(NEW YORK) — There is evidence of Russian vessels departing “from near Ukraine with their cargo holds full of grain,” a U.S. Department of State spokesperson told ABC News on Monday night.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reported that Russia seized at least 400,000 to 500,000 tons of grain worth over $100 million, according to the State Department spokesperson.
“Ukraine’s MFA also has numerous testimonies from Ukrainian farmers and documentary evidence showing Russia’s theft of Ukrainian grain,” the spokesperson said.
The news of Ukrainian grain aboard Russian ships partly confirms a recent report by The New York Times that Moscow is seeking to profit off of grain plundered from Ukraine by selling the product while subverting sanctions. Ukraine has already accused Russia of shipping the stolen grain to buyers in Syria and Turkey.
Since Russian forces invaded neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, the cost of grain has skyrocketed worldwide. Russia and Ukraine — often referred to collectively as Europe’s breadbasket — produce a third of the global supply of wheat and barley, but Kyiv has been unable to ship exports due to Moscow’s offensive. Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Grain Association warned that Ukraine’s wheat harvest is expected to plummet by 40%.
In recent weeks, there has been an all-out push from the United States and the United Nations to facilitate exports from war-torn Ukraine, desperate to offset what they foretell is a looming global food crisis with the potential to devastate the developing world. A Russian blockade in the Black Sea, along with Ukrainian naval mines, have made exporting siloed grain virtually impossible and, as a result, millions of people around the world — particularly in Africa and the Middle East — are now on the brink of famine.
As part of ongoing efforts to assist food exports, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to meet with his Turkish counterpart in Ankara this week. But State Department spokesperson Ned Price has set low expectations for the meeting.
“I don’t know if we should expect breakthroughs,” Price told reporters during a press briefing on Monday afternoon. “Of course, we’ll be watching closely. We’ll be talking with our Turkish allies in the aftermath of that visit.”
Price underscored the pain the world is feeling because of Russia’s crunch on its food supply.
“This is a war that not only has brutalized — and, in many ways, terrorized — the people of Ukraine, but it has put at risk food security around the world,” he said.
Currently, there are approximately 84 merchant ships and 450 seafarers trapped at Ukrainian ports, according to Price.
“Not only is there grain aboard these vessels, but there are about 22 million tons of grain sitting in silos near the ports that also needs to move out to make room for the newly harvested grain,” he said. “In addition, Russia has actually taken aim at ships at sea. They have taken aim at grain silos. They are continuing to effectively implement what amounts to a blockade of Ukraine’s ports.”
(NEW YORK) — Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., was meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday to personally update him on ongoing gun negotiations in the Senate as lawmakers try to reach a deal this week, which he outlined to ABC’s The View beforehand.
Murphy said negotiators hope to announce a framework by the end of the week, allowing a package to advance for votes thereafter, adding that the pressure on lawmakers, this time, feels unprecedented with constituents reaching out to offices “at a rate that I’ve never seen before.”
Murphy told the co-hosts ofThe View that he and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the lead Republican on negotiations, were part of talks Monday “that went into the wee hours of last night” and that an increasing number of Republicans are supporting the efforts.
“While we are very different in our views, we do both agree that we are not willing to do anything that compromises people’s Second Amendment rights. We are focusing on keeping weapons out of the hands of dangerous people,” Murphy said. “We can’t find agreement right now on an issue like an outright ban on assault weapons, but we can find an agreement that saves lives around making sure that only law-abiding citizens get access to really powerful firearms.”
In a prime-time address last week, Biden called for an assault weapons ban, and if not, he said, then to raise the age to buy assault weapons from 18 to 21. Instead, lawmakers are considering measures like expanded background checks, incentives for states and localities to institute red flag laws, and increased funding for school security and mental health programs.
“I’ve failed so many times before in these talks that I’m sober-minded about our chances, but you normally as time goes on after one of these cataclysmic mass shootings the momentum fades. The opposite seems to be happening this time,” Murphy added. “There are more Republicans every single day, who want to help us get to a product.”
Murphy said most Republicans realize there’s a “public urgency” to act.
“But I also think Republicans understand that this is good politics — that it’s going to be really hard to go back to their constituencies and say that they rejected a pretty reasonable offer to tighten up our nation’s firearms laws that are completely compliant with the Second Amendment,” he added.
However, without the support of 10 Senate Republicans to gain the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, Congress could soon enter its third decade without having passed major gun safety reforms.
Pressed on the prospect of an assault weapons ban or raising the age to buy assault weapons, Murphy said, “I’m not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
“Right now, we don’t have 10 Republican votes to ban these AR-15 assault-style weapons,” Murphy said. “Of course, I support banning assault weapons. I support universal background checks, but I don’t think that we can stand by and let our politics stop us from finding a compromise.”
“It won’t be everything I want. But I think it’ll give parents and kids in this country, a sense that we are taking seriously this epidemic and that we’re willing to make progress,” he added.
Throughout negotiations, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has been on the defensive on Biden’s involvement as some have questioned whether the president should be taking a larger role in talks. She has argued Biden has been involved for decades and is giving senators “a little space” to work. Murphy has spoken with the White House every single day since the negotiations began, she said, but that can be on the staff level, not directly with Biden.
(WASHINGTON) — A son of the oldest victim in the Buffalo supermarket shooting, appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday in a hearing on domestic terrorism, called on lawmakers to “yield your positions” if they’re unwilling to meet “the urgency of the moment” in the wake of the apparent racially-motivated attack that left 10 Black people dead, including his 86-year-old mother.
“You expect us to continue to just forgive and forget over and over again. And what are you doing?” Garnell Whitfield Jr., the oldest son of Ruth Whitfield, a victim of the Buffalo shooting, asked the Senate panel. “You’re elected to protect us, to protect our way of life.”
“I ask every one of you to imagine the faces of your mothers as you look at mine, and ask yourself, ‘Is there nothing that we can do?’ Is there nothing that you personally are willing to do to stop the cancer of white supremacy and the domestic terrorism that inspires?” he continued, maintaining his composure but holding back tears. “Because if there is nothing, then respectfully senators, you should yield your positions of authority and influence the others that are willing to lead on this issue. The urgency of the moment demands, no less.”
“My mother’s life mattered — and your actions here today would tell us how much it matters to you,” he added.
The hearing, which kicked off at 10 a.m., is titled, “Examining the ‘Metastasizing’ Domestic Terrorism Threat After the Buffalo Attack” and examines “the continued threat posed by violent white supremacists and other extremists, including those who have embraced the so-called ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory, as well as the federal government’s response to this threat,” according to a committee release. It comes amid a national reckoning over gun violence as lawmakers consider solutions this week.
Opening the hearing, Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., called the Buffalo mass shooting “one of the worst domestic terrorist attacks in recent memory” and read the victims’ names into the record.
“Every one of these victims left behind loved ones who are grieving that loss — and several of those loved ones are in the room with us today. I think there are no words that fill the empty chairs at your dinner table or the empty spaces in your heart,” Durbin said. “But your willingness to sit in this room to honor the memory of those lost is a lesson in courage and love.”
“Please know that you are not alone,” he added. “We offer our deepest condolences, and most importantly, our commitment to do something.”
Ruth Whitfield was mourned by her family, including her son Garnell, a former Buffalo fire commissioner, in an emotional press conference last month. He said she was returning home from visiting her husband in a nursing home, what her son called “a daily ritual” for eight years of their 68-year marriage, when she stopped by the Tops grocery store to pick up groceries, and the gunman opened fire.
“For her to be taken from us and taken from this world by someone that’s just full of hate for no reason … it is very hard for us to handle right now,” Garnell said at the time. “We need help. We’re asking you to help us, help us change this. This can’t keep happening,” he added.
At the same press conference, civil rights attorney Ben Crump slammed what he called the “accomplices to this mass murder” and the cause of the indoctrination of hate among young people, referring, in part, to far-right-wing websites, politicians and cable news pundits.
“Even though they didn’t pull the trigger, they did load the gun for this young white supremacist,” Crump said. “Black America is suffering right now and we need to know that our top leader in America reacts and responds when we are hurt.”
To that end, Durbin, in his opening statement, played a video clip of conservative news hosts echoing rhetoric espoused by the shooter to illustrate what he called “the role of the media and the role that they played in dragging hateful rhetoric into mainstream America, and sadly, how it’s inspiring acts of racist violence.”
“More than 400 episodes of Tucker Carlson’s show have amplified the so-called “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, the guiding principle of modern white supremacist movement,” Durbin added. “As lawmakers, we must speak in one voice and repeat repudiating this incendiary rhetoric, along with any individual or extremist group that resorts to violence.”
Other witnesses on Tuesday’s panel include Michael German, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent and fellow at the Brennan Center For Justice; Robert Pape, professor and director of The Chicago Project on Security and Threats at The University of Chicago; Justin Herdman, a former U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Ohio, and legal scholar Jonathan Turley, a professor at the George Washington University Law School and a frequent witness called by Republicans on the committee.
The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday morning warned of a “heightened” threat environment for “domestic violent extremists,” a term which the department uses to label those from a broad swath of the ideological spectrum from racially motivated extremists to white supremacists.
“Individuals in online forums that routinely promulgate domestic violent extremist and conspiracy theory-related content have praised the May 2022 mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and encouraged copycat attacks,” The National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin said — marking the sixth time DHS has issued the NTAS bulletin since Biden took office.
ABC News previously reported on evidence indicating the Buffalo shooting was a calculated, racially-motivated execution by the suspect, an 18-year-old white male, according to multiple sources and a review of FBI cases and testimony. The gunman, who has pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder and is being held without bail, allegedly wanted a race war and live-streamed his attack in an apparent effort to spur others to kill minorities, sources said.
Included in a 180-page document posted online by the shooter was a far-right conspiracy idea called the “great replacement theory,” which baselessly claims that white populations are being intentionally replaced by minorities and immigrants. Democrats have slammed the theory and moved to fund new programs to target domestic terrorism, while some Republicans have faced backlash for echoing notions of the theory in their talking points.
Tuesday’s hearing comes as the Democrats on Capitol Hill ramp up efforts to push for legislation that would require stronger background checks for gun buyers and incentivize state red flag laws following the recent mass shootings. Twenty-one people, including 19 children, were killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, just 10 days after the mass shooting in Buffalo. Another mass shooting on June 1 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, claimed four lives after a gunman stormed a medical facility with an AR-15-style rifle that police say he bought hours before the massacre.
Zeneta Everhart, who says her 21-year-old son, Zaire Goodman, is still recovering from gunshot wounds in the Buffalo shooting, one of three others injured there, as well as Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader who survived the shooting in Uvalde, are both expected to testify at another hearing on gun violence on Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
Last month, Senate Republicans used the filibuster to block a bill designed to combat domestic terrorism from advancing to a key vote. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, D-Ill., was the only Republican in either chamber of Congress to vote for the measure, which would have created new offices within the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and FBI to “monitor, analyze, investigate, and prosecute domestic terrorism.”
Tuesday also marks the third in a series of hearings this committee has held on domestic terrorism.
(LONDON) — Some of the gunmen who attacked a church full of worshippers in southwestern Nigeria on Sunday were disguised as congregants, police said.
Dozens of people, including women and children, were killed in the late-morning attack at St. Francis Catholic Church in the town of Owo in Ondo state, more than 200 miles northwest of Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, and over 200 miles southwest of Abuja, the Nigerian capital. The church was holding a service for Pentecost Sunday, a Christian holiday celebrated on the 50th day after Easter, when suddenly explosives detonated and gunshots rang out at around 11:30 a.m. local time, according to Olumuyiwa Adejobi, a spokesperson for the Nigeria Police Force’s headquarters in Abuja.
“Further investigations revealed that some of the gunmen disguised as congregants, while other armed men who had positioned themselves around the church premises from different directions fired into the church,” Adejobi said in a statement on Monday night.
An unknown number of gunmen had approached the church during the service and began shooting at worshippers as they tried to flee, according to Funmilayo Ibukun Odunlami, a spokesperson for the Nigeria Police Force’s command in Ondo state, adding that several gunmen were firing from inside the building.
A motive for the massacre was not immediately clear, as no group has claimed responsibility. Police have yet to identify the perpetrators or release the number of casualties.
“Some lives were lost and some sustained varying degrees of injuries,” Odunlami said in a statement on Sunday evening, later telling ABC News that police do not yet have an estimate.
Health workers at the Federal Medical Center in Owo told ABC News on Monday that at least 35 bodies had been transported to the hospital from the scene of Sunday’s attack. They said there was also an urgent need for blood donations for the wounded.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Laity Council of Nigeria said in a statement on Monday that “more than 50 parishioners” had died and the gunmen were “suspected to be bandits.”
The suspects fled the scene in a stolen Nissan and remain at large. The vehicle has since been recovered by police, according to Adejobi.
Police have also recovered three undetonated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from the scene, along with fragments of detonated IEDs and pellets of expended AK-47 ammunition, Adejobi said.
Nigerian Inspector-General of Police Usman Alkali Baba has ordered a “full-scale” and “comprehensive” investigation into the incident and has deployed specialized police units to help track down the assailants, according to Adejobi.
“He equally assures that the heartless killers of the harmless victims, particularly innocent children, would be made to face the full wrath of the law,” Adejobi said.
(WASHINGTON) — After extremists praised last month’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and called for at least one copycat attack, the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday warned of a “heightened” threat environment.
Law enforcement uses the term “domestic violent extremist” to label those from a broad swath of the ideological spectrum from racially motivated extremists to white supremacists.
The bulletin, which is the sixth bulletin DHS has issued since the beginning of the Biden administration, said domestic violent extremists are propagating disinformation.
“Others have seized on the event to attempt to spread disinformation and incite grievances, including claims it was a government-staged event meant to advance gun control measures,” the bulletin said, referring to the Uvalde school shooting.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called the threat environment “heightened.”
“As recent acts of violence in communities across the country have so tragically demonstrated, the nation remains in a heightened threat environment, and we expect that environment will become more dynamic in the coming months,” Mayorkas said.
Public gatherings, faith-based institutions, racial and religious minorities, government facilities and critical infrastructure may be targets of domestic violent extremists, a DHS official told reporters on a conference call.
“We do expect that the threat environment is likely to become more dynamic as several high-profile events could be exploited to justify acts of violence against a range of possible targets,” the official said.
The official said DHS is seeing threats from the “ideological spectrum” of actors, but did not offer more specifics.
Officials also said they are concerned about the midterm elections, because some could still be holding onto grievances from the 2020 presidential election. Officials say they are also concerned about possible fallout from an expected Supreme Court decision that could overturn Roe v. Wade, as ABC News has previously reported.
“Given a high-profile U.S. Supreme Court case about abortion rights, individuals who advocate both for and against abortion have, on public forums, encouraged violence, including against government, religious, and reproductive healthcare personnel and facilities, as well as those with opposing ideologies,” DHS officials wrote.
The bulletin said issues along the southern border could also present a trigger point for extremists.
“Some domestic violent extremists have expressed grievances related to their perception that the U.S. government is unwilling or unable to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and have called for violence to stem the flow of undocumented migrants to the United States,” the bulletin said. “We assess that there is increased risk of domestic violent extremists using changes in border security-related policies and/or enforcement mechanisms to justify violence against individuals, such as minorities and law enforcement officials involved in the enforcement of border security.”
The Department also hasn’t taken their eye off of foreign terrorists.
“Foreign terrorist organizations will likely continue to use online platforms to attempt to inspire U.S.-based individuals to engage in violent activity,” it said.
John Cohen, the former acting undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis at DHS, told ABC News this isn’t new.
“This bulletin reinforces what DHS and FBI have been telling the American people over the past year and a half,” Cohen, who is now an ABC News contributor, said.
He added, “The Nation faces a terrorism threat environment that is volatile, complex and dangerous. Lone offenders continue to engage in targeted acts of violence inspired by extremist or other content posted online. The tempo of these attacks are increasing. And these ideologically motivated attacks are occurring at the same time that localities across the nation are experiencing increased levels of violent crime. These are incredible challenging times for law enforcement and communities across the Nation.”
(WASHINGTON) — White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who took over as the President Joe Biden’s chief spokesperson just over three weeks ago, told ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday that Biden is “very encouraged” by gun safety negotiations in Congress as lawmakers urgently try to reach a deal in principle this week in the wake of recent shootings.
“This is a priority for and this is a very serious issue for this president, but right now, we’re watching what Congress is doing, because we can’t do this alone, he cannot do this alone, and we’re very encouraged,” Jean-Pierre told GMA Anchor Robin Roberts, who pressed her on whether Biden was personally lobbying senators after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas in which 19 children and two teachers were killed.
“So, I’ll say this, the president has been very clear,” Jean-Pierre continued. “He made his speech on Thursday. He spoke directly to the American public to continue to lay out the importance of dealing with gun violence, how this is destroying schools clearly and communities and how we have to act now and we cannot wait any longer.”
“But he wants to give the Senate and Congress on the Hill some space to have the conversation,” she added. “It sounds very promising. We are encouraged by it.”
Jean-Pierre said the White House Office of Legislative Affairs has had direct communication with the negotiators “dozens of times.”
“So, that is that is how we have been really dealing with this — making sure that we can do whatever it is that we can do on our end and getting updates from them as well,” she added.
The exclusive interview comes as Biden has called for lawmakers to act on gun safety legislation, but as Senate negotiators are considering a package much more narrow than what he asked for.
Biden called for an assault weapons ban, and if not, he said, then to raise the age to buy assault weapons from 18 to 21. Instead, lawmakers are considering measures like expanded background checks, incentives for states and localities to institute red flag laws, and increased funding for school security and mental health programs.
Throughout negotiations, Jean-Pierre has been on the defensive on Biden’s involvement as some have questioned whether the president should be taking a larger role in talks. She has argued Biden has been involved for decades and is giving senators “a little space” to work.
At Monday’s press briefing, Jean-Pierre indicated that even if the senators ultimately propose a package that falls far short of the wish list Biden outlined in prime-time remarks last week, incremental changes would be acceptable to Biden. When reporters pressed her on the president’s lack of personal involvement in the talks, she confirmed Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy’s assertion that he has spoken with the White House every single day since the negotiations began — but that can be on the staff level, not directly with Biden.
Jean-Pierre made history when she took over from Jen Psaki on May 13, becoming the first Black woman and first openly gay person to hold the position of White House press secretary.
When Jean-Pierre anchored her first White House briefing last year, as she was filling in for Psaki, ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce asked her about making history at the podium.
“It’s a real honor to be standing here today,” Jean-Pierre said. “I appreciate the historic nature, I really do, but I believe that being behind this podium, being in this room, being in this building, is not about one person. It’s about what we do on behalf of the American people.”
Previously, Jean-Pierre was principal deputy White House press secretary, and during the 2020 presidential campaign, she was then-candidate Kamala Harris’ chief of staff. She also served in the Obama White House as the regional director in the Office of Political Affairs for the northeast. Before joining the Biden campaign, she was a senior executive at MoveOn.org and an MSNBC analyst.
Jean-Pierre was born in Fort-de-France, Martinique, to Haitian parents, who later moved briefly to France and then immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Queens when she was 5. They later moved to Hempstead, Long Island, where her father worked as a cab driver, and her mother as a home health care aide. Though Jean-Pierre wasn’t born in Haiti, she calls herself a “proud Haitian-American.”
(NEW YORK) — Ramon Benavides, 2022’s Texas Teacher of the Year, choked up, clutching his infant son as his mind raced with thoughts of the recent mass shootings in his home state.
From the attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 to the Uvalde school massacre, the tragedies conjure up unimaginable fears felt not only by parents — but by teachers.
“I can’t even find the words to really explain how I’m feeling,” Benavides said. “I held him [his son] super tight because many parents, teachers involved, you know, they’re, they’re not coming back to their families and their families aren’t aren’t going to be able to embrace their loved ones as I did with my little boy last night. And it’s painful, it’s hurtful, and like I said, it’s just so many emotions just going on.”
The El Paso educator said he is devastated by the killing of 19 children and two of their teachers at Robb Elementary School. The shocking news struck his “soul,” he said, and he is having trouble making sense of it.
“I’ve lived across Texas, so this is something that just hits us all,” he told ABC News. “It kind of leaves you breathless, it’s like a punch to the gut.”
Teachers’ mental health
Having to deal with school shootings is just one of the factors taking a toll on teachers’ mental health.
Educators cite a range of emotions, including anxiety and sadness during a pandemic — now in its third year — as reasons more than half of them plan to leave their chosen profession, according to a survey from the National Education Association. While burnout is a primary cause teachers want out of the classroom, now some are haunted by fears that they, their families and their students now won’t be safe — even at school.
In the almost 10 years since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, there have been more than 900 school shootings, according to the gun violence prevention organization Sandy Hook Promise and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security. The attack in Uvalde is the latest in a long series of acts of gun violence terrorizing students and teachers alike. Last year, there were 42 acts of campus gun violence at K-12 schools in the U.S.
“Mental health in this country is already bad with the pandemic,” Lee Perez, Nebraska’s 2022 Teacher of the Year, told ABC News. The Uvalde shooting, he said, “is only going to make it worse.”
He knows how the pressures can push teachers to their limits. Perez dealt with anxiety and depression due to stress from the pandemic and how the spread of COVID-19 disproportionately affected marginalized minority communities.
Teachers’ job-related stress levels and symptoms of depression were higher than most employed adults, according to Rand Corporation’s 2021 State of the U.S. Teacher Survey. A recent poll of over 3,000 National Education Association (NEA) members emphasized over 90% of educators believe stress is a serious issue.
Dr. Christine Crawford, associate medical director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said that exposure to horrific events like the Uvalde shooting “can elicit symptoms that are consistent with a trauma response, almost.”
She explained that after hearing or reading about events like a mass shooting, people may notice they are more on edge or irritable and may experience other symptoms such as difficulty sleeping or concentrating. These symptoms, Crawford said, may present after repeated exposure to similar events, even if someone didn’t experience the trauma firsthand.
“We do know that there is this phenomenon known as vicarious trauma,” Crawford explained. “So, just hearing about a traumatic event, you can almost imagine yourself in that sort of scenario and that can further kind of exacerbate some of the symptoms that I just described.”
It highlights, she said, that even in a small community, “you don’t fully know each and every person and what it is that they’re capable of. And so this kind of sense of safety within the community can certainly be threatened.”
Benavides says he’s taking it “day-by-day.” But Perez, his state’s first Latinx and English as a Second Language (ESL) recipient of the top teacher honor, said the shooting in Uvalde also hit close to home.
“These beautiful brown babies [were] just murdered in cold blood,” he said, adding, “it puts people of color … puts us on pins and needles.”
Perez had his first child at the beginning of this month. He tearfully discussed “strategizing” to protect his baby girl, Natalia, if Congress doesn’t pass universal background checks or mental health red flag laws.
“It really adds to that anxiety that has been brought on by all the stuff that’s happened two years ago,” Perez said. “As educators, we always tell families, communities and our students, ‘you are safe at school,’ but then this happens, and then the question becomes, well, ‘are students safe at school? Is anybody safe at school?'”
‘It scares you,’ one teacher said
Teachers have faced mental health struggles throughout the pandemic that initially shuttered schools and has upended education over the last two years. Their fears of contracting a deadly virus, combating a nationwide staffing and substitute shortage and increasing demands on their time have made a tough profession — even harder.
“Teachers are doing amazing work, and they are providing work during a very challenging time. They already had to provide support – to teach kids during a pandemic, and then to have these events happen, can be further traumatizing for some of our teachers,” Crawford said. “And so we certainly do need to have compassion for these teachers, empathy for these teachers, because they really have been faced with a tremendous amount of stress and trauma over the last few years.”
Experts have been monitoring the effects of the pandemic on the mental health of Americans over the last two years. Since April 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been documenting self-reported symptoms of anxiety and depression, using Household Pulse Surveys. These metrics, compared with similar data collected in 2019, show a dramatic increase in symptoms.
Colorado’s Autumn Rivera was a 2022 finalist for the national teacher of the year award who says she considered seeking mental health counseling at her school after the Uvalde shooting. With the school year ending, Rivera is taking time to process her feelings because she can’t accept the fact that many of those slain were Latinx.
“Those are my students,” Rivera said, comparing the population she teaches to the students at Robb Elementary. “That is me and those two teachers, you know, very similar backgrounds, very similar situations, and it just broke my heart.”
For now, Perez struggles with the notion of when this might happen again, advocating for Congress to enact sweeping gun reform that could prevent future attacks on schools. Ultimately, he hopes his daughter has a safer future than today’s students who do lockdown and active shooting drills.
“It scares you,” he said. “Where is it safe? The fact that you have to ask that question scares, not just teachers, but everybody.”
The National Alliance on Mental Illness HelpLine offers resources and support to people experiencing mental health struggles. The HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m., ET at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or helpline@nami.org. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available toll-free, 24/7, to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress at 1-800-273-8255.
(WASHINGTON) — The son of the oldest victim in the Buffalo, New York supermarket shooting is expected to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday in a hearing on domestic terrorism in the wake of the apparent racially-motivated attack that left 10 Black people dead, including his 86-year-old mother, and a national reckoning over gun violence as lawmakers consider gun safety legislation this week.
The hearing, which kicks off at 10 a.m., is titled, “Examining the ‘Metastasizing’ Domestic Terrorism Threat After the Buffalo Attack” and will examine “the continued threat posed by violent white supremacists and other extremists, including those who have embraced the so-called ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory, as well as the federal government’s response to this threat,” according to a committee release.
Lawmakers on the, at times, divisive committee will hear from Garnell Whitfield Jr., the son of Ruth Whitfield, the oldest victim in the Buffalo shooting, who was mourned by her family in an emotional press conference last month. Whitfield was returning home from visiting her husband in a nursing home, what her son called “a daily ritual” for eight years of their 68-year marriage, when she stopped by the Tops grocery store to pick up groceries, and the gunman opened fire.
“For her to be taken from us and taken from this world by someone that’s just full of hate for no reason … it is very hard for us to handle right now,” Garnell said at the time.
“We need help. We’re asking you to help us, help us change this. This can’t keep happening,” he added.
At the same press conference, civil rights attorney Ben Crump slammed what he called the “accomplices to this mass murder” and the cause of the indoctrination of hate among young people, referring, in part, to far-right-wing websites, politicians and cable news pundits.
“Even though they didn’t pull the trigger, they did load the gun for this young white supremacist,” Crump said. “Black America is suffering right now and we need to know that our top leader in America reacts and responds when we are hurt.”
Other witnesses on Tuesday’s panel include Michael German, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent and fellow at the Brennan Center For Justice; Robert Pape, professor and director of The Chicago Project on Security and Threats at The University of Chicago; Justin Herdman, a former U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Ohio, and legal scholar Jonathan Turley, a professor at the George Washington University Law School and a frequent witness called by Republicans on the committee.
ABC News previously reported on evidence indicating the Buffalo shooting was a calculated, racially-motivated execution by the suspect, an 18-year-old white male, according to multiple sources and a review of FBI cases and testimony. The gunman, who has pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder and is being held without bail, allegedly wanted a race war and live-streamed his attack in an apparent effort to spur others to kill minorities, sources said.
Included in a 180-page document posted online by the shooter was a far-right conspiracy idea called the “great replacement theory,” which baselessly claims that white populations are being intentionally replaced by minorities and immigrants. Democrats have slammed the theory and moved to fund new programs to target domestic terrorism, while some Republicans have faced backlash for echoing notions of the theory in their talking points.
The hearing comes as the Democrats on Capitol Hill ramp up efforts to push for legislation that would require stronger background checks for gun buyers and incentivize state red flag laws following the recent mass shootings. Twenty-one people, including 19 children, were killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, just 10 days after the mass shooting in Buffalo. Another mass shooting on June 1 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, claimed four lives after a gunman stormed a medical facility with an AR-15-style rifle that police say he bought hours before the massacre.
Zeneta Everhart, who says her 21-year-old son, Zaire Goodman, is still recovering from gunshot wounds in the Buffalo shooting, one of three others injured there, as well as Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader who survived the shooting in Uvalde, are both expected to testify at another hearing on gun violence on Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
The FBI announced it was investigating the Buffalo mass shooting as a hate crime and case of “racially motivated violent extremism” after Erie County Sheriff John Garcia described the attack as a “straight-up racially motivated hate crime.”
Senate Republicans used the filibuster to block a bill last month designed to combat domestic terrorism from advancing to a key vote. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, D-Ill., was the only Republican in either chamber of Congress to vote for the measure, which would have created new offices within the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and FBI to “monitor, analyze, investigate, and prosecute domestic terrorism.”
Tuesday marks the third in a series of hearings this committee has held on domestic terrorism.
(SAN ANTONIO, Texas) — Arnulfo Reyes woke up ready for a good day. His third- and fourth-grade class at Robb Elementary had finished its final tests the week before. Awards were going to be handed out. He planned to show his students a movie, The Addams Family — the animated version.
“It was going to be a good day,” Reyes told ABC News anchor Amy Robach in an exclusive interview. “There was nothing unusual that day, we were just walking back to the classroom … to watch the rest of the movie.”
Around 11:30 a.m., however, the normalcy shattered. Reyes said he heard a bang. Unsure of what it was, he told the students to get under their desks — just like they’d practiced.
“The kids were yelling, ‘What’s going on, Mr. Reyes?'” he said. “[The students] were going under the table, and I was trying to get them to do that as fast as I could.”
“When I turned around,” he said, “I just saw him.”
The next 77 minutes of carnage “destroyed” Reyes, he said, and forever changed a school, a community and perhaps a country. By the end of his rampage, a gunman had killed 19 students — including all 11 in Reyes’ classroom — and two teachers. Reyes himself sustained multiple gunshot wounds.
“I feel so bad for the parents because they lost a child,” Reyes told Robach. “But they lost one child. I lost 11 that day, all at one time.”
From his hospital bed in San Antonio, less than two weeks after surviving the second-most deadly school shooting in U.S. history, Reyes offered the most vivid account yet of what transpired inside classroom 111 of Robb Elementary School on May 24.
He also waded into the nationwide debate over gun violence and slammed local police as “cowards” for failing to act faster. And while Reyes recovers, he’s already plotting his next act: ensuring this never happens again.
“The only thing that I know is that I won’t let these children and my co-workers die in vain,” he said. “I will go to the end of the world to make sure things get changed. If that’s what I have to do for the rest of my life, I will do it.”
Inside the classroom
Before the gunman entered his classroom, Reyes said he told his students, “Get under the table and act like you’re asleep.” When he turned, he saw a blur — and then gunfire.
Two shots rang out. Reyes immediately “knew something was wrong,” he said. He couldn’t feel his arm, and he fell to the floor as the gunman fired indiscriminately into the classroom of 10- and 11-year-olds. After a short time, silence fell over the room.
“I prayed that I wouldn’t hear none of my students talk,” he said. “And I didn’t hear talk for a while. But then, later on, he did shoot again. So, if he didn’t get them the first time, he got them the second time.”
Wounded on the ground, Reyes said he followed his own advice and pretended to be unconscious. Reyes said the gunman again fired his weapon.
“And that was the second time he got me,” Reyes said. “Just to make sure that I was dead.”
The second gunshot pierced Reyes’ back and lung.
“I had no concept of time,” Reyes said. “When things go bad, it seems like eternity. The only thing that I can say is I felt like my blood was like an hourglass.”
In the 14 days since the shooting, Reyes said he has undergone five surgeries and twice had his blood replaced.
Unbeknownst to Reyes, parents and onlookers eventually gathered outside of the school, encouraging officers to enter the building. It wasn’t until 12:50 p.m. when a tactical unit finally breached the classroom door and killed the gunman.
“After that it was just bullets everywhere,” he said. “And then I just remember Border Patrol saying, ‘Get up, get out,’ and I couldn’t get up.”
System failure
In the wake of the shooting, law enforcement has come under immense scrutiny for failing to act faster. Seventy-seven minutes passed from the time the gunman entered the school until officers breached the door and killed him.
“They’re cowards,” Reyes said. “They sit there and did nothing for our community. They took a long time to go in… I will never forgive them.”
Law enforcement and state officials have repeatedly corrected themselves and at times provided conflicting details about their response. At one point, a Texas Department of Public Safety official said the on-scene commanding officer made the “wrong decision” to wait to breach the barricaded classrooms.
Robb Elementary School prepared for active shooter events, conducting drills as recently as a few weeks before the mass shooting. But Reyes described failures in protocol at nearly every step of the security process on May 24 — missteps in protocol and execution that he says cost lives.
“There was no announcement. I did not receive any messages on my phone — sometimes we do get a Raptor system,” he said, referring to the school district’s emergency alert program, “but I didn’t get anything, and I didn’t hear anything.”
Reyes also described complaints he said he had made about his door, which is meant to remain shut and locked while class is in session. At prior security checks, Reyes said he noticed that his door would not latch — an issue he said he raised with the school’s principal.
“When that would happen, I would tell my principal, ‘Hey, I’m going to get in trouble again, they’re going to come and tell you that I left my door unlocked, which I didn’t,'” he said. “But the latch was stuck. So, it was just an easy fix.”
Even with the failures in plan implementation, Reyes said the outcome felt inevitable: “No training would ever prepare anybody for this.”
“It all happened too fast. Training, no training, all kinds of training — nothing gets you ready for this,” he said. “We trained our kids to sit under the table and that’s what I thought of at the time. But we set them up to be like ducks.”
The Uvalde Police Department, Texas Department of Public Safety and Robb Elementary School did not respond to requests for comment.
The solution is not more training, according to Reyes, but an overhaul of a system that allows easy access to firearms. Reyes emphasized that he is not against gun ownership, but advocated for common-sense gun legislation that would raise the age limit for would-be gun purchasers.
“If you want to buy a gun, you want to own a gun, that’s fine,” he said. “But the age limit has to change. And I think that they need to do more background checks on it. Things just have to change. It must change.”
(NEW YORK) — Relief for American parents and families can’t come quick enough as the nationwide baby formula shortage persists.
The crisis has continued, despite Abbott, one of the nation’s largest formula manufacturers restarting a key Michigan plant this past Saturday following a February recall and temporary shutdown. The company estimates it will take at least six to eight weeks for production to reach full capacity.
That’s time caregivers say they don’t have. Conditions have become dire enough over the past several months that parents have flocked to Facebook groups and desperately reached out for help finding formula as store shelves remain bare.
90% of formulas out of stock in some states
Tracking firm Datasembly has been recording the lack of formula products in more than 130,000 stores nationally. According to data obtained by ABC News, nine states across the U.S., including California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Rhode Island and Tennessee have topped 90% out-of-stock rates, with Arizona hitting a 94% out-of-stock rate during the week of May 22-29.
The national average out-of-stock rate has climbed to over 73%. Twenty-nine states, along with Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, have seen over 75% of baby formulas out of stock.
The federal government has been trying to fill the gaps by launching Operation Fly Formula, which was approved by President Joe Biden nearly three weeks ago on May 18. The initiative has fast-tracked the imports of millions of baby formula products and a fifth shipment from Germany with another 1.6 million formula bottles is expected to arrive in Texas on Thursday, according to the White House.
But the latest shipment will only contain Nestlé NAN SupremePro Stage 1 infant formulas, meant for healthy babies and will not include specialized formulas, which have hit families of children with allergies and premature infants especially hard.
Some formula prices have shot up as demand remains high
Mac Jaehnert lives in Washington, where Datasembly’s statistics indicate formula stock rates are hovering at 89.9% out of stock.
“I am still seeing extremely limited availability of NeoSure in shelves and online,” Jaehnert told ABC News’ Good Morning America, referring to one of Abbott’s formulas for premature babies. “We’ve seen an occasional case of NeoSure arriving at our local Walmarts and will periodically see it available online but by and large those orders end up getting canceled.”
“Now other specialty formulas are becoming extremely hard to find, like Nutramigen and Gentlease,” the father of one continued.
“On top of everything else, major retailers like Rite Aid are raising prices on formula by huge margins — so even if we can find brands in high demand, they’re charging up to $10/can more,” Jaehnert wrote via Twitter.
GMA has reached out to Rite Aid for comment and has yet to hear back.
Both Jaehnert and another parent, Kerissa Miller, are part of the Find My Formula, Tri Cities WA Facebook group where they’ve been volunteering for hours and days on end to help fellow moms and dads get baby formula.
“We recently started working with the [neonatal intensive care unit] and preemie releases from the hospital and noticed that they are not sending premature babies home with enough formula or the correct type because of the shortage,” Miller told GMA via text message. “The store shelves have not improved much. We actually started purchasing from other states that [have] better supply to support our local babies.”
“We do hope to see change soon but there has been zero change in the inventory supply in our area unfortunately, [and] our group has grown to almost 1,500 people, so we have even more babies to feed now,” she added.
For Taylor-Rey J’Vera, a mom of one in Brooklyn, New York, Abbott’s February recall impacted her family directly and this spring, she and her wife Libby decided to switch their 8-month-old’s formula twice, first in response to the recall and the second time because the switch led to a run on their substitute formula.
“After the recall, we switched over to Enfamil. And so we use a specific type of Enfamil. It’s kind of hard to find in stores so we were mostly doing online searching and purchasing through Amazon or directly through Enfamil,” J’Vera explained.
When their formula stock ran low, J’Vera said she searched in local drug stores, online and she even noticed strangers selling baby formula on the New York City subway at “crazy gouged prices.”
“We were really scared. We did start to feed [River] solids a little sooner. Like he was already starting solids, but we’ve been kind of fast-tracking the solids journey because we were and are still a little nervous about what the future holds,” J’Vera recalled.
The same week Biden authorized Operation Fly Formula, J’Vera posted a plea for help on Instagram.
J’Vera said her family was ultimately “super blessed” as their friends, family members and even exes reached out to help them find formula in places as far as Canada for baby River.
“What I’ve been doing now, we’re just giving away any extra formula, because people are still bringing it to us very nicely as a surprise. People are like, ‘Oh, yeah, I saw this. This is for you. You don’t have to pay for it. It’s fine. Just take it,'” she said.
J’Vera said any extra formula goes to those they know who still need it.
“We’re like, ‘Hey, do you want this formula?’ and we’re just trying to pay it forward,” she said.
“Things are supposed to be changing, but we can’t seem to get a clear timeline on any of the changes exactly,” she added. “We keep hearing that idea like everything is in the works … but we don’t know when any of that is going to actually hit the shelves.”
