(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — When Sara Kruzan was 16 years old, she shot and killed the man who she says had abused her and trafficked her for sex since she was 13. Almost 30 years later, she has been pardoned by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In 1995, Kruzan was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder plus a four-year consecutive firearm enhancement after being tried as an adult. She later had her sentence commuted twice until she was released after almost two decades in prison.
Since then, Kruzan has become an advocate for policy reform, protecting sex trafficking victims and ending juvenile life without parole sentencing nationwide.
“Having experienced layers of trauma, I know there is deep value and appreciation in healing, and having the desire and courage to heal,” she wrote, according to the legal advocacy group Uncommon Law where she has worked as a parole justice advocate.
Newsom issued the pardon due to her work in advocacy and her journey toward healing.
“She has provided evidence that she is living an upright life and has demonstrated her fitness for restoration of civic rights and responsibilities,” Newsom said in a statement. “Ms. Kruzan committed a crime that took the life of the victim. Since then, Ms. Kruzan has transformed her life and dedicated herself to community service.”
A pardon does not expunge or erase a conviction, the governor’s office stated in a press release, and is intended to remove “counterproductive barriers to employment and public service, restore civic rights and responsibilities, and prevent unjust collateral consequences of conviction.”
It is also intended to correct unjust results in the legal system, according to the governor’s office, as well as address the health needs of incarcerated people.
Newsom said he has granted 16 other pardons, 15 commutations and one medical reprieve.
(LOS ANGELES) — Helen Jones has been searching for answers since her son died in 2009 while in custody at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles.
Jones said she was initially told by law enforcement that her 22-year-old son, John Horton, had died by suicide, but a forensic pathologist from the medical examiner’s office showed her that Horton’s medical report included evidence of physical trauma.
Jones filed a wrongful death lawsuit in 2015. The case was settled in 2016, and Jones was paid $2 million by Los Angeles County. She is currently trying to get a murder case reopened, according to her lawyer Dennis Wilson.
Horton’s autopsy report currently states suicide as well as “undetermined factors” for cause of death, following an additional investigation by the coroner performing the autopsy.
“He didn’t die from natural causes,” Jones told ABC News Prime’s Morgan Norwood. “He didn’t take his own life. His life was stolen.”
The death of George Floyd in May 2020, which was eventually ruled a homicide, has cast the profession of medical examiners into the spotlight as differing autopsy reports and allegations of racial bias prompted a prolonged debate among members of the profession.
Researchers say there are long-standing flaws in the “science of death,” that disproportionately impact Black and Latinx inmates.
In a report published earlier last month by two labs at UCLA, the Carceral Ecologies Lab and the BioCritical Studies Lab, researchers reviewed the autopsies in 59 cases of death in Los Angeles County jails between 2009 and 2019. Of those, 26 “natural death” cases that were reviewed, 65% were Black and 23% were Latinx.
They found that 85% of the “natural death” cases involved inmates with an alleged history of mental illness and more than half included evidence of “physical violence on the body.”
The alleged mental illness ranged from medical histories of depression or schizophrenia to officials noting that the inmate demonstrated mental confusion or aggressive behavior, according to lead researcher on the study Dr. Terence Keel.
The study, the researchers write, “shows that the majority of Black and Latinx men are not dying from “natural causes,” but from the actions of jail deputies and carceral staff.”
They draw this conclusion based on the presence of evidence of physical violence on the body, as well as the fact that the inmates’ alleged mental illness could have been a precipitating event or factor.
In John Horton’s case, it was the evidence of physical violence on his body that led his mother to file the lawsuit.
Yet another factor researchers assert is the intertwinement of law enforcement and forensic science.
The UCLA researchers found that law enforcement officials were present during the autopsies of 51 of the 59 cases they reviewed. (The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner disputed in a statement that it withheld other autopsies requested by the researchers.)
“These are either detectives from the sheriff’s department or officers themselves that are in the room during the effort to actually do the autopsy and we see this as a conflict of interest,” Keel told ABC News.
The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner also disputed this allegation in their statement, writing that “the allegation that DMEC and its personnel are unduly influenced by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is false.”
“The DMEC is separate from any law enforcement agency in the county and exercises its own independent judgment when conducting death investigations and concluding the cause and manner of death without any influence from other agencies.”
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement to ABC News that “LASD does not make determinations on manner and cause of death but does conduct extensive internal inquiries into every death which happens within one of its jail facilities.”
Los Angeles is one of 10 counties in California in which the coroner’s office and sheriff’s office are separate. A new bill waiting to be considered by the California State Senate would separate the medical examiner’s office from the sheriff’s office in the remaining 48 counties.
“The best system of death investigation is one in which medical examiners and coroners are independent from law enforcement,” Dr. Kathryn Pinneri, the president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, told ABC News.”I personally would support the separation of medical examiners/coroners from law enforcement in any jurisdiction.”
Another bill, AB-2761, waiting to be considered by the California State Senate would require a death certificate to state whether the person died in law enforcement custody and whether it was at the hands of law enforcement officials.
“California is one of the few states that allow the coroner’s duties to be combined with the sheriff’s duties,” the fact sheet for AB-2761 states. “This presents a potential conflict of interest, particularly when a coroner is tasked with investigating a death that occurred at the hands of law enforcement in custody.”
A study released last year in the scientific journal The Lancet found that 55% of fatal encounters with the police between 1980 and 2018 were misclassified in the U.S. National Vital Statistics System. Misclassified in this context means the cause of death was recorded incorrectly. The study cross-referenced the National Vital Statistics System with three crowd-sourced databases which record police violence.
The margins were noticeably higher in deaths of non-Hispanic Black people, with a misclassification rate of 59.5%.
“AB 2761 would ensure greater transparency in the recording of death when it occurs at the hands of public safety officials,” the bill’s fact-sheet states.
Some researchers have also found racial bias among medical examiners which may impact the results of autopsy reports.
A study published last year examined the question of racial bias in medical examiners by evaluating two sets of data. First, they looked at 10 years of death certificates for children under 12 in Nevada, in which the cause of death was “unnatural“ and characterized as either accidental or homicide. They found that forensic pathologists, which in some states are interchangeable with medical examiners, more frequently ruled in those cases that the cause of death was “homicide” versus “accident” in Black children compared to white children.
The researchers, who published the study in the peer-reviewed publication Journal of Forensic Sciences, also conducted an “experimental” survey of more than 100 medical examiners. They found that examiners, who were given identical medical information about a child’s death yet different contextual clues to their race, were five times more likely to rule the cause of death as a “homicide” versus an “accident” when told the child was African-American and that the primary caretaker was the mother’s boyfriend.
“Even highly trained professional scientists can be biased in their decisions” and the cognitive bias can emerge from context such as the race of the child, the researchers concluded from evaluating both the death certificate and experimental survey data.
(WASHINGTON) — Popular e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs, Inc. has been left in limbo after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it is temporarily pausing a ban on the company’s products.
The federal health agency announced Tuesday on Twitter that it was issuing an administrative stay because “there are scientific issues unique to the Juul application that warrant additional review.”
This means the ban of Juul’s products is temporarily suspended, not rescinded.
The order was initially issued on June 23 but was blocked one day later by a federal appeals court. The FDA’s stay will continue throughout the appeals process.
For Juul to keep its e-cigarettes and other products on store shelves, the manufacturer must show that its products benefit adult smokers — meaning helping them quit or reduce their use of traditional cigarettes — and are unlikely to have underage users addicted.
At the time the ban was issued, the FDA said Juul had provided the federal agency with insufficient and conflicting data about any potential health risks or that Juul products benefited public health.
Juul has previously stated it believes it submitted enough information to “address all issues raised by the agency.”
It’s unclear if Juul will be able — or be required — to submit any further data while the FDA conducts the additional review.
“With this administrative stay from the FDA now in place, we continue to offer our products to adult smokers while we pursue the Agency’s internal review process,” Joe Murillo, chief regulatory officer at Juul Labs, said in a statement to ABC News. “We remain confident in the quality and substance of our applications and believe that ultimately we will be able to demonstrate that our products do in fact meet the statutory standard of being appropriate for the protection of the public health.”
The statement continued, “We now look forward to re-engaging with the FDA on a science- and evidence-based process to pursue a marketing authorization for Juul products.”
Politicians and anti-tobacco advocates have accused the company of using flavors such as creme, mint and menthol — along with a sleek design resembling a USB flash drive — to market vaping to U.S. children and teenagers.
More than 2 million American middle and high school students used e-cigarettes in 2021 — with eight in 10 students saying they use flavored e-cigarettes, according to the FDA.
The 2020 National Youth Tobacco Survey found Juul was the most popular e-cigarette brand used by adolescents with 25.4% of high school e-cigarette users and 35.1% of middle school users saying Juul was their most used brand.
Nicotine exposure from e-cigarettes can hinder brain development in adolescents and young adults, which can continue into the mid-20s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Just one Juul pod contains as much nicotine as a pack of 20 traditional cigarettes, the manufacturer has said.
The CDC also says e-cigarettes can contain heavy metals and cancer-causing chemicals that can damage the lungs.
In 2009, Congress gave the FDA authority to regulate the manufacturing, distribution and marketing of tobacco products.
E-cigarette manufacturers, including Juul, were required to submit their products to the FDA to review by September 2020 but were able to sell products while the FDA review was under way.
(MOSS POINT, Miss.) — A 16-year-old boy is being hailed as a hero after he helped rescue four people when a car drove off a boat launch and into a Mississippi river.
The incident happened Sunday at around 2:30 a.m., when the car, which had three teenage girls inside, drove into the Pascagoula River in Moss Point, floated about 20 feet away from shore and started sinking, the Moss Point Police Department said in a statement.
“The driver of that vehicle stated she was following her GPS and did not realize she was going into the water,” police said.
Corion Evans, 16, said he immediately ran over, took off his shoes and shirt and went into the water when he saw the car sinking and heard the three occupants shouting for help.
“I was just like, ‘I can’t let none of these folks die. They need to get out the water,'” Evans, a Pascagoula High School student, told Biloxi, Mississippi, ABC affiliate WLOX. “So, I just started getting them. I wasn’t even thinking about nothing else.”
One of Evans’ friends also jumped in and helped get the girls to the top of their vehicle, according to WLOX.
“I was behind them trying to keep them above water and swim with them at the same time,” Evans told the station.
Along with Moss Point Police Officer Gary Mercer, who responded to the scene, Evans helped bring the three teens to shore.
At one point Mercer was bringing one person to shore “who began panicking and caused him to go under swallowing some water,” police said.
When Mercer started struggling in the water, Evans helped rescue him, too.
“I turned around. I see the police officer. He’s drowning. He’s going underwater, drowning, saying, ‘Help!'” Evans told WLOX. “So, I went over there. I went and I grabbed the police officer and I’m like swimming him back until I feel myself I can walk.”
The officer and three teens were taken to the hospital following the incident and were recovering, WLOX reported.
“The police department and I commend Mr. Evans’s bravery and selflessness he displayed by risking his own safety to help people in danger,” Moss Point Chief Brandon Ashley said in a statement. “If Mr. Evans had not assisted, it could have possibly turned out tragically instead of all occupants rescued safely.”
On Tuesday, Moss Point city officials presented Evans with a certificate of commendation for his heroism in rescuing the four people. They also recognized Mercer for his “bravery in the rescue.”
Evans’ mother expressed relief and spoke proudly of her son in the wake of the rescue.
“I’m glad nothing happened to him while he was trying to save other people’s lives,” Marquita Evans told WLOX. “I was really proud of Corion because he wasn’t just thinking about himself. He was trying to really get all those people out the water.”
Evans told WLOX he has been swimming since he was 3 years old and didn’t hesitate to jump in the river.
“Twenty-five yards out, so it was a lot of swimming. My legs were so tired after,” he told the station. “Anything could’ve been in that water, though. But I wasn’t thinking about it.”
(SAN FRANCISCO) — For decades, Judy and Ed Craine parked their car in the driveway in front of their San Francisco home. Parking in the Golden City can be tricky with its steep hills and busy streets, and the Craines say they were lucky to have a spot that’s all their own for the past 36 years.
That is, until they received a $1,542 fine for parking on their own property — with the threat of a $250-per-day fee if they didn’t get the car off their carpad.
The Craines told ABC-affiliate KGO-TV that the San Francisco Planning Department is enforcing a decades-old section of code that bans motor vehicles of all kinds from being parked on a carpad or setback in front of a house unless it’s accompanied by a garage or cover.
“I wrote them back saying I thought this was a mistake,” Judy Craine said.
Added Ed Craine: “To all of a sudden to be told you can’t use something that we could use for years, it’s startling. Inexplicable.”
The Craines believe the space has been used for parking since the house was built in 1910. So the planning department told the couple that the city would waive the fine if they could prove that the lot has historically been used for parking.
The Craines dug up a photo of their daughter from 34 years ago, where their car is just visible in the driveway — but officials said the photo wasn’t old enough.
Then, after a lot of Googling, they found a blurry aerial photo from 1938 that shows a car — or a possibly a horse-and-buggy — pulling into the driveway of the home. But the planning department says they never were shown this photo and will reconsider Craines’ parking plight.
“The 1938 aerial photo shown in ABC 7’s segment was never shared with the Department,” Daniel A. Sider, the chief of staff at the San Francisco Planning Department, told ABC News. “The first we learned of it was during Friday’s broadcast. To that end, we’re reopening the matter and hope to have more clarity in the coming days.”
The planning department was alerted to the Craines’ use of their driveway by an anonymous complaint that was lodged against the Craines and two of their neighbors, who were also tagged with the same violation.
Sider told ABC News that the anonymous request about their property was made last year, but was not enforced until the Craines sought to renew their permit to use the property for short-term rentals. The Municipal Code bans new permits until outstanding code enforcement issues on the property are resolved.
Sider previously told KGO that the code was enacted decades ago for aesthetic reasons.
“I recognize that the property owner is frustrated. I think I would feel the same way in their situation,” Sider said in an email. “But the Planning Code doesn’t allow for the City to grandfather illegal uses on account of their having flown below the radar for a length of time.”
The city has since closed the case against the Craines and threw out the fines after the couple agreed to no longer use the carpad. However, that may be under reconsideration if the 1938 aerial photo passes the test.
City officials told the Craines that the couple can build a cover for the carpad, or a garage, if they want to continue to park there.
(AKRON, Ohio) — Jayland Walker’s sister wants the world to know him as she did: a funny, kind brother who looked out for his family and had big goals for his future of investing and buying a home.
“It’s hard to just talk about somebody who you expect to live your life out with,” Jada Walker told “Good Morning America.”
Jada opened up about her relationship with Jayland in her first interview since the body camera footage of his death was released. She said her brother always made time to reach out and connect with her and their mother. On Sundays — “family day,” as Jada calls it — they would get together.
“If it ain’t a movie, we just listening to new music,” she said. “We both have our own lives, but we always made sure to check in with each other.”
Watch the full exclusive interview with Jada Walker, the sister of Jayland Walker, on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday, July 6, beginning at 7 a.m. ET.
Jayland Walker was unarmed when eight Ohio officers opened fire on him on June 27, fatally shooting him after a traffic stop turned into a pursuit.
Jada has yet to make sense of the events that unfolded, ending in her brother’s death. She has yet to look at the body camera footage of his death.
She says hearing sirens or seeing vehicles that look like Jayland’s silver Buick is triggering for her.
“I just want to know, what was the reason? Why you had to resort to him being gunned down in such a manner?” she said.
The release of body camera footage of his June 27 death has reopened wounds for Jada, who says she still doesn’t understand what went wrong.
“None of this is making sense to me,” Jada said.
Officers said they attempted to pull Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man, over for a traffic and equipment violation when he refused. It turned into a car chase, as police continued to pursue Jayland Walker.
Officials said the muzzle flash of a gun came from the driver’s side of Jayland Walker’s car, while officers in another video said they heard at least one shot being fired from his car. The lawyer representing the Walkers, Bobby DiCello, said his team is looking into these claims.
“There’s no video of him pointing the weapon out the window or out the door, and there’s no bullet holes in the car,” DiCello told “GMA.” “The conversation about whether there was a shot needs to happen. We’re not sure that there was a shot.”
According to body camera footage, Jayland Walker slowed down and exited the vehicle from the passenger side door, running away from officers. He was killed by a barrage of dozens of bullets as he was running, DiCello said. In total, eight officers fired at him several dozen times, according to the attorney.
He was unarmed when he was fatally shot. Police say they recovered a handgun with a separate loaded magazine and what appears to be a gold ring left on the driver’s seat of Jayland Walker’s car.
DiCello also said a preliminary autopsy report that his team reviewed found that the gun was initially recovered in the backseat.
“I need to know how the gun got in the front seat,” he said. “All nicely presented with the ring in the car. The cartridge pulled out and the bullets there. This looks like a staged picture.”
In a later statement on Wednesday, the legal team of Walker’s family clarified, saying it has no reason to believe that the initial report from the Summit County Medical Examiner’s Office “conflicts with the ongoing BCI [Bureau of Criminal Investigation] investigation or prior statements of the chief of police or the city of Akron.”
The State Attorney General’s Office and the Akron Police Department did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment on this allegation or the incident.
DiCello said a lack of dashcam footage from police vehicles has left many of the early parts of the exchange unclear, including the initial attempt at a traffic stop. DiCello said that Akron police do not use dashcams on their vehicles.
“They’re trying to turn this wonderful young man into a monster,” he said. “They’re trying to turn him into someone that he wasn’t. They’re trying to give him motives, and an intent to harm officers that he didn’t have.”
Jada said she grieves not just for Jayland, but for other Black men who are victims of police violence.
“Many black men who have been killed and many families who experience this … it’s really hard,” she told “GMA.” “I’ve been saying to myself: in time, it’ll get better. Just looking forward to the future and hoping that we get the right answers and out of answers, just getting justice for him as my main priority.”
(NEW YORK) — Amber Smith, the wife of country music star Granger Smith, is opening up about grief, living with loss and water safety three years after her son River died following a drowning accident.
In 2019, the Smith family were outside their home when River, who was 3 at the time, slipped through their home pool gate and went into the water. Even though he was pulled out of the pool shortly afterward, River had been deprived of oxygen for too long and later died.
Smith said in the years since, grief has been a “messy” yet “hopeful” journey for both her and her family.
“It’s looked like anger and severe sadness and frustration and confusion but it’s also looked like growing through it and seeing joy in my other children and seeing them thrive in school and bringing awareness to drowning prevention,” the mom of four told co-hosts Hayley Hubbard and Jessica Diamond on the Meaning Full Living podcast.
Even though their shared and individual grieving processes have been complicated and difficult experiences, Smith said she hasn’t shied away from speaking up about it and wants others who’ve lost children to know that they’re not alone and that grief doesn’t have to look any specific way.
“So many times, it was not pretty … sobbing tears, screaming in my car, punching my steering wheel, sitting by his bed, holding his blanket, crying until nothing else came out. That’s where I was and that’s what’s real and I think people don’t talk about that,” said Smith, who has continued to share snippets of her family life on social media since River’s death.
“I was just trying to show the realness of pain and grief and it’s not easy and it’s OK to feel those emotions … but you just can’t stay there, you can’t stay stuck in that place,” she added.
It’s a message Smith has been conscious about teaching her older children as well. Lincoln, now 8, and London, 10, both witnessed their younger brother’s accident.
“We had to be very honest from the very beginning,” Smith said. “The nurses said you have to be very honest. Kids are resilient and they’re going to know if you’re sugarcoating things so we just went home with that intention of being very honest … We said, ‘River was without oxygen for too long. They did everything that they could but Bubbie died.'”
Smith said she and her husband decided to put their children in play therapy to help them cope with their grief but they also made an effort to keep River’s memory alive, talking about him together as a family, keeping pictures of him displayed at home and not hiding their own grieving from their children.
“We just let them process their emotions and we have continually told them that whatever they’re feeling … it’s OK,” she said.
After River’s death, the Smith family welcomed another child, a son named Maverick. Smith said she knew early on that she wanted to make sure Maverick got formal water safety lessons.
One way Smith has been able to turn her family’s tragedy into meaningful purpose is to advocate for water safety, and she’s been spreading the word through her social media platforms.
Water safety tips
Smith shared multiple safe swimming tips on Instagram, many of which echo the advice of water safety organizations like the ZAC Foundation, which was founded in 2008 by Karen and Brian Cohn, whose son Zachary also died in a drowning accident in 2007.
Below are some water safety tips parents should know, from the ZAC Foundation:
Keep your eyes on your kids. If your child doesn’t know how to swim, be sure they’re at arm’s length any time they are in or around water.
Enroll children in swimming lessons.
Ensure there is four-sided fencing around backyard pools with self-closing, self-latching gates.
Be sure there are alarms on doors and windows leading out to the pool area.
Become your kids’ first line of defense and learn how to perform CPR.
Remove pool toys when not in use as children can be attracted to them.
Empty the water from inflatable pools and buckets when not in use.
Wear and have your children wear Coast Guard-approved life jackets in the water.
If kids are wearing life jackets and or “puddle jumpers” in the water, talk to them first about what it feels like to be in the water without a life jacket on.
Talk to children to make sure they don’t play in water areas without adult supervision. Make sure kids never go into the water without permission. Only swim where there are lifeguards supervising.
Check flag warnings for water conditions and avoid getting into the water if conditions are unsafe.
Create a water safety plan for you and your family, just like you would for a fire safety plan.
Keep a phone nearby in case someone needs to call 911.
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Democrats have reached agreement on a key portion of a revised domestic policy bill, once known as Build Back Better, which would allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Democrats have worked for years to give Medicare this power, always falling short in the face of GOP opposition, but this time they hope to move it forward as part of a broader, as-yet-unfinished economic package, anxious to provide relief to voters buffeted to tackle sky-high inflation and a possible recession.
Since centrist Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia abruptly scuttled President Joe Biden’s signature domestic agenda proposal last December over fears of rising inflation — surprising the White House and his party by announcing his decision on Fox News — he has been working intensely behind the scenes with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on a smaller bill that would still advance under special rules that require a mere simple majority — or in this case just Democratic votes — for final passage, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking an expected tie.
“Senator Manchin has long advocated for proposals that would lower prescription drug costs for seniors and his support for this proposal has never been in question. He’s glad that all 50 democrats agree,” Manchin spokeswoman Samantha Runyon told ABC News of the deal, first reported by the Washington Post.
Republicans have kept up a united front against the legislation, branding it Democratic socialism and claiming the broader legislation — originally carrying a $2.2 trillion price tag but is expected to be dramatically reduced in the revised version — would only exacerbate inflation.
The broader economic bill still has a long way to go and is not expected to be finalized for weeks, according to two Democratic aides, but this deal announced Wednesday was submitted to the Senate’s rules-keeper, the parliamentarian, for her to begin the lengthy and detailed process of ensuring the measure fits within the strictures of the expedited process Democrats intend to employ, called “reconciliation,” according to a source familiar with the matter.
The move by Sen. Schumer “demonstrates major progress and shows leadership’s commitment to trying to move forward with a bill on the floor as early as next month,” the source told ABC News.
The current deal, according to a summary of the provisions obtained by ABC News, would allow Medicare to begin negotiating the cost of certain prescription drugs next year; for the first time cap Medicare recipients’ out of pocket costs at $2,000 annually while offering premium assistance to more low income seniors; and penalize drug manufacturers that raise the cost of drugs higher than inflation by requiring companies pay a rebate back to seniors for those higher prices.
All vaccines would be available for free to seniors under the plan.
Also for the first time, Democrats — wary of a GOP administration not implementing this policy — plan to close what they call the “rogue HHS secretary loophole.” The aim of the provision, according to the summary, would be to require the secretary “to negotiate the maximum number of drugs each year, to the extent that number of drugs qualify for negotiation.”
Democrats also intend to pressure drug companies to bring more generics to market. “The new negotiation framework aggressively negotiates lower and lower prices if a drug company continues to block generic competition,” the summary states.
The Medicare drug negotiation deal was lambasted Wednesday by the drug industry’s powerful lobbying arm that holds tremendous sway in Washington.
“The prescription drug bill released today went from bad to worse for patients. Democrats weakened protections for patient costs included in previous versions, while doubling down on sweeping government price-setting policies that will threaten patient access and future innovations. In fact, they are proposing to repeal a policy that would have directly lowered costs at the pharmacy for millions of seniors in favor of a new price-setting scheme. The bill also ignores the role of middlemen and insurers in determining patient out-of-pocket costs,” said Debra DeShong, PhRMA’s Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, in a statement, adding, “Patients deserve better.”
The two major remaining items expected to be in the broader economic package — energy and climate provisions, along with tax reforms — are still being negotiated by Schumer and Manchin.
The original $1.75 trillion legislation passed the House in November, but Manchin – expressing fears of rising inflation, abruptly bowed out of negotiations with President Biden and administration officials, shocking all concerned.
The centrist Democrat took to “Fox News Sunday” in December to announce his opposition.
Just days later, Biden, in an exclusive interview with ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir, said he still thought he could salvage his agenda.
“Well, look, I want to get as much as I can possibly get done, as much as we can possibly get done, and I still think we’ll be able to get a significant amount of what we need to get done, done,” Biden told Muir. “Particularly as the American people figure out what is in this legislation. It’s extremely consequential.”
Seven months later, Democrats have dramatically scaled back the original package which contained universal pre-kindergarten and significant funding for child care, paid family leave, education, health care and combating climate change.
The Medicare prescription drug negotiation component in that bill would have included up to 20 name-brand drugs by 2028. It is unclear if that would still be the case in the current deal.
Democrats involved in the matter dodged questions about timetables for passage of any final deal, cognizant of the fact that an intense focus on missed deadlines plagued the first iteration of the legislation.
But there is little doubt that the month-long August recess looms large with the focus afterward on funding the government by Oct. 1 and the crucial midterms that may very well alter the power structure in Congress. Democrats are also very wary of scaring off the mercurial Manchin with any pressure, despite knowing that a major economic package could potentially boost their political chances significantly.
(HIGHLAND PARK, Ill.) — The parents of a young child were two of the victims in the mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois.
Irina McCarthy, 35, and Kevin McCarthy, 37, were among the seven people killed during Monday’s massacre, Highland Park city manager Ghida Neukrich told ABC News. The couple leaves behind their 2-year-old son, Aiden McCarthy, who was separated from his parents during the shooting. The toddler was later reunited with his grandparents, according to Neukrich.
Dana and Gregory Ring, who survived the shooting, told ABC News how another parade-goer handed the little boy to them in the chaos after the rampage, with his parents nowhere in sight.
“Every time I tried to ask him what his name was, the response he gave to me was, ‘Mama, Dada come get me soon. Mommy’s car come to get me soon,'” Dana Ring recalled in an interview that aired Wednesday on “Good Morning America.”
Unsure of what to do, the Rings took Aiden to a nearby fire station.
“When we pulled in, the cops looked like they were getting ready for war,” Gregory Ring recounted during the interview. “I’ll never forget. I pulled up and I said, ‘This is not our kid. It’s not his blood, he’s OK. What should we do?'” And the cop said, ‘We can’t be babysitters now. Can you take care of him?’ We said, ‘Of course.'”
About two to three hours later, a detective who had the Rings’ telephone number contacted them about Aiden.
“He took the little boy to where families were being reunited and then he told me he was eventually reunited with his grandparents,” Gregory Ring said.
The suspected gunman — identified by authorities as 21-year-old Robert “Bobby” Crimo III — was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder on Tuesday.
Crimo allegedly fired more than 70 rounds from a high-powered rifle, similar to an AR-15, into the crowd at Monday’s parade, authorities said. At least 38 people were injured in the shooting.
Five victims died at the scene of the massacre on Monday, while one died at the hospital. A seventh victim died on Tuesday, authorities said.
If convicted, Crimo faces up to life in prison without parole.
Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images, FILE
(NEW YORK) — As the world scrambles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit future global warming, more attention has turned to one of the country’s oldest industries as one of the solutions – mining.
Today’s conversation around mining is about the minerals and metals that power almost all electronics, especially the critical batteries in our laptops, smartphones, and electric vehicles.
As the need for forms of energy that rely on batteries and electric vehicles grows, the world will need more and more materials like lithium to make enough batteries to keep up.
Reed Blakemore, deputy director of the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, said the clean energy technology that helps fight climate change rely on a lot of minerals, metals, and other raw materials.
“What we like to typically say, is while we’re making this transition from an energy system that was based in hydrocarbons like oil and gas, that transition is actually moving towards a fairly mineral intensive future, one which is going to require significant amounts of cobalt, lithium, rare earth elements, nickel, copper, a whole range of different materials that’ll make our climate goals happen,” Blakemore told ABC News.
President Joe Biden has taken steps to increase mining and processing of these “critical minerals” in the United States and even invoked the Defense Production Act to make more resources available for the government to support these projects.
But some Native American tribes and conservation groups say harming the environment through more mining is a step backward in the fight against climate change, and could create irreversible harm to ecosystems that need to be protected.
As the country pushes to expand this type of mining in the U.S., here’s a breakdown of what you need to know to follow this debate.
What are critical minerals?
Critical minerals are 50 minerals that the federal government considers critical to the U.S. economy or national security, identified by the U.S. Geological Survey every year.
The materials on the list are needed to produce weapons for the military, clean energy technology to combat climate change, or other uses like semiconductor chips that could significantly disrupt the economy in the event of a shortage.
The list includes materials needed to produce the rechargeable batteries that power electronics and electric vehicles, such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel.
Why is this important?
The United Nations’ climate panel and experts from around the world say reducing greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions as rapidly as possible is the best way to prevent more damaging impacts from rising temperatures due to climate change.
One of the biggest ways to reduce emissions is to transition to forms of energy that don’t burn fossil fuels like solar, wind, and hydropower. It also means trying to get Americans to switch to electric vehicles powered by that cleaner energy.
But those clean energy technologies require a lot of new infrastructure, including increasing production of electric vehicles and the systems to charge them, and the world doesn’t currently have enough of the raw materials to meet the growing demand.
Why are we talking about these minerals now?
Critical minerals have been in the spotlight as the impacts of climate change become more severe but supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have brought new attention to questions about the global supply chain of these minerals.
The war in Ukraine has also added to concern that the majority of mining and processing for these minerals are controlled by countries that have a tense relationship with the U.S., especially China.
Abigail Wulf, director of the center for critical minerals strategy at an energy security group called SAFE, said there are multiple concerns about where production of these minerals are concentrated right now, especially in supplies controlled by countries like Russia or China.
“We have to talk about responsible mining because we want to make sure that the clean energy transition is actually clean. And we also want to make sure that we’re not beholden on on unreliable nations that do not share our values, whether that is supporting label labor rights, democracy, cleaning up the environment, and all of the above,” Wulf told ABC News.
Wulf said supply chains are concentrated in areas where it is cheaper to produce these minerals with less oversight, but that concentration also raises concern about the relationship between countries like China and the U.S.
“From the national security perspective, we will be completely beholden on a nation that is openly hostile to democracy for achieving those [climate] goals, and everything that you’re seeing going on within the European Union and how they are not able to make decisions in their country’s best interests because of their overreliance on Russian oil and gas will be replayed 10 times over when it comes to our minerals-based economy,” she said.
What are the consequences of this type of mining?
Minerals like lithium or cobalt occur naturally in our world, either underground or in high concentrations in groundwater, and the process of extracting them not only disturbs that land but can create waste that contaminate the nearby environment, disrupt ecosystems and watersheds, and require large amounts of energy to run.
“At the end of the day mining is land disturbance,” Wulf said.
“You’re going to be either digging a big hole or digging underground to retrieve the mineral materials that you’re going to need to process into the materials to put into your electric vehicle.”
But Wulf added that the amount of land being mined is relatively small in most places and can be done in ways that minimize the impact on the surrounding environment.
“When people think about mining for clean energy they need to think in terms of scale. When environmentalists who are worried about the climate crisis and that’s going to affect 100% of the planet. But when you’re talking about Mining you know that land disturbance in Nevada, for instance, is only, you know, 0.3% of the land in Nevada, which is our biggest mining state in the United States,” she said.
“So you know, if you’re talking about 0.3% of land disturbance versus 100% of the earth being affected, both terrestrial and marine environments being affected, then I think that you know groups should just think of this in terms of scale.”
Conservation advocacy groups have raised concerns about the impact to animal or plant species that could face threats from nearby mining operations and in some cases petitioned to block proposed new mines.
Native American tribes have also said that proposed mines would permanently damage the land and sites that hold a sacred place in their culture. According to one analysis, 95% of critical mineral reserves in the US are within 35 miles of a tribal reservation.
Aaron Mintzes, senior policy counsel for the advocacy group Earthworks, told ABC News the laws that govern this kind of mining are woefully outdated, which will make it harder to ensure mines don’t cause permanent damage to cultural sites and the environment.
“We are facing an existential climate crisis and the solution to do that is to avoid emitting fossil fuels, moving away from fossil fuels. So as we transition from fossil fuels, we have to avoid repeating the mistakes of that fossil fuel industry by sourcing all of our materials irresponsibly,” Mintzes told ABC News.
“The way that we do that is through improving recycling, substitution, and sourcing materials through updated rules and regulations.”
The Biden administration created an interagency working group earlier this year to propose ways to update laws around hardrock mining, which includes many critical minerals. The group is expected to release recommendations later this year.
