people who lived in that part of the building, according to Ukrainian police. Rescue teams were expected to spend all day and night searching for survivors in the rubble.
Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city and a major industrial hub located in southeastern Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, was hit by “high-precision” strikes in the early morning hours, leaving a woman and a 3-year-old child dead, according to Dnipro Mayor Boris Filatov.
Russian strikes also targeted Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital and largest city, but there were no reports of any casualties or damages. It was the first such attack on the capital in 51 days, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration. Preliminary data shows 11 cruise missiles and two drones were destroyed in Kyiv’s airspace, the city military administration said.
Apr 28, 11:54 AM EDT
Ukraine says it’s ‘ready’ for counteroffensive
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Friday the military is “ready” to launch a counteroffensive against Russian forces.
“It’s up to the general staff and the command,” Reznikov said during a press briefing in Kyiv. “We will do it as soon as there is God’s will, the weather and the commanders’ decision.”
Ukraine has received Patriot missile defense systems from the United States as well as Germany and the Netherlands. The Ukrainian military has been trained on how to use the systems and “mastered” them within weeks, according to Reznikov.
“The exact number of batteries, I’m sorry, I won’t say,” he added. “Let the enemy guess.”
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the world not to consider or call the anticipated counteroffensive “a decisive battle.” Speaking at a press conference in Odesa on Friday, Kuleba said the decisive battle is the one that will lead to the liberation of all occupied Ukrainian territories.
One person was killed and 23 people, including a child, were wounded in a Russian missile strike in Mykolaiv early Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The missile struck a block that had apartments, houses and a historic building, according to Zelenskyy.
“The terrorists will not get away with this yet another crime against humanity,” the president said in a statement.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Apr 26, 12:50 PM EDT
Zelenskyy has 1st call with China’s Xi Jinping since war began
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping in what was the two leaders’ first official contact since January 2022, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Xi announced that he will send a special envoy to visit Ukraine and “other countries” to work on a political solution.
“I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine’s ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations,” Zelenskyy said in a statement on Twitter.
The Chinese government’s official position still refuses to call the war an “invasion.”
The call between the two leaders is said to have lasted an hour, according to Zelenskyy’s office.
“Before the full-scale Russian invasion, China was Ukraine’s number one trading partner. I believe that our conversation today will give a powerful impetus to the return, preservation and development of this dynamic at all levels,” Zelenskyy said in a statement.
-ABC News’ Karson Yiu, Cindy Smith and Will Gretsky
Apr 25, 1:03 PM EDT
At least 2 dead, 10 injured in strike that hit Ukrainian museum
At least two people were killed and 10 injured after a Russian missile hit a Ukrainian museum Tuesday, officials said.
The local history museum is located in the city center of Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region.
“The terrorist country is doing everything to destroy us completely. Our history, our culture, our people,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media while sharing a video that showed the damaged building. “Killing Ukrainians with absolutely barbaric methods.”
Apr 24, 5:48 AM EDT
Russian passports pushed on occupied Ukraine
Russian officials have warned Ukrainians in occupied Kherson that they may be “deported” if they don’t accept Russian passports, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said Monday.
“Russia is using passports as a tool in the ‘Russification’ of the occupied areas, as it did in Donetsk and Luhansk before the February 2022 invasion,” the ministry on Twitter.
Residents of Kherson have been warned of penalties for those who don’t accept Russian passports by June 1. Some may be removed from the territory or may have their property seized, according to the U.K.
(WASHINGTON) — Censures and expulsions in some state legislatures have become a growing consequence of the intensifying culture wars across the country.
In Montana, Tennessee, and Oklahoma — states with Republican supermajorities in the House — conservative legislators have led the charge in disciplining lawmakers on the other side of the aisle.
Democratic legislators have been expelled from their legislative seat, barred from the House floor, or removed from their committees for a variety of reasons, including allegedly violating parliamentary procedures in the course of their dissent.
“Every time we read about one of these, we hear that it is historic in that state’s context,” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at University of California, San Diego in an interview with ABC News.
The country is facing an increasingly polarized political climate, with debates around transgender rights, gun violence, race, and more continuing to lead the national conversation.
Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University, says this pattern of disciplining minority legislators prompts the question: “What role do minority or dissenting voices have in legislators?”
“That’s a fundamental part of democracy,” Gillespie said. “It’s a zero sum game if the party that’s in power can’t tolerate dissent from the other side and won’t even allow them to be able to say their perspective. That’s a really sobering commentary on kind of where we are in terms of the democratic deliberation and civility.”
Not only are both sides seemingly drifting further apart in policy, but blue states are getting bluer and red states are getting redder, Kousser says.
“If you’re driving from state to state to state, you drive from a different political world, to one political world to a completely different one,” said Kousser.
He continued, “There’s no issue in which the states are not diverging further now than they did a generation ago.”
Although polarization doesn’t inherently spell trouble for the country’s democracy, Seth Masket, the director of the Center on American Politics, says the disciplinary actions taken to silence some lawmakers on the other side of the political aisle should raise some red flags.
“This is about saying that people in the minority party don’t have a right to a democratic voice. They don’t have a right to representation. They don’t have a right to be in the room,” Masket said.
He later continued, “That’s more than just polarization, that’s … anti-democratic.”
Republicans discipline minority lawmakers
In recent years, both Republicans and Democrats on the federal level have censured legislators of the same party to ensure “party purity,” Masket said. He believes it became a way of protecting a party’s image and group message.
In 2022, the Arizona Democratic Party’s executive committee formally censured Sen. Kyrsten Sinema as a result of her inaction on changing the filibuster rules to pass voting rights reform. Shortly after, the Republican National Committee voted to censure GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, in part for their roles on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
However, he said, the strategy appears to have shifted to target the opposing party.
In April, two Tennessee Democratic legislators were expelled by House Republicans for allegedly violating the chamber’s rules of decorum by participating in a gun control protest at the state capitol building.
Their expulsion led to nationwide outrage.
“This is going to set the tone for the years ahead if it’s not addressed,” said formally expelled Justin Jones in an April interview with ABC News. “And we went to that well [on the floor], calling for them to ban assault weapons. They responded by assaulting democracy.”
The legislators who voted for their expulsion defended the move.
“It’s not possible for us to move forward with the way they were behaving in committee and on the House floor,” state Rep. Jeremy Faison, the chair of the state House Republican Caucus, previously told CNN. “There’s got to be some peace.”
In Montana, the state’s first openly transgender legislator Zooey Zephyr was censured and barred from the House floor after criticizing a gender-affirming care ban for transgender youth and protesting her subsequent silencing by House Republican leaders.
“All representatives are free to participate in House debate while following the House rules. The choice to not follow House rules is one that Representative Zephyr has made,” House Speaker Matt Regier said in an April statement to reporters following the censure. “The only person silencing Representative Zephyr is Representative Zephyr.”
Zephyr filed a motion to have her seat in the house restored but her emergency order was denied.
“The Republicans have used an undemocratic move to remove the ability for me to represent my constituents on the floor,” Zephyr told ABC News last week. “But as I work to resolve that, I need to be as close as possible, so I can have the conversations with legislators and make sure that I can, at least in some way, make sure the voice of my constituents can be discussed.”
A spokesperson for Montana’s Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen called the lawsuit frivolous.
“This is performance litigation – political activism masquerading as a lawsuit,” said Emily Flower, Knudsen’s press secretary.
In March, Oklahoma Democratic Rep. Mauree Turner was censured after allowing a protester into their office. Turner, the first nonbinary legislator in the U.S., told ABC News in an interview that the protester’s partner had been arrested while demonstrating against an anti-transgender bill and the protester had come to speak to them as a queer lawmaker.
“Someone came to my office to decompress after watching their partner be tackled by highway patrol and taken away and not really sure what was going to happen next,” Turner told ABC News. “In the midst of doing that, I got a knock on my door from a constituent that said, ‘Do you know highway patrol — state troopers have both stairwells to your office blocked, like are in both stairwells to your office?'”
They said they were not approached by law enforcement about the protester in their office and that as a black Oklahoman, “hearing that my office is barricaded by law enforcement officers that haven’t come to talk to me first about anything right, that’s not an easy position for me to be in.”
House Speaker Charles McCall claimed in a statement that Turner “knowingly, and willfully, impeded a law enforcement investigation, harboring a fugitive and repeatedly lying to officers, and used their official office and position to thwart attempts by law enforcement to make contact with a suspect of the investigation.”
In response, House Republicans voted to censure Turner and remove them of their committee responsibilities.
Kousser argues these moves to discipline legislators may have been a “political misstep” by the supermajorities, asserting that it “gave these legislators and minority parties … a platform that they would never have had.”
“Montana already had the votes on this ban on gender-affirming care. Tennessee was not on the verge of passing a major gun control law,” said Kousser.
He continued, “Even though [the discipline] was intended to stop a protest or stop someone from speaking, it had the absolute opposite impact of elevating the profile of these essentially powerless members of the minority party.”
(NEW YORK) — The rate of drug overdose deaths linked to fentanyl in the United States has skyrocketed over the last five years, new federal data showed.
The rate of overdose deaths involving fentanyl spiked by 279% between 2016 and 2021 from 5.7 per 100,000 to 21.6 per 100,000, according to a report published early Wednesday by the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Vital Statistics System — which looked at death certificate records.
“We are always hoping we won’t see a rise in fentanyl deaths, but this really highlights that this is continuing to be the public health problem,” Merianne Spencer, a co-author of the report and a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told ABC News.
Although the rate of overdose deaths linked to other drugs also saw increases, they were more modest rises and did not reach the levels of fentanyl.
Deaths linked to methamphetamine quadrupled from 2.1 per 100,000 in 2016 to 9.6 per 100,000 in 2021 and deaths due to cocaine more than doubled from 3.5 per 100,000 to 7.9 per 100,000 over the same period.
“When it comes to overdose, really the biggest driver is folks who are really struggling with addiction primarily on street drugs, which fentanyl is primarily found in terms of the street drug supply rather than a prescription medication,” Dr. Allison Lin, an addiction psychiatrist at University of Michigan Medical School, who was not involved in the report, told ABC News.
“And it’s primarily folks who are struggling with addiction to multiple substances, so oftentimes, folks who are using not only fentanyl, but fentanyl plus cocaine or fentanyl plus methamphetamine,” she said.
Meanwhile, drugs that used to make up the majority of overdose deaths — heroin and oxycodone — saw declines in their rates of death.
Rates of heroin overdose fatalities fell from 4.9 per 100,000 to 2.9 per 100,000 while oxycodone overdose death rates fell slightly from 1.9 per 100,000 to 1.5 per 100,000.
Researchers have noted there has been a marked increase in fentanyl use, and subsequently fentanyl overdoses, as heroin overdoses have fallen.
From 2019 to 2020 alone, the rate of fentanyl deaths linked to fentanyl rose by 55% and by 24.1% from 2020 to 2021, according to the report. The Department of Justice and the FBI announced on Tuesday that 300 people were arrested after a year-long operation tracking the trafficking of fentanyl and opioids on the dark web.
There has been a shift from a heroin-based market to a fentanyl-based market, according to the DOJ’s Drug Enforcement Administration.
“The vast majority of our folks or patients with substance use disorders, even if they don’t know it, they’re primarily using the drug supply that’s primarily fentanyl,” Lin said. “So, the folks who were using heroin previously are the folks who are also using fentanyl now. It’s just that the supply of opioids and other drugs in our communities are primarily supplies that are predominantly fentanyl because of all the characteristics of it, how inexpensive it is, how easy it is to cut with other substances, other factors.”
However, the CDC said the decrease in heroin-related deaths is also linked to increased treatments for people who use heroin, as well as increased access to naloxone, which reverses opioid overdoses.
Data showed that, for all five drugs analyzed in 2021, men had higher rates of death than women. The widest gap was when it came to rates of death due to heroin with men having a rate nearly three times higher at 4.2 per 100,000 compared to 1.5 per 100,000 for women.
In 2021, among all age groups, fentanyl was the drug with the highest overdose death rates. However, rates were highest among those aged 35 to 44 at 43.5 per 100,000 and those aged 25 to 34 at 40.8 per 100,000.
For Americans between ages 45 and 64, while the rates were highest for fentanyl, the rates were similar to deaths involving cocaine and methamphetamine.
Meanwhile, for those aged 24 younger and those aged 65 and older, death rates were highest for fentanyl but not significantly different from deaths due to methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and oxycodone.
Similarly, while fentanyl has the highest death rate across every racial/ethnic group, some groups have been affected by different drugs.
American Indians/Alaska Natives saw a fentanyl overdose death rate of 33.1 per 100,000 in 2021, but it was closely followed by methamphetamine at 27.4 per 100,000. Black Americans had a fentanyl death rate of 31.3 per 100,000 closely followed by a cocaine rate of 20.6 per 100,000.
Drug cartels have specifically targeted Native American reservations, leading to higher use of methamphetamine among this population than any other group, according to the Department of Justice. Additionally, Black Americans and African Americans have been disproportionately affected by use of crack cocaine.
“The fact that for American Indians/Alaskan Natives, it was fentanyl followed by meth and for non-Hispanic Black Americans and African Americans it was fentanyl followed by cocaine, that’s an important highlight,” Spencer said. “Within each group, the drug ranking varies slightly.”
Lin said this is evidence that even if fentanyl is now the primary drug of focus, the epidemic related to cocaine and meth has not disappeared.
“There are going to be different substances, different factors that affect different groups,” she said. “Unfortunately, we see death rates and overdose rates rise across all of these groups, because of the factor of fentanyl.”
Lin added, “It doesn’t mean that we’ve ever addressed the crack epidemic, I would say, and we also have a rising meth epidemic in the country as well and everything is just made worse [because] these are not just single substance that people are using anymore. They’re really oftentimes combined with fentanyl.”
(NEW YORK) — At least nine people are dead and seven others are wounded after a shooting at a school in Serbia’s capital on Wednesday, authorities said.
The suspect, who has been arrested, is a 14-year-old boy who allegedly took his father’s gun to school in Belgrade and opened fire, police said.
A security guard and eight students — all children — were among those killed, police said. Six other students and a teacher were injured and taken to a local hospital, according to police.
