(NEW YORK) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday that he doesn’t think Disney’s lawsuit against him “has merit.”
“I think it’s political,” DeSantis said during a press conference in Jerusalem as he visited Israel.
“Do you want one company to have their own fiefdom, or do you want everyone to live under the same laws?” he added. “The days of putting one company on a pedestal with no accountability are over in the state of Florida.”
Disney, the parent company of ABC News, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida on Wednesday against DeSantis and various state officials over a campaign the company alleges was “patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional.”
The lawsuit follows the state oversight board’s decision to void “publicly noticed and duly agreed development contracts which had laid the foundation for billions of Disney’s investment dollars and thousands of jobs,” according to the legal filing. The company’s lawsuit called the move “a targeted campaign of government retaliation — orchestrated at every step by Gov. DeSantis as punishment for Disney’s protected speech — now threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights.”
DeSantis, who is expected to launch a 2024 presidential campaign in the coming months, embarked on an international trade mission on Monday that will take him to Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He is leading a Florida delegation to Israel, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom to meet with government and business leaders.
The Florida governor has been at odds with Disney since the company publicly criticized a DeSantis-backed controversial state law that restricts content concerning sexual orientation and gender identity in grades kindergarten through third grade. The Parental Rights in Education Law has been dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law who argue it paints LGBTQ topics as taboo or inappropriate. Meanwhile, supporters of the law say it allows parents to decide what their children can learn about certain subjects.
After DeSantis signed the bill into law in March 2022, Disney released a statement citing concerns of discrimination, saying the legislation “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law.” DeSantis has since aimed to take control over Disney’s special tax district that allows the Florida theme park and resort to govern itself, according to the company’s lawsuit. The Florida Legislature voted to dissolve the former governing board of the district and create a DeSantis-appointed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District in its place. The board voided a contract made before the CFTOD was in place, according to the lawsuit.
(NEW YORK) — Some women are willing to go the distance to preserve fertility — and make it more affordable.
After the age of 30, a woman’s fertility decreases every year, leading some women to turn to fertility preservation treatments, such as egg freezing, so they can delay starting a family while ensuring their chances of having one.
Egg freezing for fertility preservation is a process that has been around since the late 1990s, according to the National Institute of Health. The technique, which includes retrieving and subsequently freezing a woman’s viable eggs, was first used for young women with cancer who are at risk of infertility as a result of their treatment.
Now, it’s being offered to all women who are typically 38 and younger “who want to preserve the option of having healthy, genetically related children at a later date,” according to the National Institutes of Health.
However, egg freezing comes at a cost.
In the U.S. broadly, among the 180 clinics listed in Freeze Health’s Compare Clinics tool, the average cost for one cycle of egg freezing is, on average, approximately $12,450. That price tag doesn’t even include multiple cycles or annual storage fees, which can range between $600 to $800.
The high cost drives some women, like Spring Inés Peña, to go abroad in search of an insurance policy for their fertility that won’t break the bank.
“I figured, you know, Spain might be a nice little European relaxed vacation where I can go and do this very important procedure,” Peña told ABC News’ Good Morning America.
Peña, a 36-year-old from Los Angeles, traveled to Barcelona for her egg-freezing procedure. In Europe, the median cost of egg freezing is about 40% of the cost in the U.S. and in Spain, it’s even less expensive, according to data from Freeze Health.
Jennifer Lannon, the co-founder of Freeze Health, a free resource that allows women to compare clinics, said the price matters.
“It naturally makes sense that a lot of women have been catching on to this and whether they have friends or family abroad, they’re traveling for work, or they just want to take a trip somewhere else and save some money. They’re choosing to go to a cheaper location,” Lannon said.
According to Lannon, 1,000 women per month will click on Freeze Health’s guide to international egg freezing. She said the most popular countries are Mexico and Spain.
“If you’re looking to stay close to the U.S. and perhaps in the same time zone, maybe for work purposes, then Mexico tends to be the best option,” Lannon said. “If you’re looking to travel to Europe, then Spain, and specifically Barcelona, tends to be one of the hottest cities with the most options, the most reasonable prices, and also just does the most volume of egg freezing.”
The number of assisted reproductive technology cycles performed using embryos from frozen patient eggs or embryos increased from 32,180 in 2011 to 129,692 in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
National data on success rates are scarce. One study found that the frozen egg live-birth rate is around 42%.
“It’s not a panacea. It is not a guarantee — the largest challenge is after the egg is frozen. It’s supposed to be a backup, that’s all it’s designed for,” said Dr. Karenne Fru, the medical director at OMA Fertility.
According to the CDC, there are several things to consider when opting for medical tourism. The risk of infectious disease and antibiotic resistance is higher in some countries and continuity of care may be challenging if you need follow-up care in the U.S. Importantly, you should be sure to look into your provider. Some countries’ requirements for maintaining licensure, credentialing and accreditation may be less than what would be required in the United States.
Aside from the physical challenges, freezing eggs abroad has its downsides, including language barriers. Ultimately, for Peña, the vacation and two cycles of egg freezing were worth the trip abroad.
“So with the vacation included and two cycles, since I did end up doing two, that ended up being what it would have cost for me to do it here in L.A., one cycle with no European vacation included,” she said. “So it was about half price.”
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. economy slowed at the start of 2023, suggesting that an aggressive series of interest rate hikes at the Federal Reserve has cooled business activity even as the stock and job markets have made gains.
U.S. gross domestic product grew by a 1.1% annualized rate over the three months ending in March, according to government data released Thursday. The data marked a slowdown from 2.6% growth in the previous quarter. In turn, that performance indicated a downshift from 3.2% growth in the previous quarter.
Consumer spending, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of the U.S. economy, surged over the first three months of this year, said the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a government agency.
Government spending at the federal and local level also fueled the economic growth, the agency said.
However, the slowdown from the previous quarter resulted from a decline in business investment and residential fixed investment, which includes money spent on home buying and construction, the data showed.
The data offers a snapshot of economic activity over a period that brought robust hiring but also a banking meltdown on a scale last seen in the 2008 financial crisis.
The widely anticipated measure arrives at a sensitive moment for the U.S. economy.
Over the last year, the Fed has imposed rate hikes last seen in the 1980s.
The policy aims to slash inflation, but risks slowing the economy and bringing about a recession.
So far, the approach has succeeded in cooling price hikes, but fallen short of the Fed’s goal.
Consumer prices rose 5% last month compared to a year ago, extending a months-long slowdown of price increases, but leaving inflation more than double the target rate of 2%.
Meanwhile, a variety of measures suggest that economic performance remains robust, but has slowed in recent months.
The U.S. added 236,000 jobs in March, which marks strong job growth, but a reduction from an average of 334,000 jobs added each month over the previous six months, according to government data released last week.
Meanwhile, U.S. retail sales fell moderately in February but remained solid, suggesting that households still retain some pandemic-era savings.
Still, the economy remains under threat of a recession.
Fed economists said in March that they anticipate a “mild” recession later this year, escalating a previous forecast, central bank meeting minutes showed.
Sixty-five percent of economists expect a recession within the next year, according to a Bloomberg survey last month.
Many observers define a recession through the shorthand metric of two consecutive quarters of decline in inflation-adjusted GDP.
The National Bureau of Economic Research, or NBER, a research organization seen as an authority on measuring economic performance, uses a more complicated definition that takes into account several indicators that must convey “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months,” the group says.
This definition determines whether a downturn is formally designated as a recession, since the NBER is the official arbiter on the subject.
(NEW YORK) — On the heels of Bed Bath and Beyond filing for bankruptcy and planning to close all of its stores, The Container Store has good news for customers with excess blue coupons.
Through the end of May, The Container Store will accept the commonly seen coupons from its home organization competitor.
On Wednesday, the Coppell, Texas-based company announced it would offer a 20% discount off any single item through May 31 “for customers who bring a competitor’s blue coupon to any store location.”
After the bankruptcy news, Bed Bath & Beyond said it would no longer accept coupons after Wednesday.
In a tweet, The Container Store also mentioned its “blue coupon” offer along with a wink-face emoji as a nod to the reference.
So. Much. NEW. Bring in a blue coupon 😉 to receive 20% off a single item and experience our vast array of NEW products for college. Terms and conditions apply. We’re here for you. Welcome to the organization. #TheContainerStorepic.twitter.com/o8kp8csZC8
In a statement to ABC News, a representative for Bed Bath & Beyond and buybuy BABY confirmed that “customers’ registry data is safe” and existing registries can still be viewed.
The statement continued, “We expect to partner with an alternative platform where customers will be able to transfer their data and complete their registry. No new registries will be created. We are focused on providing updates as quickly as practicable and are working to provide details in the coming days.”
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Ukrainian juvenile prosecutors have opened more than 100 criminal proceedings for what they describe as illegal transfers of Ukrainian kids to Russian-occupied territories, their further deportation to Russia and Belarus, and illegal adoption by Russian citizens, officials in the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office told ABC News.
All the evidence collected by the Ukrainian investigators is expected to contribute to the International Criminal Court’s case against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, a Russian official.
The ICC’s case includes public documents, including Lvova-Belova’s Telegram communication, as well as Putin’s decree dated May 30, 2022, which was cited in the report of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry for Ukraine. Johann Soufi, senior international prosecutor in Ukraine, told ABC News that Ukrainian authorities are expected to provide additional evidence in the form of victims’ testimonies, for example the children or their parents, to the prosecutor of the ICC.
“It’s possible that the arrest warrant for Putin would not have been issued without this type of direct evidence,” he said. “First, the ICC first needs to establish the crimes. The decree that Putin signed and the fact he and Lvova-Belova were public about the adoptions just helped to establish their liability for the crimes.”
Multiple testimonies were collected by the Ukrainian prosecutors from many of the 362 children, who were kidnapped by the Russians and so far returned to Ukraine. More than 19,000 children have been illegally deported since the war began, according to the Ukrainian prosecutors.
Artem Gutorov, 16, who lives in the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, told ABC News he was actually forced to leave by Russian soldiers. In early September he went to his school in the nearby village to collect the documents because the village was occupied by the Russians and Artem didn’t want to study there anymore. He was unable to come home because the return bus was canceled, he said. So he spent the night at school.
“The next day Russian soldiers, armed and uniformed, came in and told us they were allegedly evacuating us because the Ukrainian army was advancing,” Artem later said.
He added, “I wanted to escape through the backyard but I was afraid they might just shoot me. So I had to get in the truck with them. It was so scary.”
Artem’s mom, Natalia, said she believes Russian troops used children “as a shield” while retreating during the counteroffensive. She heard from her son a month after he left, when he and 13 other kids were eventually brought to a school in the occupied Perevalsk, Lugansk oblast.
“I almost went crazy then. It was a bit relieving to get his message on the phone, at least I knew he was alive. But I had no idea how to bring him back and was ready to walk by foot wherever I had to,” she cried said. “When I finally came through Belarus and Russia to that village my son was already registered as an orphan.”
Artem said he and other kids were told they would be “evacuated” to Rostov-on-Don, a Russian port city near the border, and sent to foster families. That never happened but it eventually took his mom half a year to bring back her child.
Vitaliy Vertash, 16, was one of those who were taken from the then-occupied Beryslav in the Kherson region to Russian summer camps in Crimea under the guise of a vacation and safe education.
“The director of the camp, Ukrainian national who in fact is a big fan of Russia, gave us just one day to pack Vitaliy’s bag to go to the camp, but when after three weeks I started asking her where my son is and when he is coming back, she avoided me, lied and never helped to bring him back,” Vitaliy’s mom, Inna, said. “So he was actually kidnapped and I returned him only in half a year.”
Vitaliy told ABC an even more harrowing tale.
He said they spent most of the time in the Mriya camp near Evpatoria in Crimea where not only was it cold there and no normal food, but the kids were forced to work, were beaten and were “re-educated.”
“We had special classes where we were told by the teachers that Russia is great and will win the war soon and Ukrainians are terrorists”, Vitaliy recalled. “When one of the seniors in the camp saw a small Ukrainian flag near my bed he tore it down and burnt it. And when I argued with him, he put me and my friend Tanya in a closed room for four days. It was like a prison.”
His friend was held there longer and later showed Vitaliy his bruises, saying he was beaten and even threatened to be taken to the Russian army for punishment.
“It was all so scary. We wanted to escape but were arrested by the police in the city,” he said.
After Vitaliy returned to Ukraine he told the Ukrainian investigators about everything that happened. The man in the camp who abused the kids was identified by Vitaliy and later by journalists as a former Ukrainian policeman who was suspected of killing protesters in Kyiv during the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 and had escaped to Russia.
Kids like Vitaliy and Artem have been reunited with their parents thanks to the Ukrainian authorities and Save Ukraine, a nongovernmental organization run by former Ukrainian children’s ombudsman Mykola Kuleba.
“We created a unique model of the organization that allows us to return deported kids, and we have done it 5 times already,” he told ABC. “But we are never 100% sure we will succeed because although we are already experienced, you can never know what might happen to the moms in Russia when they go to take their kids. They spent hours at the FSB office on the border and it’s always like a Russian roulette. But eventually we bring the witnesses of a war crime.”
The alleged beating or mistreating of the children can be part of the case of the ICC too, Johann Soufi told ABC.
“Deportation or forcible transfer is a specific crime: It consists in the expulsion or other forms of coercion from the area in which they are lawfully present. So, the abuse could constitute evidence of this coercion — this will contradict Russia’s claims that the children were sent to Russia with the consent of the kids, their caregivers or local authorities,” he said.
It’s the first time the ICC opened the case for the mass deportation of children, Soufi, the Ukrainian prosecutor, said.
“Until now, the prosecutor has been very careful in charging this as a war crime only, and not as a crime against humanity for example,” he said.
To facilitate the process of returning children, Ukraine intends to form an international coalition. According to Vice Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, a pool of international leaders is being formed, already supported by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
(WASHINGTON) — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will address a joint meeting of Congress Thursday as he continues a weeklong state visit to Washington.
Yoon’s trip comes as the U.S. and South Korea mark the 70th anniversary of their alliance, forged in the aftermath of the Korean War, as they now face North Korean aggression and Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific region.
“This is really a very impressive moment for the relationship,” said Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The U.S. and South Korea have evolved to be working on so many different issue areas, and the scope of the relationship has broadened out beyond the peninsula to become more regional and global.”
Yoon, a conservative elected in 2022, has repeatedly emphasized global freedom since taking office. Snyder said that theme could emerge again in his address to U.S. lawmakers.
President Joe Biden and Yoon held a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office on Wednesday, during which they discussed working together to deter North Korea’s nuclear threats, promote peace in the Taiwan straits, stand with Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion and more.
Appearing side-by-side after at a joint press conference, both leaders hailed the importance and strength of the alliance.
“Our relationship has been a great success story,” Biden said. “An alliance formed in war, and it’s flourished in peace. Seemingly every day we’ve launched new areas of cooperation, all areas that matter most to our future.”
But the trip isn’t without diplomatic and economic tension.
A recent leak of classified U.S. intelligence documents seemingly showed Washington was spying on South Korea’s leadership. Yoon played down the spying suggestion during Wednesday’s press conference, stating the two nations are in communication and are “sharing necessary information” as the U.S. investigation into documents’ disclosure plays out.
Some South Korean officials have expressed concern about two major pieces of American legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips and Science Act — stating provisions of the laws discriminate against Korean businesses.
Biden, pressed on whether the Chips Act was damaging the key ally, defended the law as a “win-win.”
“Two significant South Korean companies decided they were going to invest billions of dollars in chip manufacturing in the United States,” he said. “It wasn’t designed to hurt China, it was designed to, so we didn’t have to worry about whether or not we had access to semiconductors.”
Yoon said the U.S. and South Korea have agreed to coordinate so that the laws “can further strengthen supply chain cooperations between the two countries in advanced technology.”
Meanwhile, Yoon has faced pressure from the U.S. and NATO to provide artillery to Ukraine as it faces depleted stocks. The leaked U.S. documents included descriptions of South Korea’s National Security Council’s internal discussions about the U.S. request to provide artillery ammunition to Ukraine.
South Korea’s longstanding policy has been not to provide lethal weapons to countries at war.
Yoon said Wednesday that the U.S. and South Korea “agreed to continue our cooperation and efforts, alongside the international community, to support Ukraine” but made no mention of artillery.
A hot-mic moment last year also caught Yoon insulting U.S. members of Congress as “idiots” if they didn’t approve funding to the Global Fund, an organization dedicated to fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
(NEW YORK) — If you’re looking to buy a home, new federal rules may impact how much you pay for a mortgage.
Beginning May 1, upfront fees for loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be adjusted because of changes in the Loan Level Price Adjustments (LLPAs). Those fees are based on things including the borrower’s credit score, size of the down payment, type of home and more. In some cases, people with better credit scores may pay more in fees, while those with lower credit scores will pay less.
Here’s what to know about the new federal rules:
Why is this happening?
The rule changes are part of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) efforts to provide “equitable and sustainable access to homeownership” and to strengthen capital at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
“The [Biden] administration’s stated purpose behind making these changes is to help make it easier for borrowers who have historically been disadvantaged and have had a hard time accessing credit,” Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale told ABC News.
Who does it impact?
The new rules only apply to loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and impact any new or refinanced home loan signed May 1 or later. According to Urban Institute, Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s share of the mortgage market collectively comprised nearly 60% of all new mortgages during the pandemic in 2020. That’s compared with 42% in 2019.
Homebuyers who put down a larger payment of 15% to 20% could see a bigger increase in mortgage fees, but Bankrate.com mortgage analyst Jeff Ostrowski said that shouldn’t change a borrower’s thought process.
“The new matrix everyone is trying to decipher is only part of the equation,” Ostrowski told ABC News. “The other part is mortgage insurance: Borrowers who put less than 20% down have to pay mortgage insurance that more than offsets the lower upfront fee. So there’s no financial advantage to the borrower to put down less than 20%.”
How will it work?
“The new fees are slightly more expensive for some borrowers with good credit, and slightly less expensive for some borrowers with less-than-perfect credit,” Ostrowski told ABC News.
If you have a stellar credit score, you’ll still pay less than if you have a weak one, but the penalty for having a lower credit score will now be smaller than it was on May 1.
“Because of these changes, the advantage of having a higher credit score, or making a larger down payment, is not as big as it used to be,” Hale said.
For example, beginning May 1, a buyer with a good credit score of 750 who puts down 25% on a $400,000 home would now pay 0.375% in fees on a 30-year loan, or $1,125, compared to 0.250%, or $750, under the previous fee rules.
Meanwhile, a buyer with a credit score of 650 putting a 25% down payment on a $400,000 home would now pay 1.5% in fees on a 30-year loan, or $4,500. That compares with 2.75%, or $8,250, under the previous rules.
According to the FHFA, the new rules will redistribute funds to reduce the interest rate paid by less qualified buyers.
Is this a good thing?
It depends on who you ask. Critics say the new rules penalize people with good credit, using them to subsidize loans of riskier borrowers.
“It’s another subsidy to try to buy votes,” former Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli told ABC News.
The new mortgage fee rules do nothing to address ongoing inventory challenges in the housing market, which is putting upward pressure on home prices. The median U.S. home price in March was $400,528, according to the realty broker Redfin.
Some housing experts fear the new rules will encourage banks to lend to borrowers who perhaps shouldn’t qualify for a mortgage in the first place. Lending to unqualified buyers is what led to the financial crisis of 2008; banks gave too many unqualified buyers home loans that they ultimately couldn’t pay back.
“This confusing approach won’t work and, more importantly, couldn’t come at a worse time for an industry struggling to get back on its feet after these past 12 months,” David Stevens, a former commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration during the Obama administration, wrote in a social media post. “To do this at the onset of the spring market is almost offensive to the market, consumers and lenders.”
Even with the changes, Ostrowski said that overall, mortgage fees continue to favor borrowers with good credit.
“You still get a much better deal with a strong credit score,” he said. “The fee reductions don’t apply to borrowers with credit scores of less than 680 — so tanking your credit score in hopes of scoring a better deal would backfire.”
(WASHINGTON) — After saving up for three years during which they sometimes worked 80 hours a week, Tawanda Hall and her husband purchased their dream home in the suburbs of Detroit in 2010. The five-bedroom house was supposed to be their “forever home” — it had enough room for their family, and the location offered good schools in the area for Hall’s two kids.
“It was almost like a dream,” Tawanda Hall told ABC News Senior National Correspondent Steve Osunsami. “It was a brick home. It had a big yard, open space, a lot of different opportunities around the corner from school, around the corner from the rec center and the library.”
The house was purchased for $67,000, according to public records. Hall told ABC News that after they moved in, she and her husband put in a lot of money to renovate the home.
“Every time we got some money here or there, we just put it in,” Hall said. “I don’t even know where we got half the money. I was working, he was working, and it was coming together.”
“I would say,” Hall said, “we finally got it together right when we lost it.”
Property seizure
Around 2016, the Halls encountered financial hurdles and fell behind on their property taxes. Despite their efforts to chip away at their back taxes with a payment plan they set up with Oakland County, Michigan, they received an eviction notice for missing tax payments.
At the time, the Halls owed $22,654 in property taxes, including interest and penalties. They lost their home when the local county foreclosed on it in early 2018.
But the nightmare for the Halls didn’t end there.
In the eight months that followed, the property went through a maze of ownership — from Oakland County to the city of Southfield and then to a for-profit organization, the Southfield Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, which says in court documents that they rehabbed the property then sold it in 2020 for $308,000.
That amount was more than four times what the Halls had paid for the house. The difference between what the home sold for and the taxes the Halls owed on it was more than $285,000.
The Halls, however, received nothing from the sale.
Property seizures like Halls’ — where the government takes property to pay an outstanding tax debt, and then someone other than the homeowner keeps more money than the taxes that were owed — is legal and happening in 11 states and Washington, D.C., according to Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit public interest organization.
According to the group, from 2014 to 2021, homeowners altogether lost more than $860 million in the 8,950 homes that localities and private investors foreclosed on then resold for more money than what was owed in taxes.
Kenson Siver, the mayor of the city of Southfield — which was involved in the handling of the Halls’ home — told ABC News in a statement that he is supportive of the Southfield Neighborhood Revitalization initiative after “witnessing devastation to the neighborhoods after banks sold properties for below market value.” He said that people who can’t afford their homes face tax foreclosure by the county.
Officials from Oakland County and the Southfield Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative did not respond to a request for comment by ABC News.
Enter the Supreme Court
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard the case of Geraldine Tyler, a 94-year-old widow from Minnesota who accrued a tax debt of $2,300 that ballooned to $15,000 with interest, fees and other penalties. Hennepin County seized Tyler’s home and sold it one year later for $40,000 without returning the surplus of the sale.
“It’s just like if you owed me $14 and I reached in your wallet and I took everything, no matter how much was in your wallet,” said Christina Martin, a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation who is representing Tyler. “When the government takes home equity from someone like Tawanda and takes more than it’s owed … it’s unfair and it’s unconstitutional and I really hope the Supreme Court agrees.”
The justices will decide whether seizures like Tyler’s violate the “Takings Clause” of the constitution’s Fifth Amendment, which says that “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Ralph Clifford, a law professor at the University of Massachusetts who has studied the practice, said the issue comes down to two questions.
“What they’re going to talk about at the Supreme Court are two things: One, if you take somebody’s property, you have to pay them a fair value; and two, the government cannot take more than it’s owed,” said Clifford.
“I think the Due Process clause requires the government to give back to the taxpayer anything that is not owed,” Clifford said. “The tax debt, yes; interest on the tax debt, OK. But if you have a $30,000 debt and you’ve taken a $300,000 property, take your $30,000 and give $270,000 back to the property owner. Because that is theirs, it’s not yours.”
In a statement to ABC News, Hennepin County officials said that in Minnesota’s property tax collection system, when someone abandons their property by not paying property taxes, “title to the property transfers to the state.”
“When properties are sold, net proceeds offset the loss to school districts, cities, and the county of uncollected property taxes,” said Hennepin County Assistant County Administrator Dan Rogan in the statement.
“Forfeiture is not a source of profit” for the county, Rogan said, adding that “factoring in all costs, Hennepin County’s (forfeiture) program does not manage to break even.”
Officials in municipalities like Hennepin County say they see forfeiture and resale as two separate steps. Per the law, they say that if you don’t pay your taxes, with proper notice and a chance to cure, you forfeit your property — period. Once you do, it’s no longer yours and state can do whatever it wants with it.
Courts have previously ruled in favor of municipalities because homeowners are given multiple opportunities to avoid foreclosure. In court filings, Oakland County, Michigan officials said they follow a “carefully reticulated, nearly three-year process that includes ample notice and multiple chances for the owner to pay the delinquent taxes.”
The Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has sided with government officials who argued that “nothing in the constitutions of the U.S. or Minnesota, nothing in any federal or state statue, and nothing in federal or state common law give the former owner of a piece of property that has been lawfully forfeited to the state and then sold to pay delinquent taxes a right to any surplus.”
And those who support the practice say that unpaid taxes lead to abandoned homes and distressed neighborhoods, and that financial incentives are needed to attract people who want to come in and revitalize neighborhoods.
But Martin told ABC News the incentives are part of the problem.
“[This] happens because these legislatures have passed these laws that have these built-in perverse incentives that make it profitable for counties to foreclose on people,” Martin said.
She added that she is not challenging the government’s power to collect taxes and add on interest, penalties and other costs.
“What we’re saying is, there’s a limit,” Martin told ABC News. “You don’t get to just take everything. What we’re saying is, you can seize the property, but when you sell it, you don’t get to take everything.”
“They sold it for $40,000,” Martin said of Tyler’s home. “They should take their $15,000 and be happy with that and give the remainder back to Ms. Tyler.”
A national issue
Across the country, local lawmakers have taken up the issue, with some introducing their own bills to ban the practice.
ABC News spoke with Massachusetts Sen. Mark Montigny, who introduced a bill in the state Senate that would protect homeowners’ equity in a tax foreclosure.
“The most important thing it does is it basically suggests that the homeowner has a remedy,” Montigny, who has been working to ban the practice in Massachusetts for years, said of the bill. “They have an ability to pay off and can continue to stay in their home. And if they are foreclosed upon, they won’t have their equity stolen.”
Over a 6.5-year period, at least 254 Massachusetts homeowners lost a collective $60 million in home equity to municipalities, according to Pacific Legal Foundation.
“It’s unconscionable,” Montigny said of the practice. “You can collect your attorney’s fees, your fees that you went through the foreclosure process, but you should not be able to steal the equity from people who are struggling.”
“[The law] absolutely allows the city to engage in this, to do an improper job of notice, to disrespect or at least be indifferent about the dignity of the homeowner,” said Montigny.
Martin and other experts told ABC News that the practice has resulted in local governments creating special loopholes to allow them to keep the forfeiture surplus — so long as the property is used for public purposes.
Clifford, the law professor, told ABC News that whenever profits are available, “corruption is a possibility.”
“Where there’s money to be made, people are going to come out of the woodwork to make that money,” Clifford said.
In the meantime, Hall is still wondering if she will ever see the surplus from the sale of her home.
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that the government violated Hall’s constitutional rights and that the government must pay compensation when it takes private property, Oakland County appealed the decision and filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing for the case to be dismissed.
Hall says she felt she was protected because her home was mortgage-free and she was on a payment plan with the county.
“I wish I would have just made sure those taxes were paid,” Hall said. “Because I left a window for someone to come in and change my life.”
Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A popular drug currently approved to treat Type 2 diabetes could soon also be approved for weight loss.
Eli Lilly, the maker of the drug Mounjaro, said Thursday it expects the medication could be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for weight loss as early as the end of the year.
The company made the prediction on the timing of FDA approval as it announced top-line results of a Phase 3 study showing a nearly 16% overall weight loss over a 17-month period among people who have both Type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Prior studies among people with obesity without Type 2 diabetes have shown a weight loss within the range of 15% to 21%, depending on the dose of the medication given.
Eli Lilly is using the data from the Phase 3 study as part of its weight-loss approval request to the FDA. The company said Thursday it plans to complete the U.S. submission for the drug tirzepatide, sold under the brand name Mounjaro, in adults with obesity or overweight with weight-related comorbidities in the coming weeks.
Eli Lilly announced in October the FDA granted Fast Track designation to studying tirzepatide to treat obesity or excess weight with a secondary medical condition.
The FDA has not said when it would announce a decision about weight loss approval for tirzepatide.
Here are three questions answered about the medication:
1. How does Mounjaro work?
Mounjaro, approved by the FDA last year to treat Type 2 diabetes, is an injectable medication that patients take once per week.
Doctors will typically start out with a low dose of the injection and increase the dose after four weeks based on your body’s response.
The active ingredient in Mounjaro, tirzepatide, works by activating two naturally produced hormones in the body: glucagon-like peptide-1, known as GLP-1, and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, or GIP.
The combination is said to slow the emptying of the stomach, making people feel full longer, and suppress appetite by slowing hunger signals in the brain.
In Type 2 diabetes, Mounjaro is recommended to be used along with “diet and exercise to improve blood sugar,” according to its website.
Mounjaro cannot be given to patients with certain medical conditions, including medullary thyroid cancer, pancreatitis, or gallstones.
Side effects can include severe nausea and constipation.
Its safety has not yet been established in minors.
2. How does Mounjaro differ from other drugs like Ozempic?
Ozempic and Wegovy are made from a different compound, called semaglutide.
These drugs, called GLP-1 RAs, help people produce insulin and lower the amount of sugar in the blood.
The FDA approved Ozempic in 2017 as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes alongside diet and exercise if other medications cannot control blood sugar levels well enough. Although Ozempic is not explicitly approved for chronic weight management, it can be prescribed off-label and used for people who are obese.
Wegovy is essentially the same injectable drug prescribed at a higher dosage. The FDA has specifically approved Wegovy for patients with severe obesity, or who are overweight and have one or more weight-associated conditions like high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
3. What changes if Mounjaro is FDA-approved for weight loss?
Formal FDA approval of Mounjaro for weight loss would have implications for insurance reimbursement, meaning people prescribed the medication for weight loss would be better able to have it covered by insurance.
The out-of-pocket cost for a drug like Mounjaro can run as high as $1,400 for a one-month supply.
If the FDA approves Mounjaro for weight loss, it also means Eli Lilly would be able to explicitly advertise Mounjaro as a weight loss drug.
Nearly 42% of all adults in the U.S. qualify as obese, defined as having a body mass index at or above 30, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(WORCESTER, Mass.) — Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira is a flight risk who took calculated steps to thwart the investigation into his alleged leak of classified information, federal prosecutors argued in a new court filing Wednesday, as they prepare to tell a federal judge Teixeira “must remain detained.”
Teixeira, 21, is due in federal court in Worcester, Massachusetts, Thursday for a detention hearing after being charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and willful retention of classified documents. Teixeira has yet to enter a plea.
“In the first place, the Defendant poses a serious flight risk,” prosecutors said in the Wednesday filing. “He currently faces 25 years in prison — and potentially far more — and other serious consequences for his conduct; the evidence against him is substantial and mounting; the charged conduct would very obviously end his military career; and he accessed and may still have access to a trove of classified information that would be of tremendous value to hostile nation states that could offer him safe harbor and attempt to facilitate his escape from the United States.”
In the government’s filing, prosecutors claimed Teixeira took “a series of obstructive steps” intended to prevent investigators from understanding the scope of what he allegedly did.
“This includes instructions the Defendant gave to other online members of a social media platform (including to ‘delete all messages’ and ‘[i]f anyone comes looking, don’t tell them s***’), as well as the fact that following his arrest, authorities searched a dumpster at his residence and found a tablet, a laptop and an Xbox gaming console, all of which had been smashed,” the filing said.
Federal prosecutors expressed concern that it would be “all too easy” for Teixeira, if released on bail, “to further disseminate classified information,” creating what they called an “unacceptable risk” he would flee the country and “take refuge with a foreign adversary,” the document said.
The government also outlined in detail the reasons they believe Teixeira poses a danger to the public if allowed to be released from detention, pointing to the “virtual arsenal of weapons” he possessed at residences he occupied that are owned by his mother and father.
It included “bolt-action rifles, rifles, AR- and AK-style weapons, and a bazooka,” prosecutors said in the filing.
Further, the government flagged that as recently as July of last year, Teixeira allegedly used his government computer to search the terms “Ruby Ridge,” “Las Vegas shooting,” “Mandalay Bay shooting,” “Buffalo tops shooting” and “Uvalde,” according to the filing.
Though investigators acknowledged that they could be tied to Teixeira’s belief in conspiracy theories that the government knew of these mass shootings in advance, “the combination of these search terms, the Defendant’s violent statements on social media, and the Defendant’s arsenal of weapons is troubling,” they wrote in the filing Wednesday.
The filing comes as two leaders of the unit where the alleged leaker worked have been temporarily suspended by the Air Force while its investigation continues.
The two senior leaders are the commander of the 102nd Intelligence Support Squadron and the detachment commander overseeing administrative support for the squadron. With the suspension, they’ve also temporarily lost access to classified systems and information.
Earlier this month, the federal magistrate judge overseeing Teixeira’s case granted his request to delay the detention hearing that would have determined if the suspect should remain in federal custody. Teixeira sought to postpone the hearing so his attorneys could have more time to address arguments for keeping him in federal custody, according to a court filing.
