(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s calls for Congress to pass a gas tax holiday were being met with skepticism Wednesday from both sides of the aisle.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he had several concerns with the proposal and signaled he would not support it.
“I’m not a yes right now, that’s for sure,” Manchin said, just hours before Biden was set to speak Wednesday afternoon.
For the last 25 years, all revenue from the federal gas tax has gone to the Highway Trust Fund, the major source of federal funding for highways, roads and bridges. Manchin noted Congress put an additional $118 billion into the fund when it passed the bipartisan infrastructure package.
“Now, to do that and put another hole into the budget is something that is very concerning to me, and people need to understand that 18 cents is not going to be straight across the board — it never has been that you’ll see in 18 cents exactly penny-for-penny come off of that price,” Manchin said.
Biden is expected to call on Congress to suspend the federal gas tax, which amounts to roughly 18 cents of gasoline and 24 cents per gallon of diesel through the end of September. Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee took issue with the timing ahead of the fall midterm elections.
“My other would be the political ramification. It goes off at the end of September. Which politician up here is going to be voting to put that 18-cent tax back on a month before the November election? So, we just dig the whole deeper and deeper and deeper,” Manchin said.
He added, “we have an infrastructure bill for the first time in 30 years that we can start fixing roads and bridges, but electric vehicles have to pay proportionally also as they use the same roadways and vehicles. They’re not. They’re paying nothing. So, we need a lot of adjustments made.”
Manchin called on Congress to start thinking about Americans in their home districts, insisting “the people in West Virginia are having a hard time — they really are — these inflation checks have hit hard no matter how many checks we sent out during the COVID relief that’s all forgotten it’s all for not,” Manchin said.
“We put over $5 trillion out into the marketplace and it’s all forgotten and all we have now is higher inflation and really more hardship on people that need some good decisions here in the Congress. We just need to start looking at the long-term effect of what we are doing and how we are doing it,” he said.
Other Democrats skeptical, too, while Republicans not interested
Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said it’s important to provide relief, but contends a gas tax holiday is a “temporary only” solution.
“Long term, it’s going to be an expensive infrastructure investment, which I support,” Durbin said. “We’ve got to get this behind us.”
But for Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a key Democrat negotiator on the roughly $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that passed last year, the hit that a gas tax holiday would take to the Highway Trust Fund, and therefore the nation’s infrastructure spending, is concerning.
He said he’s “hesitant” about supporting a gas tax holiday. He also cited concerns about the president’s proposal to end the holiday in September.
“I want to make very clear if we were to take this action — its easy to take away this tax its hard to put one back on,” Warner said.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said he’s “willing to support” Biden’s gas tax holiday call but doesn’t know whether it will get the support it needs to pass the Senate.
And with even some Democrats sour to the idea, the president is unlikely to make up support with Republicans.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, in floor remarks Wednesday morning, called the proposal an “ineffective stunt to mask the Democrats’ war on affordable American energy.”
The second-ranking Senate Republican echoed that.
“I think a lot of things being suggested by the administration are very gimmicky, short term, and I wonder if they would have any real impact,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said. “This stuff is clearly political gimmickry it’s not the right long-term solution.”
(NEW YORK) — For months, sky-high gas prices have bedeviled Americans. The nationwide average price for a gallon of gas stands just under an eye-popping $5 per gallon, AAA data shows.
But a significant policy change may soon offer drivers some relief. President Joe Biden on Wednesday will call on Congress to pass a gas tax holiday that would run through the end of September.
Suspending the federal gas tax, which amounts to 18.4 cents per gallon, would almost immediately reduce the price drivers pay at the pump, experts told ABC News. But they cautioned that the policy would slash funds for maintaining roads and highways, while potentially worsening a supply-demand imbalance and pushing prices even higher in the long term.
“As a motorist, I’ll take any price reduction I can get,” said Patrick De Haan, an energy analyst at GasBuddy. “As an analyst, I think it could exacerbate imbalances that could lead to higher prices.”
What is the federal gas tax?
The federal gas tax, first imposed as a 1 cent per gallon tax in 1932, makes up a portion of the price that drivers see at the pump. The tax gradually increased over the decades after its enactment, reaching its current level of 18.4 cents per gallon in 1993. Since 1997, all revenue from the federal gas tax has gone to the Highway Trust Fund, the major source of federal funding for highways, roads and bridges.
The federal gas tax has never been suspended, though a gas tax holiday was proposed by presidential candidates John McCain and Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign.
How would a gas tax holiday work?
A federal gas tax holiday, which would require a law passed by Congress and signed by Biden, would suspend the tax for a temporary duration. The proposal put forward by Biden on Wednesday will call for a suspension through September.
A handful of states — led by both Democratic and Republican governors — have suspended their gas taxes as a means of delivering some financial relief for drivers. Biden on Wednesday will call on states to suspend their gas taxes if they haven’t already.
But the moves only reduce costs by a fraction of the price. In New York, for instance, Gov. Kathy Hochul this month suspended a tax of 16 cents a gallon. With the average price of a gallon of gas in New York standing at $5, according to AAA, the tax relief amounts to a 3.2% cost reduction.
Suspension of the federal gas tax would also reduce the cost of a $5 gallon of gas by less than 5%. Still, consumers would likely prefer some relief to no relief.
What are potential downsides of a federal gas tax holiday?
There are two main potential downsides to a federal gas tax holiday. First, it would deny the federal government a primary source of funding for maintaining roads and highways. U.S. roads received a D grade last year in a report from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Eliminating the federal gas tax would likely leave them even worse off, experts said.
Second, as the U.S. struggles with an imbalance between low oil supply and high demand, a federal gas tax holiday would partially undermine the role that heightened prices play in decreasing consumer demand. In theory, if gas prices remain high or go even higher, people will buy less gas, which should help bring equilibrium between supply and demand, thereby reducing prices.
But a gas tax holiday would almost immediately reduce the price, which could increase demand and worsen the supply-demand balance even further, said De Haan, the energy analyst at GasBuddy.
“It would cause a jolt potentially to demand at a time when it is difficult for refiners to keep up with demand now,” he said.
What happens next?
If Biden decides to support a federal gas tax holiday, it would likely boost momentum in Congress for a law to enact it. But the passage of such a measure remains uncertain.
One such law, the Gas Prices Relief Act, has been proposed by Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ). It would eliminate the gas tax through the end of the year, and specifically stipulates that the price savings should be passed along to consumers.
In addition to Kelly, seven senators have backed the bill. So far, no Republican senators have supported it.
(NEW YORK) — Dangerously high temperatures are slamming the U.S., with the West, South and North feeling the heat.
In the South, the heat index — what temperature it feels like — is forecast to skyrocket Wednesday to: 104 degrees in New Orleans; 103 in Little Rock; 106 in Memphis; 101 in Tallahassee; 100 in Atlanta; 104 in Louisville; 99 in Knoxville; and 98 in Raleigh.
The North is also in the danger zone, with the heat index set to reach 94 degrees in Pittsburgh and 97 in Columbus, Ohio.
The West won’t be escaping the heat.
From Wednesday to Friday, temperatures in Dallas are forecast to climb from 97 to 101 to 103.
Sacramento is forecast to reach 100 degrees this week and Phoenix could reach a scorching 107 degrees.
This comes after the Midwest saw record highs on Tuesday.
Lansing, Michigan, and Detroit tied record highs at 98 degrees and 96 degrees respectively. Chicago hit a scorching 99 degrees, which was the Windy City’s hottest temperature in 10 years.
(WASHINGTON) — A decision in the U.S. Supreme Court’s biggest gun rights case in over a decade is expected to land any day now.
The closely-watched case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v Bruen, addresses whether New York state’s concealed carry law violates the Second Amendment.
It is the most significant case regarding the Second Amendment since the high court affirmed the right to bear arms with its 2010 decision rendering Chicago’s nearly 30-year ban on handgun ownership unconstitutional.
“There’s been a big push to get more Second Amendment cases before the courts because many people believe that the lower courts were not being faithful to the Supreme Court’s decision in 2010 saying that states, as well as the federal government, were restricted by the Second Amendment,” Seth Chandler, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center who teaches constitutional law, told ABC News. “The Supreme Court for the past 10 years or so has just not placed that hot-button issue on its docket. But now, with this New York State Rifle and Pistol v. Bruen case, they’ve accepted those challenges.”
‘May issue’ states
The case, brought forth by the NRA-affiliate New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, focuses on a century-old New York state law that requires gun owners to show “proper cause” to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. Local authorities currently are given the discretion to decide who receives a concealed carry license even if basic requirements are met.
Twenty-five states require a permit to carry concealed weapons in public, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Among those, New York is one of eight states, as well as the District of Columbia, that have such “may issue” concealed carry laws. Someone may be denied a permit if, for instance, they have not demonstrated a strong reason to carry a weapon in public.
Seventeen “shall issue” states, meanwhile, issue concealed carry permits with little to no discretion to those who meet basic qualifications. The remaining 25 states generally allow people to carry concealed weapons in most public spaces without a permit, according to the Giffords Law Center.
Gun control advocates like the Giffords Law Center warn that relaxing concealed carry laws could increase the risk of gun violence, while gun rights groups argue that laws like New York’s are unfair and overly discretionary.
The court is also deciding the case at a time when the country has seen record levels of gun violence and gun deaths and a spate of deadly mass shootings that have reignited calls for gun reform, alongside record gun sales.
Potential outcomes
During oral arguments on the case in November, many of the court’s conservative justices seemed skeptical of New York-style laws, though raised concerns about public safety if restrictions were rolled back too far.
With the high court appearing poised to strike down New York’s proper-cause requirement, it would be a question of “how narrowly or broadly that opinion is written,” Darrell Miller, a professor at the Duke University School of Law who teaches constitutional law, told ABC News.
“A really narrow opinion could be something like New York can have a licensing law for concealed carry, but it can’t grant as much discretion as it does to the licensing authority,” Miller said. “A broad decision on this issue would be something like it’s unconstitutional to have any kind of licensing [for concealed carry] at all. I don’t think that that’s likely, but it’s possible.”
If it rolls back New York’s concealed-carry restrictions, the Supreme Court may also need to address decisions on where guns should be prohibited, Miller said.
“If you end up having more people carrying guns around New York, could you prevent people from carrying guns on college campuses or in the middle of Times Square on New Year’s Eve?” Miller said. “If the Supreme Court says we’ll have rights to carry guns in more places, that puts a lot of pressure on legislatures and eventually the courts to figure out what places are potentially sensitive that you can prohibit guns from being there.”
The justices could uphold the law, allowing New York to continue to exercise discretion in issuing concealed carry licenses, or they could say they don’t want to decide the case now — though both seem unlikely, Miller said.
The justices could send the case back to the district court to get more facts — such as how often people are denied concealed carry licenses in New York — Chandler said, though noted that also seems unlikely.
“I suspect the court feels it’s ready to decide the matter,” he said.
Potential impact
Should the court decide that New York’s discretionary licensing law is unconstitutional, similar laws in other states will likely be challenged, depending on how narrow or broad the decision is, Miller said.
A technical but potentially consequential “sleeper issue” in this case, Miller also noted, is whether the court takes a “text, history and tradition”-only approach in instructing lower courts on how to think about Second Amendment rights, or if judges can continue to consider modern evidence like social science data while balancing individual rights against state laws promoting public safety.
The text, history and tradition-only approach — which gun rights advocates have pushed — “essentially says that only those regulations that have some equal or analogue and history are constitutional, and all other regulations are not,” Miller said.
If the court adopts that approach, other gun regulations — such as those prohibiting guns on planes or keeping them out of the hands of people convicted of domestic violence — may suddenly become subject to that analysis, according to Miller, who was among a group of scholars who filed a brief in the Bruen case on behalf of neither party urging the court not to apply a text, history and tradition-only approach.
If New York’s law remains unchanged, there are other Second Amendment cases in the pipeline that are seeking Supreme Court review, Miller said.
“It’s pretty much guaranteed that whatever this opinion looks like, it will generate further litigation,” he said.
(LONDON) — At least 1,000 people have been killed and more than 1,500 others have been injured in a powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan, according to the country’s state-run media.
The U.S. Geological Survey recorded the 5.9-magnitude quake near the Pakistani border at about 1:30 a.m. local time.
“We are deeply saddened by reports of an earthquake in eastern Afghanistan,” the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said on Twitter. “We offer our heartfelt condolences to all who have been affected by this devastating event.”
The death toll has continued to rise throughout the day, as rescue teams arrive in the mountainous area around the quake’s epicenter.
Mawlawi Sharafudin Muslim, deputy minister of disaster management, told reporters earlier on Wednesday that at least 920 people had been killed and at least 600 others were injured. He warned that the already tragic toll might rise
A journalist on the scene told ABC News that many of the victims died in their homes, as the quake struck in the middle of the night, while many were asleep. The quake destroyed homes and knocked out communication, resulting a near total blackout.
“People got shocked with the hit and many lost their lives right at their homes,” the journalist said.
Many of the villages that were hit are in remote areas with difficult access routes for emergency responders. The few pictures that have been published since the earthquake struck showed helicopters ferrying injured people away from the area.
Afghanistan Ministry of Defense’s said in a press release that the ministry has sent seven helicopters with first aid to transport the wounded to military and civilian hospitals and to treat the victims. According to the ministry’s leadership, teams from the field and central units had arrived at the scene to help transport the injured to health centers.
Local media reported that hundreds of houses were turned to rubble. There are warnings that the scale of the disaster is yet to be understood.
Mohammad Hasan Akhund, acting prime minister of the Taliban, announced the country will allocate more than $11 million to “urgently address the situation of the families of earthquake victims and victims in Paktika and Khost provinces,” Bakhtar News Agency reported.
The quake’s epicenter was in Paktika province, about 27 miles southwest of Khost, Pakistan’s Meteorological Department said. That service, which placed the magnitude at 6.1, logged the quake at a depth of 31 miles.
“I am saddened over loss of precious lives by earthquake in Afghanistan & express my sympathies with the affectees,” Arif Alvi, Pakistan’s president, said on Twitter. “I pray for the deceased, the injured & offer condolences to bereaved families. Pakistan stands in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan in this hour of need.”
Pope Francis offered condolences to those affected by the quake.
“In the past few hours an earthquake has caused victims and extensive damage in Afghanistan,” he said during his weekly audience at the Vatican. “I express my closeness to the injured and those affected by the earthquake, and I pray in particular for those who have lost their lives and their families. I hope that with everyone’s help we can alleviate the suffering of the dear Afghan people.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Biden will on Wednesday call on Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for three months and ask states to suspend their own gas taxes or provide commensurate relief to consumers, according to the White House.
The federal government charges an 18.4-cent tax per gallon of gasoline and a 24.4-cent tax per gallon of diesel. Suspending the tax for three months — through the end of September, as Biden will call for — will cost about $10 billion, the White House said.
When asked if Biden believes Congress can somehow mandate that oil companies pass on those savings, in full, to consumers, a senior administration official did not directly say but noted there is “some evidence that state tax suspensions, in particular, do get passed through to consumers.” Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks at the White House complex at 3 p.m. ET Wednesday.
The official, in a Tuesday evening call with reporters, said “the president is absolutely calling on companies to make sure that those savings are passed through to consumers.”
The administration is also putting public pressure on oil companies to help Americans at a time of financial need.
“Companies, of course, are beholden to their shareholders, but they really need to be beholden and conscious of customers, and their fellow neighbors, and their fellow citizens, just like this administration’s doing,” another senior administration official told reporters. “And we hope that that’s the spirit that CEOs of these companies will take.”
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is scheduled to meet with oil refining executives Thursday.
On Wednesday, Biden will also call on state and local governments to provide “relief” to Americans by suspending their state gas taxes or provide other remedies, like delaying planned tax and fee increases, or even consumer rebates or relief payments, according to the White House. An official said Biden wants states to “match” what the federal government would be doing in the short term.
State gas taxes average about 31 cents per gallon of gasoline, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School recently found that the suspension of gas taxes in Maryland, Georgia and Connecticut were, in fact, “mostly passed onto consumers at some point during the tax holiday in the form of lower gas prices,” but that the lower prices “were often not sustained during the entire holiday.”
In Maryland, 72% of the tax savings were passed on to consumers; in Georgia, 58-65% were, and in Connecticut, 71-87% were, according to their analysis.
A federal gas tax holiday “isn’t going to solve the whole problem,” the official said. “It is something that can be done to take a real step to relieve some of that pain at the pump. And we see it as part of a suite of policies that are designed to provide that relief, including policies that focus on the supply side.”
When asked why Biden wants the federal tax suspended for three months specifically, the official said the president wanted to balance the need of “the unique moment that we’re in” — particularly during the summer driving season — with the fact that the tax provides important revenue for the government to pay for highways and other transportation projects.
“The purpose of this suspension,” the official said, “is really to address the unique moment that we’re in, and with a particular focus on the summer driving season and the pain that families are feeling at the pump right now, while recognizing that on a longer-term basis, the gas tax is an important source of revenue for federal infrastructure.”
The gas tax revenue goes to the federal government’s Highway Trust Fund, which provides for much of the government’s spending on highways and mass transit. Biden believes Congress can fill in that roughly $10 billion gap with “other revenues,” an official said.
When asked if that money would come from last year’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure law, to which Biden signaled openness Tuesday, the official wouldn’t say but did note that there were proposals in Congress that would cover the revenue shortfall.
The official said the administration was “encouraged by the fact” that members of the House and Senate have already made similar proposals to what Biden will call for on Wednesday, but suggested the White House had yet to engage in depth with members of Congress on this topic — saying “we expect to” engage with Congress.
The official also said that all of the policies Biden is proposing — from gas tax holidays to pressuring oil refiners to expand capacity — could, combined, save consumers up to $1 per gallon or more. But that assumption is predicated on steps oil retailer and refiners have yet to show a willingness to take.
“President Biden understands that a gas tax holiday alone will not, on its own, relieve the run up in costs that we’ve seen,” the White House said in a statement. “But the President believes that at this unique moment when the war in Ukraine is imposing costs on American families, Congress should do what it can to provide working families breathing room.”
(UVALDE, Texas) — The Uvalde City Council unanimously denied council member Pete Arredondo’s request for a leave of absence from future meetings, in an effort to be more transparent following criticisms of law enforcement’s handling of the Robb Elementary School mass shooting.
Arredondo, who serves as the chief of police for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and was sworn in as a city council member at the end of May, wanted to be exempt from attending future city council meetings.
A motion was unanimously denied to grant a leave of absence to the newly elected council member, who was not present Tuesday night. Per city council rules, there is a $2 fine for missing council meetings, and after three missed meetings, the other council members can vote to have a member removed from their post.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said he would vote “yes” to replace Arredondo on the city council if he misses three consecutive meetings without a leave of absence. The council pointed out that it can’t take an opinion or make any official vote because Arredondo hasn’t actually missed three meetings.
Those attending the meeting Tuesday erupted in cheers when the council denied his leave.
The vote came after a day of testimony during which Arredondo testified for five hours in front of state legislators about the May 24 shooting, which left 19 children and two adults dead.
At a school board meeting on Monday, parents of the victims and members of the Uvalde community called for Arredondo’s resignation.
“Having Pete still employed, knowing he is incapable of decision-making that saves lives is terrifying,” Brett Cross, the uncle of student Uziyah Garcia, who died in the shooting, said. “Innocence doesn’t hide, innocence doesn’t change its story, but innocence did die on May 24.”
Uvalde police have faced public scrutiny for failing to act swiftly after the alleged gunman entered the elementary school with an AR-15 through an unlocked school door.
Surveillance footage showed officers waiting 77 minutes to enter the classroom that the gunman was in before fatally shooting him. Arredondo has claimed he wasn’t aware of the 911 calls coming through while officers waited.
Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, blasted law enforcement’s response to the shooting during a state Senate hearing earlier Tuesday, saying it was an “abject failure.”
“I don’t care if you have on flip-flops and Bermuda shorts, you go in,” he said.
ABC News’ Jenna Harrison Esseling, Matthew Fuhrman and Izzy Alvarez contributed to this report.
(VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.) — The United States Coast Guard is urgently searching for a couple from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who were last heard from hundreds of miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean while they were on a sailing trip to the Azores, Portugal.
Yanni Nikopoulos and Dale Jones, both 65, departed from Hampton, Virginia, en route to the Azores on June 8. However, Nikopoulos and Jones reported to Jones’ daughter five days later on June 13 that they had encountered inclement weather approximately 460 miles east of Virginia Beach and that they had made the decision to turn around after their vessel sustained damage during the storm, according to a statement released by the United States Coast Guard (USCG).
The couple have not been heard from since.
Four days later on June 17, the United States Coast Guard Fifth District command center watchstanders received a report from Jones’ daughter informing them that she still hadn’t heard anything from Nikopoulos and Jones and that she was extremely concerned about their whereabouts and wellbeing.
“While no date had been established for their return, an anticipated return date of June 20 was communicated by the daughter,” the USCG said in their statement.
Subsequently, Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City conducted two overflights by HC-130 Hercules crews in the approximate region where the missing boaters were last reported and an Urgent Marine Information Broadcast was also issued by the Fifth Coast Guard District which notified boaters in the region about the wayward couple. No evidence of Nikopoloulos, Jones or their vessel — named Kyklades — has turned up yet.
“In situations like this, where there are so many unknowns, our coordination efforts need to cast a wide and intentional net,” said Chief Brian Gainey, command duty officer. “We’re tracking cell phone and radio pings as we work with our counterparts in Bermuda to accurately determine the most intelligent search area for our air crews. It’s a lot of detective work, but it’s all in service to finding these two individuals and bringing them home to their families.”
(NEW YORK) — Women are significantly more likely than men to experience long-term symptoms of COVID-19, a new review suggests.
Researchers from Johnson & Johnson’s Office of the Chief Medical Officer for Women’s Health analyzed data from studies involving 1.3 million patients.
The results, published Tuesday in the journal Current Medical Research and Opinion, showed females are 22% more likely to develop long COVID than males.
“Knowledge about fundamental sex differences … of COVID-19 is crucial for the identification … of effective therapies and public health interventions that are inclusive of and sensitive to the potential differential treatment needs of both sexes,” the authors said in a news release.
Long COVID occurs when patients who have cleared the infection still have symptoms lasting more than four weeks after recovering. In some cases, these symptoms can persist for months, or even years.
Patients can experience a variety of lingering symptoms including fatigue, difficulty breathing, headaches, brain fog, joint and muscle pain, and continued loss of taste and smell, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s unclear what causes people to develop long COVID but there are several theories among experts including lingering virus in the body, damage to nerve pathways caused by the virus and the immune system remaining active following infection.
The study found the most common symptoms for women within four weeks of testing positive included ear, nose and throat (ENT) issues; muscle aches and pain; shortness of breath and psychiatric or mood disorders such as depression.
Meanwhile, men were more likely to have renal disorders such as acute kidney injury.
Not only were symptoms during COVID-19 infection different among males and females but the symptoms were also different after the development of long COVID.
For women, they had higher rates of long-term symptoms including fatigue; ENT; gastrointestinal; neurological; skin and psychiatric and/or mood disorders.
Women were at least twice as likely to have ENT long-term symptoms and 60% more likely to have gastrointestinal symptoms.
On the other hand, men had higher rates of renal disorders as well as endocrine disorders, including diabetes.
Several studies in the past have looked at differences in hospitalization, ICU admission and death from COVID-19 broken down by sex.
But the researchers noted that, out of more than 600,000 articles analyzed for this study — published between December 2019 and June 2021 — only 35 provided data about COVID-19 symptoms and aftereffects in enough detail to understand how males and females may experience the disease differently.
“Unfortunately, most studies did not evaluate or report granular data by sex, which limited sex-specific clinical insights that may be impacting treatment,” they wrote.
It’s unclear why women are more susceptible to long COVID than men, but the authors said it could be due to differences in how women’s immune systems respond to infection compared to those of men.
“Females mount more rapid and robust innate and adaptive immune responses, which can protect them from initial infection and severity,” they wrote. “However, this same difference can render females more vulnerable to prolonged autoimmune-related diseases.”
Additionally, the team said women may be at greater risk of COVID-19 because certain professions, such as nursing and education, are largely made up of females, which could — in turn — make them more likely to develop long COVID.
What’s more, “there may be disparities in access to care based on gender that could affect the natural history of the disease, leading to more complications and [aftereffects],” the authors wrote in the release.
The team said it hopes more researchers include detailed data about COVID-19 symptoms and effects broken down by sex in their studies to further study how differently men and women are affected and if different treatments are needed.
The authors did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — The latest House Jan. 6 committee hearing on Tuesday afternoon focused on what it said was then-President Donald Trump’s “unprecedented” effort to push key state officials to reject the results of the 2020 election — including a scheme to create slates of “fake” electors to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., led the hearing, which featured live witness testimony from Republican officials from Arizona and Georgia to show the pressure campaign related to Trump’s “big lie” extended to well before Jan. 6.
Some of the most compelling testimony came from a mother-daughter pair who worked as election workers in Georgia. They described in deeply personal terms the impact of threats they experienced after being targeted by Trump.
And the panel aired taped testimony from Trump allies to argue he was directly involved in what he knew was a baseless effort to have key states send fake Trump electors to Congress to replace legitimate Biden ones.
“Whether his actions were criminal will ultimately be for others to decide,” Schiff said in his closing remarks. “But what he did was without a doubt unconstitutional. It was unpatriotic. It was fundamentally un-American.”
Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said that “pressuring public servants into betraying their oaths was a fundamental part of the playbook” and warned only a handful of election officials in key states “stood between Donald Trump and the upending of American democracy.”
Here are some key takeaways from Tuesday’s hearing:
Arizona House speaker invokes faith, recalling how he wouldn’t deny oath of office
After Trump claimed Tuesday on his social media platform Truth Social that Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican, had told him the election was rigged, Bowers said that was “false” and that Trump’s team claimed widespread fraud in Arizona but never provided him with any evidence.
“Anywhere, anyone, at any time, who said that I said the election was rigged, that would not be true,” Bowers said.
He recalled conversations with Trump election lawyer John Eastman, who tried to convince him there was a law in Arizona that would have allowed him to overturn results in his state, and his maintaining that he would not break his oath of office and decertify electors for Biden.
“I said, ‘What would you have me do?’ He said, ‘Just do it and let the courts sort it out.'”
At one point, Bowers fought back tears as he described the pressure placed on him to betray his oath and the impact “disturbing” protests outside his home had on his family.
“It is a tenet of my faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired, one of my most basic foundational beliefs,” Bowers testified. “And so for me to do that because somebody just asked me to is foreign to my very being. I will not do it.”
After some lawmakers in Arizona went around him to send a slate of “fake” electors to Congress and the National Archives, with the intention of then-Vice President Mike Pence refusing to certify votes in those states, Bowers described it as a “tragic parody.”
Bowers recalled Trump lawyer Giuliani telling him, “‘We’ve got lots of theories, but we just don’t have the evidence.'”
The Arizona Republican then went on to read aloud a passage from his journal from December 2020.
“I do not want to be a winner by cheating,” he read. “I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to with any contrived desire towards deflection of my deep, foundational desire to follow God’s will as I believe he led my conscience to embrace. How else will I ever approach Him in the wilderness of life knowing that I asked of His guidance only to show myself a coward in defending the course he led me to take.”
Republican witnesses tie Trump to fake electors plot, detail how they responded to pressure from Trump and his allies
In her opening statement, Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said the committee would provide evidence that Trump “had a direct and personal role” in a scheme to have key states send fake electors to Congress and for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results, “as did Rudy Giuliani, as did John Eastman.”
Appearing to be part of that point, the committee aired taped testimony of Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel being asked about the scheme to send “fake” electors to Congress to decertify Biden’s win and responding that Trump was on a call about the plan.
“He turned the call over to Mr. Eastman, who then proceeded to talk about the importance of — helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing change the results of any states,” McDaniel recounted.
“The campaign took the lead, and we just were helping them in that role,” she added, appearing to try to distance the RNC from the effort.
The House select committee argued the RNC assisted Trump in coordinating the fake electors plot “at the president’s direct request.”
The testimony is important as Trump has also tried to distance himself, at times, from his own attorneys, but, according to McDaniel, he was personally involved in a call about the effort.
The testimony also detailed Trump’s calls to Georgia election officials highlight his role in the pressure campaign.
The committee played audio clips of the 67-minute, now-infamous phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, in which Trump told Raffensperger he needed to “find” 11,780 votes in Georgia — just one vote over the margin by which he trailed Biden — so he could be declared the winner of an election that three separate counts in the state confirmed he lost.
The call appeared to follow a cycle of Trump offering false election conspiracies and Raffensperger calmly explaining to him that each one was not accurate. At one point, Trump suggested to Raffensperger that his inaction could mean he was criminally liable.
Raffensperger was among several Republicans who told Trump his claims about fraud were false, the committee said, but he continued to spread them anyway.
The committee also aired audio from a call in which Trump tried to convince Frances Watson, the Georgia secretary of state’s lead elections investigator, to reverse his loss.
“You know, you have the most important job in the country right now,” Trump told her as he continued to falsely and publicly claim victory.
“When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised,” Trump said to Watson.
Mother-daughter election worker duo describe impact of targeted attacks
Former Fulton County election worker Shaye Moss, who was falsely accused by Giuliani and other Republicans of election fraud and smuggling “suitcases” of illegal ballots in Atlanta on election night, and her mother, Ruby Freeman, who was sitting behind her, told members how their lives were changed by the lies.
“When I saw the video, of course the first thing that I said was, ‘Why? Why are they doing this? What’s going on?'” Moss recalled.
Moss then described the onslaught of threats and hateful messages she received online — a situation she had never been in during her 10 years as an elections worker.
“I felt so bad,” Moss. “I just felt bad for my mom and I felt horrible for picking this job and being the one that always wants to help and always there and never missing out on one election, I just felt like it was my fault for putting my family in this situation.”
Both women told the committee they are now scared to use their names, and Freeman was told by the FBI she had to leave her home for two months because of threats.
“I’ve lost my sense of security, all because a group of people starting with No. 45 and his ally Rudy Giuliani decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye, to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen,” Freeman said.
Public officials recount intimidation of protests, tweets from Trump supporters
Elected officials detailed the threats they received or witnessed others received as a result of Trump’s pressure campaign to reject state electors.
Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer in the Georgia secretary of state’s office, recalled the moment that made him decry Trump’s claims of fraud and emotionally speak out about the threats made toward election officials in a press conference in December 2020.
It was a tweet, he said, targeting a contractor he knew that “broke the camel’s back.”
“It had his name, ‘you committed treason, may God have mercy on your soul,’ with a slowly twisting GIF of a noose and, for a lack of a better word, I lost it,” Sterling said. “I just got irate.”
Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler, a Republican, said in a taped deposition that all of his personal information was doxxed online and multiple protests happened outside of his home. The committee aired audio from one protest in which participants shouted, “Bryan Cutler, we are outside.”
“We had to disconnect our home phone for about three days because it would ring all hours of the night, it would fill up with messages,” Cutler said.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, described the feeling of having protesters outside her home as well.
“My stomach sunk, I thought, ‘it’s me,'” she told the committee in a deposition. “The uncertainty of that was why it was the fear. Like, are they coming with guns? Are they going to attack my house?”
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, GOP Rep. Andy Biggs involved in fake electors?
As the committee unveils its findings, it has suggested how Republican lawmakers were involved in scheme to overturn the election.
Bowers, Arizona’s House speaker, testified he received a call from Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, asking Bowers if he’d support the decertification of electors. Bowers told Biggs he would not.
The committee also showed evidence that Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., attempted to deliver slates of “fake” Trump electors from Wisconsin and Michigan to Pence ahead of Jan. 6.
Text messages between Johnson staffer Sean Riley and Pence aide Chris Hodgson were displayed on-screen in which Riley wrote that Johnson wanted to hand over fake electors from the two states.
“Do not give that to him,” the Pence aide replied.
Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Johnson, denied that Johnson had any involvement in the creation of fake alternate slates of electors and claimed he had “no foreknowledge” it was going to be delivered to the office.
“The senator had no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office. This was a staff to staff exchange. His new Chief of Staff contacted the Vice President’s office. The Vice President’s office said not to give it to him and we did not. There was no further action taken. End of story,” Henning told ABC News.
Teasing hearings still to come, the next of which is on Thursday, Cheney put pressure on former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone to appear before the committee, adding that they are “certain” Trump wouldn’t want that to happen.
