(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the overdose reversal drug Narcan for over-the-counter use on Wednesday — a milestone decision that advocates said will make it easier to save lives amid the ongoing opioid epidemic.
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(NEW YORK) — When Candace Henley, 55, was diagnosed with colorectal cancer 20 years ago, all she wanted was to see her youngest child turn 18.
“I wouldn’t ask [God] anything, but in return I would do what I needed to do to save someone else from going through the trauma that I and my family went through,” Henley told ABC News’ Good Morning America.
Now a cancer survivor, Henley is making it her mission to educate others about the disease and save lives.
What is colorectal cancer?
Henley was 35 years old when she was diagnosed with the disease.
She told GMA that she recalled being in “so much pain.”
“I couldn’t stand up,” she said. “Finally, one of my cousins said we’re going to the emergency room.”
According to the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, colorectal cancer or CRC is a “disease of the colon or rectum.”
Signs include abnormal growths in the colon or rectum that can turn into cancer if not removed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, someone could have polyps or colorectal cancer and not know it, according to the CDC.
The disease typically occurs in people ages 45 and older, but is on the rise among younger people, according to the CCA.
Earlier this month, the American Cancer Society reported that one in five cases of the disease in 2023 occurred in people under 55. Colon cancer is also the most common cancer and the second most common cancer death in the U.S., according to the ACS.
“Colorectal cancer is one of those things that people really don’t like to talk about,” Sophie Balzora, a gastroenterologist and clinical professor of medicine at New York University, told GMA. “And it does prevent people from going to the doctor to talk about their symptoms or even just talking about screening.”
Health experts like Balzora have stressed the importance of getting screened regularly for colorectal cancer as a way to reduce the risk of it. Screening for colorectal cancer should begin at age 45, according to the CDC, but if you have a family history of it, you should get screened earlier for the disease.
The Blue Hat Foundation
Henley is now using her story to raise awareness about the disease, especially among those in the Black community, where rates are the highest of any racial or ethnic group in the U.S., according to the ACS.
Henley founded The Blue Hat Foundation in 2015, with the goal of raising awareness about CRC. It began at her church and has since expanded into a thriving organization.
“We’re trying to make sure that we connect the patient to what they need,” Henley said.
“I don’t want anyone to go through what I did,” she added. “Communities of color will continue to be left behind in research if we don’t participate willingly this time. We have to do our part to help improve our community’s health outcomes and it’s not enough to complain and wait. We must be proactive, educate ourselves and make informed decisions about our health.”
For more information and resources on colorectal cancer, visit Colorectal Cancer Alliance online where you can take a screening quiz. Colorectal cancer patients and caregivers can also receive free support at CCA’s BlueHQ website.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(NEW YORK) — Angelina Cubero said she spent nearly a decade of her life going to doctors, trying to find out why she experienced migraines, brain fog numbness and pain in her legs, and other unexplained symptoms.
“I would go to the doctor, I would go to the ER, I would go to urgent cares, I would go to my primary doctor, I’d go to a specialist, another specialist, and I wasn’t really getting any answers,” Cubero, 27, told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “They would say, ‘You look fine. You don’t look sick. All your tests seemed normal to me.’ … The only reason they told me was anxiety.”
Cubero, who lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, said it was only three years ago, in 2020, that she underwent a second brain magnetic resonance imaging scan, or MRI, where doctors discovered multiple lesions, or plaques, in her brain.
The discovery led to a diagnosis of a disease Cubero said she had never heard of, multiple sclerosis.
“I’d never heard of MS,” Cubero said. “I had to do my own research to figure out what is MS, and that was scary.”
Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disease in which the immune cells in the body body injure myelin, the tissue that surrounds nerves, including those in the brain and spinal cord, according to the National Institutes of Health. It is a chronic disease, with no known cause and no known cure.
It is also a disease that can be unpredictable, causing differing symptoms with variable timing and frequency, from fatigue, numbness or tingling, weakness, dizziness and vertigo to, in the most severe cases, rendering a person unable to write, speak or walk, according to the NIH. Even individually, MS symptoms can vary, ranging from mild to extreme pain during a flare-up of the disease.
Cubero said that as a Hispanic woman who was 24 years old when she was diagnosed with MS, she struggled to find anyone who looked like her talking about the disease.
“There were so many questions I had, and it was really hard to find those answers,” Cubero said. “I didn’t really find much information on how it affects the Hispanic community … and I didn’t know how it affected young people.”
Cubero was a senior in college when she was diagnosed, and said she decided to write her senior thesis on either MS and young people or MS and Hispanics.
“I was like, ‘I’ll do one or the other,’ and I couldn’t find research for either,” she said. “So that was the tricky part, not only for my project, but also for personal knowledge on how this new disease that I have affects me.”
Why Hispanics have been overlooked in MS research
Though Cubero struggled to find representation after receiving her MS diagnosis, she is not alone.
Symptoms for people with MS usually first start between the ages of 20 to 40, and the disease is estimated to be three times more common in women than men, according to both the NIH and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, a nonprofit organization focused on raising MS awareness and increasing research.
In addition, people of Hispanic or Latino descent are more likely to be diagnosed with MS at younger ages and have earlier onsets of symptoms, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Julie Fiol, the organization’s associate vice president of health care access, told GMA that Cubero’s experience of struggling for years to get a diagnosis is not uncommon among MS patients, especially for people of color.
“It can be challenging for anyone to receive a diagnosis because there is no one, easy-to-access confirmatory test that says that you have MS,” Fiol said. “There are several tests, like an MRI, that can be done that can help rule in and confirm a diagnosis of MS, but before even getting that, it requires someone to be connected with a physician who takes them seriously, acknowledges that their symptoms are real and can put together that the person who is sitting in front of me could potentially have MS.”
She continued, “For far too long, MS was viewed as a disease that affected white people, so if you didn’t fit that mold of what that clinician was expecting to see for MS, they may not have even considered MS as a possibility.”
In Cubero’s case, she said it was only when she found an MS specialist who is also a psychiatrist that she began to receive the treatment she needed.
“He understood what was anxiety and what was MS, and he heard me out and he said, ‘No, you actually have relapsing-remitting MS. Those are MS symptoms,'” Cubero said. “That was when I finally felt validated and secure, like, OK, I can trust my doctor moving forward and we can come up with a plan that works best for me.”
With relapsing-remitting MS, the most common type of the disease, symptoms occur in attacks, called a relapse or exacerbation, followed by a period of remission that may last for weeks, months or years. People with secondary-progressive MS have usually had a history of MS attacks and their symptoms and ability to function worsen over time. In the two more severe and rare forms of MS — primary-progressive MS and progressive-relapsing MS — people’s symptoms progressively worsen from the beginning, with no remission, according to the NIH.
People of Hispanic and Latino descent often have more severe symptoms of MS, with a faster severity of disease, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. In addition, optic neuritis, or swelling of the eye’s optic nerve, which can impact vision, is twice more common in Hispanic people with MS.
Exactly why Hispanic patients are hit younger and more severely by MS remains to be seen because research has been so limited, according to Dr. Lilyana Amezcua, who is considered one of the pioneers in researching the impact of MS on the Hispanic and Latino communities.
“Is that all an issue of access to care and what we call social determinants of health, or are there other environmental factors and genetic predispositions that do not allow for better recovery of the disease? Those are all questions that are unanswered at this time,” Amezcua said.
Amezcua, a neurologist and Multiple Sclerosis Fellowship Program Director at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, said she began studying the connection a decade ago as a practicing neurologist in Los Angeles. At the time, she said less than 1% of MS scientific literature focused on Hispanics or African-Americans.
“One of the things that I was observing was that with Hispanic patients, there was a delay of diagnosis,” she said. “When I would compare them to what I would expect for white people, it was about one to three years delay of getting that diagnosis, so from there we started with our first initial studies to better understand this population.”
As she began her research — founding the Alliance for Research in Hispanic MS, a collaboration between multiple universities — Amezcua said she and her colleagues discovered that Hispanics had been vastly underrepresented in clinical trials. When it comes to clinical trials on medications to treat MS, for example, just 7% of participants are Hispanic, according to Amezcua.
“We know probably that the drugs do work, but we don’t know to the extent, particularly if the disease in [an Hispanic patient] is starting a bit more worse,” she said. “What is the possibility that we’re going to sort of calm [MS] down more effectively with one drug?”
Amezcua said the group is now leading a global study that is researching one specific drug targeted for Hispanic and African-American populations, which were both underrepresented in other clinical trials.
The group’s research over the past decade has also shown that many of the genetic risk factors present in white people diagnosed with MS are also present in the Hispanic population, according to Amezcua.
“We’re hoping to dig deeper to see if there’s additional risk factors that are both genetic and environmental that could help us understand … MS, and help not just Hispanics but everyone else,” she said, adding that while there are barriers, more and more Hispanic people want to participate in MS research.
“We find that there’s a high interest of wanting to participate because they’re interested in understanding what does MS look like in them, what are the best treatments out there and what services are out there?” Amezcua said.
Both Fiol and Amezcua noted that in addition to scientific research, a large part of the work being undertaken by researchers and patient organizations like the National Multiple Sclerosis Society is to educate both medical professionals and the general public about all the populations MS may impact.
In the Hispanic community, that means working to increase access to MS specialty centers and educating people about MS as a “silent disease.” The education includes sharing information about the signs and symptoms of MS both so that people can get medical care earlier, and so families and caregivers understand more about the disease.
“In MS you have those symptoms that are visible, like walking with a cane, but you also have the silent symptoms and the silent symptoms can culturally be an issue,” Amezcua said, noting that fatigue, for example, may be perceived as laziness to people unfamiliar with MS. “MS is not as common as, let’s say diabetes and hypertension is in this population, so many of [a patient’s] family members may not have heard about MS.”
Fiol said a large part of her work at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society is focused on recruiting MS specialists like Amezcua, who are Hispanic.
“We know that people feel more comfortable seeking care from doctors that they feel they can trust and can relate to, and sometimes that has to do with just finding someone that looks like them,” Fiol said. “And only 7% of the neurology workforce in the U.S. is Hispanic, so we have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of work to do.”
Becoming a voice for Hispanic people with MS
Nearly two years after she was diagnosed with MS, Cubero said she began sharing her journey publicly on social media in hopes of raising awareness of the disease and how it can impact Hispanic people as well as young women.
“Having a diagnosis leads to treatments, which leads to a better experience,” Cubero said of the importance of people knowing the signs and symptoms of MS. “I’m just grateful to have a diagnosis because it led me to an MS center, which has a lot of resources for me to improve.”
Cubero also began to use her voice literally to help raise awareness, singing about her journey in order to help educate people and make others with MS feel less alone.
“I wish I had that when I was searching for answers,” said Cubero, who performs under the stage name Lina Light. “It’s bittersweet for me, but I’m really happy to help others because I feel like I’m going through this for a bigger purpose. It wasn’t just my story, it was to help others to get through their diagnosis too and to support each other.”
Cubero said she has met other “MS warriors” through the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, which last year hosted its first-ever Hispanic LatinX Experience Summit that brought people together to connect virtually with each other.
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society is now also establishing an Hispanic-Latinx Collaborative, an initiative designed to increase outreach and engagement with those communities, according to Fiol.
Throughout her years-long health journey, Cubero said she has learned to advocate for herself. It’s one of the lessons she said she hopes other people take away from her story.
“I really want people to be their best advocate, to speak up,” she said. “I know that it can be intimidating. I know that it can be hard, but you have to speak up. You deserve the best care.”
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(NEW YORK) — More than a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, the countries are fighting for control of areas in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops have liberated nearly 30,000 square miles of their territory from Russian forces since the invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, but Putin appeared to be preparing for a long and bloody war.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 28, 4:45 PM EDT
US will support special tribunal to try ‘crime of aggression’ against Russia
The U.S. will support the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute top Kremlin officials for Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine, State Department officials said Tuesday, marking a significant shift for the Biden administration and a notable step toward outlining what accountability on the international stage might look like after the conflict.
A department spokesperson said the administration envisioned the tribunal would take the form of an international court that is “rooted in Ukraine’s judicial system” but ideally located in another European country.
The spokesperson added that such a mechanism would work to “facilitate broader international support and demonstrate Ukraine’s leadership in ensuring accountability for the crime of aggression” as well as “maximize the chances of achieving meaningful accountability for the crime of aggression.”
Ukraine and other Western countries have long called for a special tribunal, but until now, the U.S. has not publicly declared if it would support the creation of a new structure.
Mar 27, 12:21 PM EDT
Two dead, 29 hurt in Russian missile strike on Sloviansk
At least two people were killed and 29 were injured Monday morning when a pair of long-range Russian missiles slammed into buildings in a city in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said.
The two S-300 Russian missiles hit administrative and office buildings, and private homes in Sloviansk, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, the regional governor.
Sloviansk is in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, where heavy fighting has been waged since the start of the war.
The missiles struck the city around 10:30 a.m. local time, Kyrylenko said.
He said the town of Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region was also targeted in Monday’s missile attacks. Kyrylenko said a Russian missile “almost completely destroyed” an orphanage in Druzhkivka, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
“Another day that began with terrorism by the Russian Federation,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine “will not forgive the torturing of our people.”
“All Russian terrorists will be defeated,” Zelenskyy said. “Everyone involved in this aggression will be held to account.”
Mar 26, 1:47 PM EDT
Ukrainian drone injures 3 inside Russia
Three people were injured in an explosion in the Kireevsky district of the Tula region on Sunday, Yekaterina Makarova, press secretary of the region’s Ministry of Health, told Interfax.
Russian authorities and law enforcement agencies said a Ukrainian drone with ammunition caused the explosion in the town far from the two countries’ border.
Kireevsk is about 180 miles from the border with Ukraine and 110 miles south of Moscow.
The Russian state-run news agency Tass reported authorities identified the drone as a Ukrainian Tu-141. The Latvia-based Russian news outlet Meduza reported that the blast left a crater about 50 feet in diameter and 16 feet deep.
-ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva
Mar 24, 2:03 PM EDT
Russia says Slovakia handing over fighter jets unfriendly step, violation of international obligations
Russia called Slovakia’s transfer of MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine an unfriendly step and a step aimed at destroying bilateral relations.
“We are talking about another gross violation by the Slovak side of its international obligations to re-export Russian-made weapons and military equipment,” Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation said in a statement.
“We regard these actions of Slovakia as an unfriendly act against the Russian Federation, aimed at destroying bilateral relations,” the FSMTC said.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Mar 23, 12:03 PM EDT
Ukraine says Russia’s Bakhmut assault loses steam, counterstrike coming soon
Ukrainian troops, on the defensive for four months, will launch a long-awaited counterassault “very soon” now that Russia’s huge winter offensive is losing steam without taking Bakhmut, Ukraine’s top ground forces commander Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi said Thursday.
“The aggressor does not give up hope of taking Bakhmut at any cost, despite the losses in manpower and equipment,” Syrskyi said.
Adding, “Without sparing anything, they lose considerable strength and exhale. Very soon we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we once did near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balaklia and Kupyansk.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Mar 23, 11:51 AM EDT
Slovakia hands over 4 fighter jets to Ukraine
Slovakia has handed over four MiG-29 fighter jets to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, according to Slovakian Defense Minister Jaro Nad.
The remaining aircrafts promised to Ukraine will be handed over in the following weeks, Nad said.
In response to the news, Russia accused NATO and the EU of continuing to escalate the conflict in Ukraine and seeking to prolong it.
“The Russian Federation considers the transfer of four fighter jets by Slovakia to Ukraine a destructive step that runs counter to the EU’s rhetoric about seeking peaceful solutions,” Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said in a statement.
Adding, “The Russian Federation will measure its reaction with the specific military activities of NATO on the territory of Finland.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Mar 22, 9:34 AM EDT
Zelenskyy visits troops after night of Russian strikes
Chinese President Xi Jinping hadn’t even left Moscow when the drones started exploding. It came a matter of hours after Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed they were the ones who wanted to make “peace” in Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials say 21 lethal attack drones were launched overnight and into this morning by Russia, with 16 shot down by the Ukrainians.
An apartment block was hit in a town southeast of Kyiv, killing at least four people and injuring others, officials said. Russian officials claim Ukrainian soldiers were based there. The Ukrainians are calling it a “civilian” building.
Russian missiles later hit an apartment block in the heart of the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia.
And in an apparent repost to the geopolitical theatrics in Moscow, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited his troops on Wednesday in the eastern Donbas, not far from the embattled city of Bakhmut, according to his officials.
Bakhmut has become a potent symbol of Ukrainian resistance and sacrifice and, despite being surrounded on three sides, Ukrainian forces inside the city are, after months of fighting there, still holding on.
Zelenskyy’s office released video of him addressing troops and also visiting injured soldiers in a military medical facility in the region. He told troops their “destiny was difficult but important” because they were fighting to save the motherland.
Mar 22, 8:32 AM EDT
Missile strikes residential building in Ukraine
A Russian missile struck an apartment building in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Wednesday, injuring at least 18 people, officials said.
“This must not become ‘just another day’ in” Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Twitter.
“The world needs greater unity and determination to defeat Russian terror faster and protect lives,” he said.
The victims included two children, secretary of the City Council Anatoly Kurtev said. Eleven adults were hospitalized, with four in serious condition, he said.
Mar 21, 6:09 PM EDT
Explosions reported in several Ukrainian cities
Explosions were heard and felt in the cities of Odesa and Kherson and the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk on Tuesday evening, officials and people on the ground in Ukraine reported on social media channels.
During the attack on Odesa, Ukraine’s air defense shot down two X-59 guided missiles launched by Russian fighter jets, the Ukrainian Air Force said on its Telegram channel.
Russia fired four missiles at Odesa, Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential office, said on his Telegram channel. Two rockets were shot down by Ukrainian air defense, and two rockets hit the city, he said.
Three people were wounded, and a three-story building on the complex of a monastery was damaged, Yermak said.
Three people were killed, and four were wounded as a result of Russian shelling in the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General reported on Facebook.
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman
Mar 21, 4:29 PM EDT
Ukrainian Patriot missile training at Fort Sill nearly complete
The Patriot missile training for Ukrainian troops at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, is wrapping up soon, an Army spokesman said Tuesday.
Sixty-five Ukrainian soldiers have been training at Fort Sill since mid-January in an expedited training cycle on using the Patriots — training that typically can last up to a year.
The Ukrainians will depart the Army post in the coming days for Europe, where they will receive additional training, before heading back to Ukraine “in the coming weeks,” Col. Marty O’Donnell of U.S. Army Europe/Africa told ABC News.
“In Europe, the Ukrainians training here will meet up with Ukrainians training in Europe, and with U.S., German, and Dutch equipment donations to validate the systems and ensure interoperability,” O’Donnell said.
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez
Mar 21, 12:48 PM EDT
US to speed up delivery of Abrams tanks to Ukraine
The United States is going to speed up the manufacture and delivery of the 31 Abrams tanks President Joe Biden approved sending to Ukraine, a U.S. official confirmed Tuesday.
Instead of making new tanks from scratch, the Department of Defense will now refurbish the hulls of several older models that will be equipped with more modern equipment, according to the official.
The new delivery target date is fall 2023, the official said; previously the anticipated delivery time was believed to be mid-2024.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby hinted at the accelerated timeline on Tuesday.
“We’re working on that,” Kirby said on MSNBC. “There’s some changes that you can make to the process to sort of speed that up.”
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez and Teresa Mettela
Mar 21, 11:49 AM EDT
Japanese PM visits Ukraine for 1st time during war
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Ukraine on Tuesday for the first time since the start of Russia’s invasion.
In Kyiv, Kishida laid a wreath at the memorial for fallen Ukrainian soldiers. In Bucha, where Ukrainian officials said more than 400 civilians were killed last year by Russian forces, he laid a wreath outside a church before observing a moment of silence and bowing.
“The world was astonished to see innocent civilians in Bucha killed one year ago,” Kishida said. “I really feel great anger for all the atrocious acts.”
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman
Mar 20, 6:33 PM EDT
Ukraine claims it destroyed Russian cruise missiles in Crimea drone attack
Ukrainian forces destroyed Russian Kalibr-NK cruise missiles in a drone strike in Crimea as the weapons were being transported by rail, the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate said on their official Telegram channel Monday.
Sergey Aksyonov, an adviser to the head of the Republic of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, confirmed a drone attack on his official Telegram channel.
Debris from the aerial object damaged a household and a shop and one person was injured from the explosions, Aksyonov said.
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman
Mar 19, 6:44 PM EDT
Indications China could be supplying electrical components to Russia military use, senior Ukrainian official says
Ukraine has been monitoring multiple flights between Russian and Chinese cities during which the aircrafts’ transponders are temporarily switched off, according to a senior Ukrainian official, who called it a cause for concern.
The official said the belief is that China could be supplying Russia with electrical components that Moscow needs for military equipment, thus diminishing the impact of Western sanctions.
The senior official, who spoke exclusively to ABC News on the condition of anonymity, added that Ukraine currently has “no proof” that China is supplying weaponry or ammunition to Ukraine.
The official also dismissed the notion of a Chinese-brokered peace plan in the near future and said Ukraine is focused on retaking more land from Russia and is preparing for a fresh offensive “in the spring or early summer.”
-ABC News’ Tom Burridge
Mar 19, 1:13 AM EDT
Putin arrives in Mariupol, marking first visit to newly annexed territories
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Mariupol to inspect a number of locations in the city and talk to local residents, the Kremlin press service said on Sunday.
Putin travelled by helicopter to the Ukrainian city, which has been occupied since last year by Russians. He drove a vehicle along the city’s streets, making stops at several locations.
The visit was Putin’s first to newly annexed territories.
Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin reported to Putin about construction and restoration work. In the Nevsky area, a newly built residential area, Putin talked with residents. He went inside a home at the invitation of one of the families.
Putin also inspected the coastline of the city in the area of a yacht club, a theater building that was heavily bombed with civilians sheltering inside and other memorable places of the city.
-ABC News’ Tanya Stukalova
Mar 18, 11:04 AM EDT
Putin visits Crimea on anniversary of annexation
Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine on Saturday, one day after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader accusing him of war crimes.
Putin visited an art school and a children’s center.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world denounced as illegal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has demanded that Russia withdraw from the peninsula as well as the areas it has occupied since last year.
Putin has shown no intention of relinquishing the Kremlin’s gains. Instead, he stressed Friday the importance of holding Crimea. “Obviously, security issues take top priority for Crimea and Sevastopol now,” he said, referring to Crimea’s largest city. “We will do everything needed to fend off any threats.”
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres
Mar 17, 8:03 PM EDT
Biden calls Putin arrest warrant ‘justified’
President Joe Biden called the arrest warrant issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday by the International Criminal Court “justified,” though acknowledged it might not have strong teeth.
“Well, I think it’s justified,” Biden told reporters Friday evening. “But the question — it’s not recognized internationally, by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point.”
In a earlier statement on the warrant, the White House said it supports “accountability for perpetrators of war crimes.”
“There is no doubt that Russia is committing war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine, and we have been clear that those responsible must be held accountable,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in the statement.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Davone Morales
Mar 17, 2:35 PM EDT
Turkey agrees to start ratifying Finland’s NATO bid
Turkey is beginning the process of ratifying Finland’s application to join NATO, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday, 10 months after both Finland and Sweden applied to become NATO members in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“At a critical time for our security, this will make our alliance stronger and safer,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.
The breakthrough came as Finnish President Sauli Niinisto was in Ankara, Turkey, to meet with Erdogan.
Erdogan said Finland fulfilled its part of the agreements and therefore he saw no reason to further delay the ratification process. Erdogan did not provide an update on Sweden’s bid.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement, “We encourage Türkiye to quickly ratify Sweden’s accession protocols as well. In addition, we urge Hungary to conclude its ratification process for both Finland and Sweden without delay. … The United States believes that both countries should become members of NATO as soon as possible.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Mar 17, 11:54 AM EDT
ICC issues arrest warrant for Putin
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying in a statement Friday that Putin is “allegedly responsible for the war crime of” unlawfully deporting children from occupied areas of Ukraine and bringing them to Russia.
The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights, alleging she carried out the same war crime.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement that the arrest warrants “have no meaning for the Russian Federation” and “are legally null and void.”
Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, tweeted that the arrest warrants are “just the beginning.”
Mar 16, 12:15 PM EDT
Russia has committed ‘wide range of war crimes’ in Ukraine: UN-backed report
Russia has committed a “wide range of war crimes” and possible crimes against humanity in Ukraine, according to a new United Nations-backed investigation.
“The body of evidence collected shows that Russian authorities have committed a wide range of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in many regions of Ukraine and in the Russian Federation,” the human rights report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine stated. “Many of these amount to war crimes and include willful killings, attacks on civilians, unlawful confinement, torture, rape, and forced transfers and deportations of children.”
Additionally, Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy-related infrastructure and use of torture “may amount to crimes against humanity,” the report concluded.
The commission said it conducted interviews with nearly 600 people, inspected graves, destruction and detention sites and consulted satellite imagery and photographs as part of its investigation.
Mar 16, 11:51 AM EDT
Poland to deliver MiG-29 jets to Ukraine ‘in the coming days’
Poland plans to deliver four MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine “in the coming days,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said at a press conference on Thursday.
The latest news shortens the timeline announced earlier this week by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who had said they might send the Soviet-designed fighter jets to Ukraine in the next four to six weeks.
Mar 16, 11:08 AM EDT
225 Russians killed in last 24 hours in Bakhmut
Ukrainian forces have killed 225 Russian fighters and injured another 306 in the past 24 hours in the Bakhmut area, according to Serhiy Cherevaty, the spokesman for the Eastern Group of Forces of the Ukraine army.
Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a brutal battle for the city in eastern Ukraine for months, with both sides seeing high rates of casualties.
Cherevaty said that in the last day, the occupiers in the area of Bakhmut and nearby villages — including Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Bohdanivka and Ivanivskoho — tried to attack Ukrainian positions 42 times. There were 24 combat clashes in the Bakhmut area alone.
In total, in the Bakhmut direction, the occupiers shelled Ukrainian positions 256 times with various types of artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, Cherevaty said. Of them, 53 shellings were in the area of Bakhmut itself.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Mar 15, 12:08 PM EDT
Putin says effort underway to increase weapons production
Russia is working to increase its weapons production amid an “urgent” need, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.
“Prosecutors should supervise the modernization of defense industry enterprises, including building up capacities for the production of an additional volume of weapons. A lot of effort is underway here,” Putin said at a meeting of the Collegium of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation.
Putin added that the weapons, equipment and ammunition are “urgently” needed.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Mar 13, 4:04 PM EDT
White House welcomes Xi Jinping speaking to President Zelenskyy
The White House is welcoming reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to soon speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the first time since Russia’s invasion began, while cautioning that after speaking with Ukrainian counterparts, “they have not yet actually gotten any confirmation that there will be a telephone call or a video conference.”
“We hope there will be,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during a briefing on Air Force One. “That would be a good thing because it would potentially bring more balance and perspective to the way that the new PRC is approaching this, and we hope it will continue to dissuade them from choosing to provide lethal assistance to Russia.”
“We have been encouraging President Xi to reach out to President Zelenskyy because we believe that PRC and President Xi himself should hear directly the Ukrainian perspective and not just the Russian perspective on this,” Sullivan continued. “So, we have in fact, advocated to Beijing that that connection take place. We’ve done so publicly and we’ve done so privately to the PRC.”
Sullivan said the U.S. has “not yet seen the transfer of lethal assistance of weapons from China to Russia,” after previously warning it was being considered.
“It’s something that we’re vigilant about and continuing to watch carefully,” he added.
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Mar 13, 12:27 PM EDT
Russia agrees to 60-day extension of Black Sea Grain Initiative
Russia said Monday it will extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative after it expires on March 18, but only for 60 days. The announcement came after consultations between U.N. representatives in Geneva and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin.
“The Russian side, noting the package nature of the Istanbul agreements proposed by UN Secretary General António Guterres, does not object to another extension of the Black Sea initiative after the expiration of the second term on March 18, but only for 60 days,” Vershinin said, according to Russian media reports.
Russia’s consultations in Geneva on the grain deal were not easy, Vershinin said. Russia will rely on the effectiveness of the implementation of the agreement on the export of its agricultural products when deciding on a new extension of the grain deal, according to reports.
Ukraine, which is a key world exporter of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and fertilizer, had its shipments blocked in the months following the invasion by Russia, causing a worldwide spike in food prices. The first deal was brokered last July.
Mar 12, 4:13 PM EDT
More than 1,100 Russians dead in less than a week, Zelenskyy says
Russian forces suffered more than 1,100 dead in less than a week during battles near the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the focal point of fighting in eastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.
During his nightly address, Zelenskyy described the battles as “Russia’s irreversible loss.”
Russian forces also sustained about 1,500 “sanitary losses,” meaning soldiers were wounded badly enough to keep them out of further action, Zelenskyy said.
Dozens of pieces of enemy equipment were destroyed, as were more than 10 Russian ammunition depots, Zelenskyy said.
-ABC News’ Edward Seekers
Mar 10, 3:17 PM EST
Russia says Nord Stream explosion investigation should be impartial
The investigation into who was behind the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline explosion should be “objective, impartial and transparent,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian news agency Interfax.
“I do not want to threaten anyone. I do not want to hint at anything either. I just know that this flagrant terror attack will not go uninvestigated,” Lavrov added.
Russia also said it will distribute its correspondence with Germany, Denmark and Sweden on the investigation of the Nord Stream explosion among the members of the United Nations Security Council soon.
Russia claimed the three countries are denying Russia access to information and participation in the investigation, first deputy permanent representative to the U.N. Dmitry Polyansky said in an interview, according to Russian news agency TASS.
-ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva and Tanya Stukalova
Mar 10, 3:03 PM EST
Russia says Nord Stream explosion investigation should be impartial
The investigation into who was behind the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline explosion should be “objective, impartial and transparent,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian news agency Interfax.
“I do not want to threaten anyone. I do not want to hint at anything either. I just know that this flagrant terror attack will not go uninvestigated,” Lavrov added.
Russia also said it will distribute its correspondence with Germany, Denmark and Sweden on the investigation of Nord Stream explosion among the members of the United Nations Security Council soon.
Russia claimed the three countries are denying Russia access to information and participation in the investigation, first deputy permanent representative to the U.N. Dmitry Polyansky said in an interview, according to Russian news agency TASS.
Mar 10, 9:46 AM EST
Zelenskyy says Ukraine had nothing to do with Nord Stream explosions
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied that Ukraine had anything to do with the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions last year.
“As for the Nord Stream, we have nothing to do with it,” Zelenskyy said Friday.
The New York Times published a report that U.S. intelligence suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group sabotaged the pipeline.
Zelenskyy also suggested that the information being spread about the involvement of pro-Ukrainian groups in the attack could be done to slow down aid to his country.
-ABC News’ Natalia Shumskaia
Mar 09, 2:45 PM EST
Power returns to Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after attacks
Electricity supply has been fully restored in Kyiv after Russia’s overnight barrage of missile attacks on Ukraine, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said in a Telegram post Thursday.
Also, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is now “receiving electricity for its own needs from the Ukrainian grid after power supply was cut,” Russian news agency Interfax reported.
-ABC News’ Tatiana Rymarenko and Natalia Shumskaia
Mar 09, 7:25 AM EST
Russia ‘brutalizing’ Ukrainian people, White House says
Russia’s overnight barrage of missiles aimed at civilian infrastructure may have knocked heat out to as much as 40% of Ukrainians, the White House said on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to “brutalize” the people of Ukraine, John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America on Thursday.
“It also appears, George, that they were definitely targeting civilian infrastructure,” Kirby said. “I would agree with the Ukrainians. He’s just trying to brutalize the Ukrainian people”
Russian forces early on Thursday launched 81 missiles from land and sea, Ukrainian officials said. Eight uncrewed drones were also launched in what officials described as a “massive” attack.
Eleven regions and cities were targeted in an attack that lasted at least seven hours, officials said.
Kirby said on Thursday that the White House expects to see more fighting on the ground in Ukraine for at least the “next four to six months.”
“We know that the Russians are attempting to conduct more offensive operations here when the weather gets better,” he said.
Mar 09, 3:59 AM EST
Zelenskyy decries Russia’s ‘miserable tactics’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday said Russian officials had returned “to their miserable tactics” as they launched at least 81 missiles at Ukrainian sites overnight.
“The occupiers can only terrorize civilians. That’s all they can do. But it won’t help them,” he said on Telegram. “They won’t avoid responsibility for everything they have done.”
He added, “We thank the guardians of our skies and everyone who helps to overcome the consequences of the occupiers’ sneaking attacks!”
Mar 09, 3:34 AM EST
81 missiles launched in ‘massive’ Russian attack, Ukraine says
Waves of missiles and a handful of drones were launched overnight by Russia, targeting energy infrastructure and cities across Ukraine, officials said.
The attack on “critical infrastructure” and civilian targets lasted throughout the night, Verkovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, said on Twitter. Energy was being gradually restored on Thursday morning, the body said.
Ukraine’s parliament and military said at least 81 missiles were fired from several bases. Eight Iranian-made drones were also launched, the military said.
Ukraine destroyed 34 cruise missiles and four drones, military officials said on Facebook.
“Russia’s threats only encourage partners to provide long-term assistance to Ukraine,” said Yehor Chernev, deputy chairman of the Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence.
Russia “will be sentenced as a terrorist state” for its attacks, Ruslan Stefanchuk, Rada’s chairperson, said on Twitter.
Mar 09, 12:35 AM EST
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant now running on diesel generators, energy minister says
The last line that fed the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been damaged following missile strikes, and the plant is now working on diesel generators, according to the Ukrainian energy minister, Herman Galushchenko.
Mar 09, 12:16 AM EST
Emergency power outages nationwide due to missile attacks, provider says
DTEK, the largest private grid operator in Ukraine, said emergency power outages are in effect due to the missile attacks in the Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv and Dnipro regions.
Mar 09, 12:27 AM EST
Multiple missile strikes reported across Ukraine
Multiple explosions have been reported in city centers all over the country, including Dnipro, Odesa, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi and Kharkiv.
Residents in multiple areas are being asked to shelter in place, and communication and electricity has been impacted.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said multiple explosions were reported in the Holosiiv district.
The governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubov, said Russia struck the city at least 15 times overnight.
The head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration said there had been no casualties and that the power supply is being restricted.
Mar 08, 2:05 PM EST
Ukraine says it was not involved in Nord Stream Pipeline bombings
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov denied Ukraine was involved in the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline, which carries natural gas from Russia to Germany. While the pipeline was not active at the time of the bombing last September, it was filled with fuel.
The denial comes after The New York Times reported that intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the Nord Stream bombings last year.
After the story broke, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned against “jumping to conclusions” about who carried out the explosion, suggesting it could have been a “false flag” operation to blame Ukraine.
German authorities were reportedly able to identify the boat used for the sabotage operation, saying a group of five men and one woman using forged passports rented a yacht from a Poland-based company owned by Ukrainian citizens. The nationalities of the perpetrators are unclear, according to a separate report by Germany’s ARD broadcaster and Zeit newspaper.
“We have to make a clear distinction whether it was a Ukrainian group, whether it may have happened at Ukrainian orders, or a pro-Ukrainian group [acting] without knowledge of the government. But I am warning against jumping to conclusions,” Pistorius said on the sidelines of a summit in Stockholm.
A Russian diplomat said Russia has no faith in the U.S.‘s “impartiality” in the conclusions made from intelligence.
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman
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(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — The suspect in Monday’s mass shooting at a small, private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, had legally purchased seven guns from five different local gun stores, and hid some of those weapons at home, police said Tuesday.
Three children and three adults were slain in the attack at The Covenant School. Nashville police on Tuesday released dramatic body camera footage from two officers who fired at the suspect, identified by police as 28-year-old Audrey Hale.
The video shows the officers entering the school, following the sound of the gunfire to the second floor and finding the suspect in a lobby area on the second floor. After an officer shouted “reloading,” the video shows officers Rex Engelbert, a four-year veteran, and Michael Collazo, a nine-year veteran, firing at the suspect.
Hale was shot dead about 14 minutes after the initial 911 call came in, according to police.
The suspect was a former student, and while the Covenant School was likely targeted, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said it appears the “students were randomly targeted.”
The suspect was armed at the school with two assault-style rifles, a handgun and “significant ammunition,” police said.
Hale, who lived in Nashville, had legally purchased seven guns from five different local gun stores, the chief told reporters Tuesday.
Hale was under a “doctor’s care for an emotional disorder,” Drake said, and Hale’s parents “were under the impression that was when she sold the one weapon” they believed Hale owned.
“As it turned out, she had been hiding several weapons within the house,” Drake said.
Hale had a red bag when leaving home on Monday morning, Drake said. Hale’s mother asked what was inside, but was “dismissed,” according to Drake.
Hale’s mother “didn’t look in the bag, because at the time she didn’t know that her daughter had any weapons,” Drake said.
Hale allegedly shot through a locked door on the side of the school to gain entry, according to police. As authorities responded to the scene, the suspect fired on police cars from a second-floor window, police said.
The slain children were identified by police as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all 9 years old. The adult victims were identified as 61-year-old substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61-year-old custodian Mike Hill and 60-year-old Katherine Koonce, who was head of the school.
The victims were found in different locations, Drake said. Hill was struck when the shooter sprayed rounds at the glass door to enter, Drake said, and Koonce’s body was in a hallway.
Investigators searched Hale’s home where they seized “a sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun and other evidence,” according to police.
“We do have writings and a book we consider to be like a manifesto,” the police chief told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “We do have a map of the school, where it was diagramed how she would enter and how she might proceed to take on potential victims.”
“We have not been able to determine a motive as of yet,” the chief said. “The investigation is very much still ongoing.”
There is also “some speculation that the shooter did reach out to maybe a friend or some other people, but as of right now that’s unconfirmed,” Drake said.
“As soon as we know more, we’ll continue to put the facts out there,” he added.
Drake had told reporters on Monday that the suspect was female and identified as transgender but didn’t immediately provide more details. A police spokesperson later told ABC News that the suspect was assigned female at birth but pointed to a social media account linked to the alleged shooter that included the use of the pronouns he/him.
The Covenant School, which teaches preschool through sixth grade, does not have a school resource officer, according to police. There are about 209 students and 40 to 50 staff members.
In a statement released Monday night, the Covenant School said its community “is heartbroken.”
“We are grieving tremendous loss and are in shock coming out of the terror that shattered our church and school,” the school said. “We are focused on loving our students, our families, our faculty and staff and beginning the process of healing.”
“There’s nothing more gut-wrenching than responding to a child,” Nashville Fire Chief William Swann told ABC News’ GMA3. “That moment changes everything for you, because we all can relate to the innocence of it.”
President Joe Biden on Tuesday called the shooting “absolutely heartbreaking” and “senseless.”
“I never thought when I started my public life that guns would be the No. 1 killer of children in America,” he said.
Biden said he had spoken with the police chief and “the two officers who went in and saved lives.”
The president again called on Congress to ban assault weapons and said he wanted to “expose those people who will refuse to do something” to combat gun violence.
“I’m going to keep calling it out, remind people that they’re not acting,” he said. “They should act.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also stressed that Congress must take action on gun legislation.
“What we need from congressional Republicans is courage,” she told ABC News’ GMA3 on Tuesday. “What do you say to those parents? What do you say to those families? You can’t say to them, ‘There’s nothing else that can be done.’ That’s not what their job is as legislators.”
The “majority of Americans want common sense gun safety laws, they want to see [an] assault weapons ban. These are weapons of war,” she said. “The president has done his part. We need Congress to do their part.”
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(WASHINGTON) — A group of alleged cybercriminals has been using several techniques to target U.S. companies and government agencies on behalf of the North Korean government, according to experts.
Cyber intelligence analysts at Google have identified what is known as an “advance persistent threat” (APT), or a group of bad actors who have been connected to potentially criminal activity online.
Designated as “APT43” in a new report from Google Cloud’s cyber intelligence arm Mandiant, the group is believed to be supporting — and possibility affiliated with — North Korea’s primary foreign intelligence service through espionage targeted at foreign government agencies, private companies and educational institutions around the world.
“Although the overall targeting reach is broad, the ultimate aim of campaigns is most likely centered around enabling North Korea’s weapons program, including: collecting information about international negotiations, sanctions policy, and other country’s foreign relations and domestic politics as these may affect North Korea’s nuclear ambitions,” the report found.
Analysts have observed a flurry of activity from APT43 going back to 2018 with efforts focused on spear-phishing campaigns that aim to harvest private user information. This approach involves “social engineering” in which the bad actor engages and attempts to develop a rapport with real people in an attempt to solicit valuable information.
In one case, APT43 was observed attempting to establish a relationship with a potential victim by impersonating a journalist with an email titled “Request for comments” and questions about geopolitical responses to North Korean military expansion.
To support these efforts, the report found the group engages in stealing and laundering cryptocurrency. Once the currency is stolen — typically by harvesting private online user information — the group was observed laundering the assets through websites that generate new forms of crypto for a fee. That process effectively removes the open source connection to the original payment, experts said.
“Put another way, imagine you stole millions of dollars in gold, and while everyone is looking for stolen gold, you pay silver miners with stolen gold to excavate silver for you,” Mandiant Principal Analyst Michael Barnhart said. “Similarly, APT43 deposits stolen cryptocurrency into various cloud mining services to mine for a different cryptocurrency. For a small fee, DPRK walks away with untracked, clean currency to do as they wish.”
Mandiant’s newly released report is in line with strategies established by the Biden administration’s top cybersecurity officials to encourage information sharing about cyber threats.
One app that could pose a cyberthreat, according a very senior official, is TikTok. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jennifer Easterly told lawmakers Tuesday she supports banning the Chinese-owned social media giant, which has seized on short-form video-sharing on a massive scale, calling anything of its kind a “huge, huge risk.”
“I think we need to be really, really mindful of not just TikTok — That’s an important and prominent issue … [but] it’s all sorts of Chinese technology that’s in our critical infrastructure supply chain. We need to be very concerned about that. And then frankly, from a strategic level, we need to be very concerned,” she said.
Despite the prevalence of the threat, Easterly expressed doubt about whether a full ban would be possible in the United States. Virtual private networks and other cyber tools can be used to change and scramble geolocation data on the open internet, making a U.S. ban difficult, experts say.
CISA, one of the leading agencies working to establish cybersecurity reporting norms and standards, will work to help victims of cybercrime and strengthen vulnerable institutions, Easterly vowed.
“We are not here to name to shame to stab the wounded,” she said. “We are here to render assistance and then to use that data very importantly, to protect the rest of the ecosystem. If you’re in a neighborhood and your neighbor gets robbed, I want to know that so you can actually lock your doors and put your guard dog out. It’s important for our collective defense. We are facing some very, very serious threats to our nation to our critical infrastructure.”
The director said CISA is working to improve its own “visibility into the overall ecosystem” of cyberattacks while acknowledging the agency’s limitations. Easterly referenced her time in the private sector where the “return on investment was things not happening.”
“So you know at a broad level, bad things not happening is hard to — hard to measure,” Easterly said. “So what we want to do is get more granular with the visibility what we’ve gotten out of that [budget] to say this is how we’ve reduced the incidence of bad things happening.”
However, cybersecurity authorities — and Easterly herself — have raised alarms about the daily onslaught of cyberattacks from outside the U.S. As part of efforts to counter these threats, CISA puts out cybersecurity road maps to help government and industry reduce risks, including by providing security consultants that offer direct assistance to state and local government bodies.
Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., pressed Easterly on whether CISA would have had any involvement with suppressing stories about the laptop belonging to President Joe Biden’s son Hunter. The director swiftly dismissed the assertion, noting she wasn’t in the job at the time and outlining the disinformation work the agency should do to support local governments.
“What I want to talk about is what our actual mission what we’re doing for state and local election officials who have asked for our help in dealing with foreign influence and disinformation operations,” Easterly said. “And that is to support them in amplifying their trusted voices and providing them what they need to be able to ensure that the American people have confidence in the integrity of their elections. And this is not a partisan issue, sir.”
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(WASHINGTON) — When Starbucks’ most famous former CEO, Howard Schultz, appears Wednesday before a Senate committee to face questioning from Bernie Sanders over the company’s response to a unionization push — including what a labor judge found to be union-busting practices — he’ll look to paint Starbucks as a “different kind of public company” that “balances profitability with social conscience.”
According to Schultz’s prepared testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, reviewed by ABC News, he’ll argue that Starbucks has negotiated in “good faith” with employees as they’ve sought to unionize and obtain collective benefits.
“Starbucks respects the right of all partners to make their own decisions about union representation, and Starbucks is committed to engaging in good faith collective bargaining for each store that has a union. I embrace these commitments,” Schultz will say. “At the same time, our business requires speed and flexibility, both on the job and when operating more than 9,000 U.S. company-operated stores of every shape and size while addressing ever-changing customer preferences.”
Schultz is also set to defend Starbucks’ negotiation tactics and allege wrongdoing by union organizers — a view starkly at odds with the Seattle-based company’s pro-union employees.
“We have been arranging more than 350 bargaining sessions involving more than 200 sets of negotiations — each relating to a single store — and Starbucks representatives have been physically present at more than 85 sets of negotiations,” Schultz plans to say. “However, union representatives have improperly demanded multi-store negotiations, delayed or refused to attend meetings, and insisted on unlawful preconditions such as ‘virtual’ bargaining and participation by outside observers, among other things.”
Committee Chairman Sanders, I-Vt., has for months been working to haul Schultz before his committee to answer for Starbucks’ behavior related to a union push among its hundreds of thousands of employees.
“Despite being the face of the company, Starbucks partners are underpaid, forced to run perpetually understaffed stores, and don’t have consistent schedules they can rely on,” one Starbucks Workers Union email stated amid a “Red Cup Rebellion” in November.
Michelle Eisen, a worker from the first unionized Starbucks store in the U.S. at Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, New York, wrote in the email that workers are “organizing for a voice on the job and a true seat at the table.”
In a previous statement announcing Schultz’s testimony on Wednesday, Sanders said Starbucks must do more for its workers.
“Let’s be clear. In America, workers have the constitutional right to organize unions and engage in collective bargaining to improve their wages and working conditions. Unfortunately Starbucks, under Mr. Schultz’s leadership, has done everything possible to prevent that from happening,” Sanders said in the statement. “Despite the fact that over 280 Starbucks coffee shops have successfully voted to form a union over the past year, Starbucks has refused to negotiate in good faith to sign a single first contract with their employees.”
During Wednesday’s hearing, Schultz will claim that much of his company’s problematic union conduct occurred before he was at the helm.
In his opening remarks, he plans to say that prior to his taking the helm as interim CEO last April, it was clear the company had “lost its way.”
Schultz served as Starbucks’ leader for more than 20 years across three stints, most recently stepping down last week.
He’ll also highlight changes he made at the company and social programs that Starbucks has extended to its partners and employees — including opportunities for stock ownership, the company’s college achievement plan, paid sick and parental leave and mental health programs.
“Our board and our leadership are in complete agreement that a direct relationship with our partners, where we have the flexibility to implement improvements quickly in wages and benefits and share success in the future, as we have in the past, is the right path forward for Starbucks, our partners and all company stakeholders,” he’ll say.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has called for prayers in the wake of Monday’s deadly mass shooting at a Nashville elementary school, while noting that “there will be a time to talk about the legislation.”
“I am calling on the people of Tennessee to pray. For the families of victims, for the Covenant family, for those courageous officers, for the family of the shooter, for those who are hurting and angry and confused,” Lee, a Republican, said in a video address on Tuesday evening. “Prayer is the first thing we should do, but it’s not the only thing.”
A shooter gunned down three children and three adults at the Covenant School in Tennessee’s capital city on Monday morning. Responding officers shot and killed the suspect — identified as Audrey Hale, 28, of Nashville — about 14 minutes after the initial 911 call came in, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.
“Law enforcement officials and educators across our state have been working for years, especially in the last year, to strengthen the safety of schools. That work was not in vain — the courage and swift response by the teachers, officers and this community without a doubt prevented further tragedy,” Lee continued. “There will be a time to talk about the legislation and budget proposals we’ve brought forward this year. And clearly there’s more work to do.”
“But on this day after the tragedy, I want to speak to that which rises above all else,” he added. “The battle is not against flesh and blood, it’s not against people. The struggle is against evil itself.”
Police have identified the slain children as 9-year-old students Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs. The adult victims were identified as 61-year-old custodian Mike Hill, 60-year-old head of school Katherine Koonce and 61-year-old substitute teacher Cynthia Peak.
In his video address, the Tennessee governor revealed that his wife, Maria, has been friends with Peak and Koonce “for decades.”
“Cindy was supposed to come over to have dinner with Maria last night after she filled in as a substitute teacher yesterday at Covenant,” Lee said.
The Covenant School, a private Christian school for children in preschool through sixth grade, has about 209 students and 40 to 50 staff members. It does not have a school resource officer, according to police.
In a statement released Monday night, the Covenant School said its community “is heartbroken.”
“We are grieving tremendous loss and are in shock coming out of the terror that shattered our church and school,” the school said. “We are focused on loving our students, our families, our faculty and staff and beginning the process of healing.”
The suspect was a former student and Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake told reporters on Tuesday that it appears that, while the school was likely targeted, “students were randomly targeted.”
Drake had told reporters on Monday that Hale was female and identified as transgender but didn’t immediately provide more details. A police spokesperson later told ABC News that the suspect was assigned female at birth but pointed to a social media account linked to Hale that included the use of the pronouns he/him.
The suspect was armed with two assault-style rifles, a handgun and “significant ammunition” at the time of the attack, police said. Investigators have since searched Hale’s home in Nashville, where they seized “a sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun and other evidence,” according to police.
Drake said the suspect had legally purchased seven guns from five different local stores and hid some of those weapons at home. Hale was under a “doctor’s care for an emotional disorder,” the police chief said, and Hale’s parents “were under the impression that was when she sold the one weapon” they believed Hale owned.
Hale also had a detailed map of the school as well as “writings and a book we consider to be like a manifesto,” Drake told ABC News in an interview Tuesday on Good Morning America.
“We have not been able to determine a motive as of yet,” the police chief said. “The investigation is very much still ongoing.”
Video from the school’s surveillance cameras shows the suspect arriving in a vehicle and parking in the parking lot at 9:54 a.m. ET. Minutes later, the suspect is seen shooting through a door on the side of the school and entering the building. Hale allegedly went from the first floor to the second floor, firing multiple shots, according to police.
Police received a 911 call about an active shooter at the school at 10:13 a.m. ET. As officers responded to the scene, the suspect fired on police cars from a second-floor window, police said.
Video from two of the responding officers’ body-worn cameras shows them entering the school, following the sound of gunfire to the second floor and finding the suspect in a lobby area near a window. After an officer shouts “reloading,” officers Rex Engelbert, a four-year veteran, and Michael Collazo, a nine-year veteran, both fire at the suspect.
President Joe Biden and other Democrats have once again called on Congress to take action on gun legislation, including passing a nationwide ban on assault weapons. Meanwhile, Republicans have once again slammed Democrats for trying to exploit a tragedy for political purposes.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in September 2019 found 89% of Americans support universal background checks and 86% support red flag laws. The poll found broad bipartisan support, as well; mandatory background checks and red flag laws won support from at least eight in 10 Republicans and conservatives, and as many or more of all others.
Another ABC News/Washington Post poll released in February found the public more divided over assault weapons with 47% supporting such a ban and 51% opposing it — reflecting a nine-point drop in support since 2019.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(CHESTERFIELD, Va.) — Family, friends, and civil rights leaders are expected to gather in Chesterfield, Virginia, for the funeral of Irvo Otieno, a 28-year-old Black man who died in custody after authorities say deputies and hospital staff piled on top of him for more than 10 minutes.
The funeral at the First Baptist Church in Chesterfield will feature calls for justice by civil rights attorney and Otieno’s family legal representative Ben Crump and a eulogy reading from Reverend Al Sharpton, the founder and president of the civil rights group the National Action Network (NAN).
Otieno died in police custody on March 6 after a neighbor called the police on him during what his mother Caroline Ouko said was a mental health crisis.
“To see nine men and a woman, squeeze– literally squeeze the breath out of my child was heartbreaking. I could not believe that human beings can be desensitized to do that to another human being,” Ouko said in an interview with ABC News about surveillance footage that captured the moments surrounding Otieno’s death.
After the initial call to police, Otieno was taken to a hospital on March 3, where he was arrested later that day and taken to Henrico County Jail. Three days later, Otieno died at Virginia’s Central State Hospital.
In footage obtained by ABC News, Otieno can be seen being pulled from his jail cell partially naked and pushed into the back of a police vehicle to transport him to the psychiatric hospital. At the hospital, footage shows Henrico deputies and medical staff holding Otieno down for nearly 11 minutes until he stops moving, according to the video.
Seven Henrico County Sheriff’s deputies and three Central State Hospital employees have been arrested and charged with second-degree murder in connection with Otieno’s death, according to Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill. They have all been indicted by a grand jury. Currently, no pleas have been entered.
In a court appearance, Cary Bowen, a lawyer representing deputy Jermaine Lavar Branch, stated that the officer “did not administer any blows to the deceased, or violence towards him, other than simply trying to restrain him.”
Bowen told ABC News by phone that Cabell Baskervill is trying to fashion the case as something that is “malicious.”
“There was no weapon used. There was no pummeling or anything like that. I think everybody agrees,” Bowen said. “And the way she was casting it was that they ended up suffocating. He couldn’t breathe. And she’s acting like the guy didn’t resist and he wasn’t manic or bipolar or whatever. Just a nice guy who they’re picking on.”
The Henrico County Sheriff’s Office is conducting an independent review of the incident alongside an investigation by Virginia State Police.
“What they did to my son was awful,” Ouko told ABC News. “This heinous murder of my son was not necessary. And I want them to know that justice will be served. And if there is anyone out there who played a part along the line in my son’s murder, let them not think that this indictment absolves them.”
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(NEW YORK) — A fire broke out at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Monday, killing at least 38 people, officials said.
The blaze began as the result of a protest by people being held in the facility, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico said in a morning press conference. Protestors lit a mattress on fire inside the building, after some at the facility were informed they’d be deported, Obrador said.
“We do not yet know the names and nationalities of those who lost their lives,” he said, adding that they were mainly from Central America.
The Mexican National Institute of Migration (INM) said Tuesday night there were 38 people confirmed dead. The INM had previously said 40 people died in the fire.
In a tweet Tuesday night, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the people responsible for the fire have been brought before the Mexican attorney general.
The fire started at about 10 p.m. on Monday at the Instituto Nacional de Migración, Mexico’s Institute of Migration said early Tuesday. Sixty-eight men from Central and South America had been housed in the facility at the time of the fire, officials said.
The dead were all migrants, according to the statement. Another 28 people were injured, some seriously, and were transferred to four local hospitals, authorities said.
The center is in an area across the border from El Paso, Texas, and is close to the Puente Internacional Lerdo Stanton bridge.
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