(NEW YORK) — Prince Harry is a self-described “proud papa” speaking out about a new milestone hit by Lilibet, the 10-month-old daughter he shares with his wife, Duchess Meghan.
While attending the Invictus Games in the Netherlands, Harry revealed that Lili, as she is known, is learning how to walk.
“Her current priorities are trying to keep up with her brother; she took her first step just a few days ago!” Prince Harry, 37, told People magazine. “Proud papa, here.”
Lili’s brother is Archie, who will turn 3 next month.
While Lili and Archie did not attend this year’s Invictus Games with their parents, Harry said he “can’t wait” for them to attend in the years ahead. The Invictus Games are a Paralympic-style competition for wounded service members that Harry, a military veteran, launched eight years ago.
“I showed Archie a video of wheelchair basketball and rugby from the Invictus Games in Sydney, and he absolutely loved it,” Harry told People.
“I showed him how some were missing legs and explained that some had invisible injuries, too,” he said. “Not because he asked, but because I wanted to tell him. Kids understand so much, and to see it through his eyes was amazing because it’s so unfiltered and honest.”
Harry and Meghan’s attendance at the Invictus Games in the Netherlands marked the couple’s first public appearance together in Europe since they stepped down from their senior royal role two years ago.
Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, arrived in the Netherlands after making a quick stop in the United Kingdom to visit Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth.
The visit was the first time the couple saw the queen together in-person since moving in 2020 to California, where they now live with Archie and Lili, who is named after the queen.
Alex Chan Tsz Yuk/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
Russian forces have since retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. The United States and many European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes after graphic images emerged of dead civilians in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv. The Russian military has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 20, 7:55 am
Russia again calls for surrender at Mariupol steel plant
Russia’s military issued another ultimatum on Wednesday, calling for Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms and leave a Mariupol steel plant, according to Russian state media.
Moscow claimed that Ukrainian troops and civilians would be allowed to leave the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant without harm during a cease-fire beginning at 2 p.m. local time.
Ukrainian forces at the besieged plant rejected a similar offer on Tuesday.
More than 1,000 civilians are sheltering on the grounds of the sprawling industrial plant, the Mariupol City Council said on Monday.
A Russian official, Dmitry Polyansky, on Tuesday accused Ukrainian troops of using civilians at the plant as human shields.
“One month into the siege of Azovstal plant, those same radicals and neo-Nazis suddenly declared that allegedly there had been civilians inside the plant all that time, even though until yesterday, they had never uttered a word about it,” Polyansky told the U.N. Security Council during a session on Ukraine on Tuesday.
Apr 19, 11:40 pm
Russia could be making probing attacks ahead of larger assault in Donbas: US official
As Ukrainian forces brace for a full-scale assault in the eastern part of the country, a U.S. official said the increased pace of operations from Russian forces in the past 24 hours could be probing attacks or the beginning of the main battle for the Donbas.
The defense official said the Russian offensive to seize southeastern Ukraine will likely involve a frontal assault from inside Russia and a double envelopment, or encircling, of Ukrainian forces in the Donbas. Russian forces will come south from Izyum and troops in the Berdyansk area will move north to encircle Ukrainian forces in the Joint Forces Operations area in the Donbas.
But the U.S. defense official said Ukraine has the advantage in the region since they have prepared a defense for years, including digging trenches, preparing anti-armor traps and ambush locations and more.
The U.S. and other countries have now provided close to 70,000 anti-tank weapons to Ukraine as well as 30,000 anti-aircraft missiles and 7,000 launchers to fire them, according to the defense official.
As for stopping the shipments of those weapons, the U.S. believes Russia will target the paths and roads in western Ukraine being used to ship Western military aid into Ukraine even though it has not done so yet. Still, it’s believed with the amount of weaponry being delivered to Ukrainian forces, it will be impossible to stop it all.
(NEW YORK) — Spend enough time online, and you’re sure to run into scammers who try to steal your money by asking you to confirm your credit card information or sign up for fake PC protection plans. Now, online scams have reached the lucrative world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — and a group of tech sleuths are fighting back.
Financial crime specialist and crypto expert Nik Horniacek fell for his first NFT scam in December. Excited about a popular NFT venture that was launching in February, he clicked on a social media link that he thought would lead him to the project site, but instead drained all his cryptocurrency.
Today, Horniacek is the cofounder of Rug Pull Finder, a private intelligence company that investigates NFT projects — and to date has exposed nearly 200 scams totaling over $1.3 billion, according to the organization. Horniacek is one of many online crypto sleuths that track NFTs as celebrities, companies, political candidates and members of the public embrace the latest cryptocurrency phenomenon.
NFTs are digital assets that cannot be replicated and can be used to represent real-world items. Like collectible artwork and rare baseball cards, the value of an NFT derives from it being unique. The digital tokens are stored in a digital wallet through a decentralized public ledger known as a blockchain, and can be held as digital memorabilia, or sold and traded for investment purposes.
As the popularity of NFTs continues to soar, scams like the one Horniacek fell for and other types of illicit activity involving non-fungible tokens are only expected to rise, law enforcement officials and crypto experts told ABC News.
Investments in NFTs skyrocketed last year, with digital token marketplaces and collections growing from $106 million in 2020 to $44.2 billion in 2021, according to a report by analytics firm Chainanalysis.
But the Chainanalysis report also found that “as is the case with any technology, NFTs offer the potential for abuse.” Among the types of illicit NFT activity the group identified were the use of money laundering to hide assets, and the use of “wash trading” to artificially increase NFTs’ value.
According to the report, last year sellers made $8.9 million from the sale of NFTs “to unsuspecting buyers who believe the NFT they’re purchasing has been growing in value.”
As a result of illicit activity, federal agencies are expanding their crime fighting efforts into crypto crime and digital assets. In February, the U.S. Secret Service launched a cryptocurrency awareness hub and the Department of Justice announced the first director of its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team.
A DOJ official told ABC News that while scams and fraud have been around for many years, they have been “turbocharged” by the growth of cryptocurrency and the popularity of digital assets like NFTs.
In March, the DOJ brought its first NFT case when it charged two defendants with executing a million-dollar fraud scheme after they promised investors the benefits of an NFT collection called Frosties, then allegedly shut down the website and transferred away all the money they received from the sale of the tokens. According to the complaint, the defendants were preparing to launch a second set of NFTs that was anticipated to generate approximately $1.5 million in cryptocurrency proceeds.
An attorney for one of the defendants, Ethan Nguyen, told ABC News that Nguyen pleaded not guilty and has been released on bond. The attorney said that Nguyen “looks forward to addressing the charges responsibly in court.”
The attorney for the other defendant, Andre Llacuna, did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
“The rise and popularity of various cryptocurrencies have changed the landscape of buying and selling investments, leading to ample opportunities for new fraud schemes,” said U.S. Postal Inspection Service Inspector-in-Charge Daniel Brubaker in a press release about the case. “These assets may seem like a good deal or a way to become wealthy, but in many cases, as in this situation, only lead to the loss of your money.”
Another reason that digital assets like NFTs make for dangerous scams is that there’s no entity regulating transactions — so funds can be instantly moved across borders, without any monitoring, a law enforcement official told ABC News.
Like Horniacek, crypto sleuth ZachXB — who prefers to go by his social media handle — has turned exposing NFT scammers into a full-time job. With almost 200,000 followers on Twitter, ZachXB says he’s uncovered more than 100 NFT scams.
ZachXB said that many NFT scams occur when the offering looks “too good to be true.” Because digital tokens often come with real-life perks like exclusive access to events, people often fall prey to projects that promise those kind of special amenities, ZachXB said.
“I hate seeing all those people lose their money, and others get rich by harming others,” ZachXB told ABC News. “The space is really intimidating and there’s so much to learn. But it’s also amazing.”
Horniacek told ABC News that he wants to help create a positive environment where digital tokens can grow and evolve.
“I asked myself, how can I positively impact the space so that we can continue to move the space forward for the benefit of everybody?” said Horniacek.
“The technology is truly revolutionary,” he said. “I think we’re going to see a lot more innovation over the course of the next 12 to 24 months, and that is my biggest motivation.”
(NEW YORK) — As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, environmental experts and activists are warning of a ripple effect of problems, including long-lasting damage to the war-ravaged country’s urban, agricultural and industrial areas.
Nearly two months into its invasion, Russia has begun its long-feared offensive in eastern Ukraine along the 300-mile front near Donbas, a region with a 200-year history of coal mining and heavy industry.
The past seven weeks have been mired by death, displacement and the demolition of a country’s landscape that will take years to repair, experts told ABC News. In addition to the direct impact on Ukrainians, consequences of the war will be felt socially, economically and environmentally.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises a host of unique and potentially profound environmental concerns for not only the people of Ukraine, but the wider region, including much of Europe,” Carroll Muffett, president and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law, told ABC News. “Those human impacts of the war take on a lot of forms and a lot of dimensions, and many of them last long after long after the hostilities have ceased.”
While there were catastrophic environmental consequences during World War I and II, conflicts during recent history provide a more detailed blueprint for the sheer amount of greenhouse gases emitted during modern wars.
As a result of the global War on Terror that began in 2001, 1.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gases were released, the equivalent to the annual emissions of 257 million passenger cars — more than twice the current number of cars on the road in the U.S., according to a 2019 report released by Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs.
In addition to the hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and sulfur dioxide emitted from military vehicles, and other heavy machinery, heavy deforestation occurred in Afghanistan as a result of illegal logging, especially by warlords, which then destroyed wildlife habitat, according to the report.
“We now understand the environmental dimensions of war in ways that we didn’t decades ago,” Muffett said. “This is a particularly egregious situation, because the entire world is calling for Russia to end its its invasion right now.”
Once the conflict is over, the environment in Ukraine is going to be the local government’s “No. 1 priority,” Doug Weir, research and policy director of The Conflict and Environment Observatory, told ABC News.
These are the areas of most environmental concern, according to experts:
Industrial regions
Ukraine is a heavily industrialized country, especially in its eastern regions. It contains a large number of mines and refineries of chemical plants that produce substances such as ammonia and urea, Muffett said.
Assessing the damage from attacks on industrial sites and new nuclear facilities will be among the Ukrainian government’s priorities, Weir said.
In addition, there are “serious concerns” about the forced closure of several coal mines, which are now flooding with acid mine drainage without the proper methods to pump out the water, Weir said. Those toxins are then seeping into the groundwater aquifers
“We’ve already seen hints at how those could play out,” she said, adding that multiple refineries in Ukraine have already been hit. “One of the things that the lessons of the the invasion of Kuwait and the Iraq war is teach us is that strikes against facilities of these kinds pose profound risks for massive releases and really long-term damage.”
Agricultural fields
Researchers are estimating that millions of people could suffer from malnutrition in the years following the invasion as a result of lack of arable land.
Initial assessments show large swaths of agriculture areas affected by heavy shelling and unexploded ordinances, Weir said.
Olha Boiko, a Ukrainian climate activist and coordinator for the Climate Action Network for Eastern Europe and East Asia, said she and her fellow activists still in Ukraine are worried about the state of the agricultural fields and their suitability to grow wheat after the war, which is one of the country’s largest exports, she said.
Wildlife and natural ecosystems
The plethora of military vehicles trampling over the Ukrainian border are creating an unforgiving landscape, experts said.
In an effort to defend their country, Ukrainian military laid landmines over at least one beach near Odesa, according to the Conflict and Environment Observatory.
Boiko also alleged that Russian forces have blown up oil exporting equipment, polluted the Black Sea and filled fields with landmines, which were found as Russian forces retreated the regions surrounding Kyiv.
Fighting close to Kherson, near the southern coast of Ukraine, resulted in fires in the Black Sea Biosphere Reserve that were so large they were detectable from space and likely destroyed trees and unique habitats for birds, according to the observatory.
“There have been risks to wildlife and biodiversity we’ve seen that play out in Ukraine, with active battles in in insignificant wetlands,” Muffett said.
Urban areas
One of Russia’s military strategies has been to besieging cities by firing weapons indiscriminately into them, Weir said.
When Russian troops retreated the areas on the outskirts Kyiv after failing to take the capital, the devastation left in cities such as Bucha, Borodyanka and Irpin was immediately apparent.
Buildings were burned or completely destroyed. Burned-out cars littered the roadways. Entire neighborhoods were reduced to rubble.
The rebuilding phase is going to be a “huge task,” Weir said.
“From an environmental point of view, there’s going to be a huge amount of work needed to properly assess these sites, locate potentially hazardous sites,” Weir said, adding that environmental remediation process for the potentially hazardous sites can be complex and expensive.
Nuclear facilities
Soon after the conflict began, Russian troops took hold of the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl power plant, raising concerns that an errant explosive could create another radioactive event at the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986.
The destroyed reactor was sealed in 2019 under a $2 billion stadium-sized metal structure, but the other three untouched reactors remain fully exposed. Within them sits a pool of 5 million pounds of spent nuclear fuel, as well as dangerous isotopes, such as uranium and plutonium. If hit, the storage facility has the potential to cause an even larger disaster than in 1986 and could prompt widespread evacuations all over Europe, Muffett said.
“The conduct of active military operations in a country with four nuclear facilities and 15 active nuclear reactors poses extraordinary risks,” Muffett said, admonishing Russia for immediately targeting Chernobyl despite “no legitimate military objectives associated with that site.”
Russian troops have cut off power to Chernobyl in ways the site was not “sustained for,” and untrained Russian servicemen disturbed radioactive soil and raised dust as they moved through the area, Muffett said.
“We’ve seen missile strikes actually put a nuclear facility on fire,” she said. “And, in the immediate hours after the fire began, firefighters were unable to reach the blaze, because they were in a live fire situation. These are these are really extraordinary risks.”
The role Russian oil plays in the conflict
The conflict in Ukraine is the latest demonstration of the “deep linkages between fossil fuels and conflict,” Muffett said. Boiko, who left Kyiv on Feb. 24, said the connection that fossil fuels play in the current war are “obvious,” because Russia is using the funds from its oil industry to fund the conflict.
“We’ve seen Putin’s regime look to weaponize its own natural gas and oil resources as a way to intimidate countries in Europe and beyond from coming to Ukraine to aid,” Muffett said. “And so, this is a fossil fueled conflict in every conceivable way.”
The environmental activists who remain in Ukraine, those who aren’t helping with the immediate humanitarian relief, are bringing attention to the fact that the E.U. and U.S. have been “very dependent” on Russia’s fossil fuels for years, Boiko said.
While the U.S. has imposed sanctions on all Russian oil and other energy sources, the European Union’s embargo only extends to coal, and not to oil and gas. About 40% of the E.U.’s gas comes from Russia, according to the observatory.
“This is exactly the leverage that has been used by Russia that is pressuring, basically, other countries to not impose sanctions to not do anything about this war to not help Ukraine,” Boiko said.
But Boiko said the conflict and the aftermath could eventually lead to positive steps in the fight against climate change, because the sanctions imposed on Russia lead to less fossil fuel consumption. She said the phasing out of fossil fuels could happen more quickly, now that a major world player in oil exports has essentially been eliminated.
“The fact that this conflict is accelerating conversations within Europe about how they free themselves from reliance on fossil oil and fossil gas is also a big step forward,” Muffett said.
(NEW YORK) — Brooke Tansley and her husband Scott Herrmann were aboard a Delta flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles on Monday with their two young children when the pilot told passengers over the loudspeaker that masks were now optional.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I think you’re going to want to hear this. I have some really exciting news,” Tansley remembers the pilot saying. “The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has lifted the mask mandate. You can all take off your masks.”
Tansley could hear scattered cheers and applause. She was stunned, then scared.
The couple had gone to extraordinary lengths to protect their kids who at ages 4 years old and 8 months old still don’t qualify for a vaccine. Her youngest also can’t wear a mask, and she had planned during her trip to meet up with a coworker who was immunocompromised. It was their first flight since the pandemic began.
“I don’t begrudge him his excitement,” she told ABC News of the pilot. “I just wish that he would have taken a minute to consider people in different circumstances and the decision he was making on behalf of everyone on that plane.”
Delta Air Lines, responding to the family’s experience, encouraged patience.
“We empathize with all who are navigating this sudden change in federal policy. As we work to provide our customers and people the most up-to-date information for their travels, we continue to encourage everyone to be patient and understanding with one another. Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people,” the airline said in a statement to ABC News.
For a pandemic that seems never-ending, the federal government’s 15-month travel mask mandate came to a surprisingly abrupt end Monday after a Trump-appointed federal judge declared the mandate unlawful. Major airlines swiftly dropped the mandate they had grown to loathe, along with Amtrak, Uber and Lyft.
But airports in New York and Philadelphia kept their mask mandates intact — creating the confusing situation that people could fly maskless from one airport but have to put it back on depending upon where they land.
The Biden administration, which had recently renewed the mandate until May 3, seemed to be caught off guard by the judge’s decision, scrambling in the hours that followed to respond to questions. On Monday evening, an administration official told reporters that the TSA would no longer enforce the rule, even though federal health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would still recommended masks while traveling.
“This was deeply disappointing,” tweeted Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House coordinator for COVID-19. “CDC scientists had asked for 15 days to make a more data-driven durable decision. We should have given it to them.”
As of late Tuesday, though, it remained unclear how hard President Joe Biden might fight the ruling. The Justice Department said in a statement it would appeal the recent ruling if the CDC deemed it necessary. The CDC was noncommittal.
“CDC continues to recommend that people wear masks in all indoor public transportation settings. We will continue to assess the need for a mask requirement in those settings, based on several factors, including the U.S. COVID-19 community levels, risk of circulating and novel variants, and trends in cases and disease severity,” the agency said in a statement.
The biggest hint though came from Biden himself. With the clock ticking toward the May 3 deadline, Biden suggested to reporters that a legal fight on masks wasn’t his priority.
When asked if people should continue to wear masks on planes, Biden responded tersely: “That’s up to them.”
Several legal experts told ABC that the Biden administration might not want to pursue a legal challenge for both pragmatic and political reasons. For one, by the time any kind of legal wrangling takes place, the administration might be willing to let the mask mandate expire anyway.
Another factor is that the case would likely have to go before the U.S. Supreme Court, where a favorable ruling isn’t a sure bet. The high court’s conservative majority has ruled against federal powers on other pandemic-era restrictions related to housing evictions and vaccine mandates for private industry.
Also, many Americans simply don’t like the mandate.
“Politically and legally, the administration is not going to have a lot of incentive to pursue this,” said Sarah Isgur, an ABC News contributor and former Justice Department official during the Trump administration.
Jeffrey Lubbers, a professor of administrative law at American University’s Washington College of Law, said he thinks the Florida judge’s ruling was “highly questionable” and that there’s ample room to challenge it. But whether the administration fights to defend the mandate would probably have more to do with preserving the federal government’s power to prevent the spread of communicable diseases — a power that could be useful in the future.
“This mandate is supposed to expire in two weeks, and it’s also an unpopular mandate. So, it it worth going to court?” he said. But on the flip side, “what happens in two or three months if there’s a new variant and we have a ruling on the books that says CDC can’t regulate this? The government has a political calculation here too.”
Isgur said it’s possible the administration also is considering the upside of having a court ruling to blame if COVID cases increase as a result of the mandate being lifted.
“At some point, the pandemic restrictions had to end, and no one wants to be left holding the bag,” she said.
As for Tansley, she said she hopes people will be compassionate and consider the immunocompromised and families like hers whose kids remain unprotected. She also doesn’t know how her family will get home next week and whether they’ll make the decision to fly again.
“It made me sad and upset to know that my family and my coworker’s safety have been put at risk because of one powerful person in a position and then a pilot who made a call to change the policy in mid-flight. It was something that could have easily waited,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — Confusion abounded after a federal judge in Florida struck down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s travel mask mandate Monday.
The mandate, first announced in January 2021, required travelers to wear masks on airplanes, in airports and other travel hubs, and while riding public transit.
But Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle for the Middle District of Florida wrote in her ruling that the mandate was “unlawful” and that the CDC exceeded its authority when the policy was implemented.
While many Americans are excited, others are attempting to figure out what the new rules mean about their risk of contracting COVID-19 while in transit and how to limit their exposure to the virus.
CDC still recommends wearing masks
Dr. Stuart Ray, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, said even though the travel mask mandate has been lifted, it doesn’t mean people aren’t allowed to wear face coverings when traveling.
In fact, he noted that the CDC still advises wearing masks in indoor public transportation settings.
“People should recognize that this does not mean the CDC is not recommending the masks in public,” he said. “So, I think people should pay attention to that advice.”
The lifting of the mandate comes as cases rise in the U.S., in part due to the BA.2 variant, a highly transmissible subvariant of the original omicron variant.
New COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have reached their highest point in more than a month, and in the last week, 34 states and territories have seen increases of about 10% or more.
Ray said the combination of increasing cases and the lifting of mandates will result in more spread, so even people who are not high risk or are younger may want to consider still wearing masks when they travel.
“As long as infection rates seem to be rising, I think it’s wise to think about protecting yourself even if you don’t have special vulnerability,” he said.
What people at high risk for severe COVID-19 should consider
The ruling also has implications for people who are at high risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death, including immunocompromised people, those with underlying conditions, older people and those who are pregnant.
Currently, the CDC recommends these high-risk individuals wear a mask in public indoor spaces in areas with high transmission and to speak to their doctors about face coverings in areas with medium transmission.
Ray said the mandate being lifted “raises the temperature for risk” for these groups and they may want to consider taking precautions.
This could mean avoiding travel for the time being or making sure to wear a high-quality mask, such as an N95, when traveling to avoid infection.
“These people need to be that much more careful that they have a good mask, that they change it on a regular basis as recommended, that they take those measures, because others will be less likely to be wearing a mask and preventing spread,” he said.
Increased importance of testing
Ray also said now that the mandate has been lifted, it will be more important for people to get tested after traveling somewhere.
He recommends that people take a rapid test after arriving at their destination and before they gather with others.
“We may want to make sure that we have rapid tests available because, right before the gathering, we can use those to mitigate the risk of transmission,” Ray said.
Ray added that testing ahead of a gathering should be essential when people at risk of severe COVID-19 or who are immunocompromised are in attendance.
“The importance of that increases when there are more vulnerable people and, of course, it’s hard to just look at someone and tell whether or not they’re vulnerable,” he said.
More long-term consequences
Another concern experts such as Ray have is that more people sitting in close proximity to each other unmasked on subways, trains or planes may result in more people who develop long-term problems from COVID-19 simply because more people will become infected.
This could mean more people with “long COVID,” which occurs when patients who have recovered from the virus continue to experience symptoms weeks, or sometimes months or even years, after testing positive.
Other problems include heart and kidney damage, blood clots or Guillain-Barre syndrome, which can cause temporary paralysis, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Ray said he thinks the U.S. can balance these concerns about more people developing long-term complications “by being more cautious on a voluntary basis in the absence of the mandate.”
He continued, “It’s of course possible that the immunity we’ve built up is going to mitigate those long-term complications, but we won’t know that for some time, and making decisions looking backward is always hard.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice announced Tuesday night it would appeal the recent ruling that voided the federal mask mandate on public transit if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deems it necessary.
The question now is whether the CDC still thinks the mandate on public transit is an important public health tool, a decision it stood behind just last week when it extended the mandate until May 3 to monitor an uptick in cases from the BA.2 variant, a more transmissible strain of omicron. And if the CDC does move to reimpose the mandate, it’s unclear whether action from the Justice Department will lead to change before the mandate was set to expire anyway.
“The Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) disagree with the district court’s decision and will appeal, subject to CDC’s conclusion that the order remains necessary for public health,” the Justice Department said in a statement Tuesday.
“If CDC concludes that a mandatory order remains necessary for the public’s health after that assessment, the Department of Justice will appeal the district court’s decision,” the DOJ said.
The CDC, for its part, responded later Tuesday night and said that it was still assessing the need for a mask requirement.
“CDC continues to recommend that people wear masks in all indoor public transportation settings. We will continue to assess the need for a mask requirement in those settings, based on several factors, including the U.S. COVID-19 community levels, risk of circulating and novel variants, and trends in cases and disease severity,” the CDC said.
The decision on Monday made by a Florida judge appointed by former President Donald Trump struck down a federal mask mandate that applied to public transportation, effectively lifting the requirement on planes, trains and buses, as well as inside airports across the United States.
In the ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Kathryn Mizelle said the mandate, established by the CDC, exceeds “statutory authority and violates the procedures required for agency rulemaking under the [Administrative Procedure Act].”
The judge’s decision was effective immediately. Though the federal government was expected to appeal the decision, neither President Joe Biden nor White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated which way the DOJ was leaning until the announcement on Tuesday evening.
The issue of masking is a political lightning rod ahead of the midterm elections and one the administration has not sought to aggressively fight since mask mandates have already been lifted in much of the country.
Late Monday night, an administration official said only that the Transportation Security Administration would no longer enforce the requirement to wear masks on public transportation but that the CDC continued to recommend them.
The fallout of the court decision left Americans with a patchwork of rules: fly without a mask in and out of New York’s LaGuardia and Kennedy airports but put one on while walking through the airports, for example.
Meanwhile, Amtrak and ride-share services like Uber and Lyft have dropped their mask rules, but several major cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco still require them on some public transportation.
Last month, CEOs of all the major U.S. airlines wrote to the Biden administration asking for an end to the mask requirements on planes.
“It makes no sense that people are still required to wear masks on airplanes, yet are allowed to congregate in crowded restaurants, schools and at sporting events without masks, despite none of these venues having the protective air filtration system that aircraft do,” the business executives wrote.
The group said the burden of enforcing the mask mandate has fallen on their employees. “This is not a function they are trained to perform and subjects them to daily challenges by frustrated customers. This in turn takes a toll on their own well-being.”
There have been 1,150 reports of unruly passengers on flights this year — 744 of which involved face coverings, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
Russian forces have since retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. The United States and many European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes after graphic images emerged of dead civilians in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv. The Russian military has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Latest headlines:
-Biden again blames COVID, Putin for rising prices hitting US consumers
-White House says new sanctions against Russia could be announced soon
-UN chief asks for cease-fire during Orthodox Easter holy week
-US officials see ‘limited’ activity from Russia as prelude to larger offensive operations
-Polish prime minister opens temporary housing community in Ukraine
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Apr 19, 6:54 pm
Biden administration plans to announce new military aid package for Ukraine: Sources
Capitol Hill sources and a Biden administration official confirmed to ABC News that the White House has briefed them on plans to announce another weapons delivery to Ukraine as soon as this week.
The aid could range in the hundreds of millions of dollars and be similar in size to the $800 million package President Joe Biden announced last week, sources familiar with the details said.
Details of the weapons package are still being discussed and could change, a source said.
When asked earlier Tuesday if he plans to send more artillery to Ukraine, Biden told reporters, “Yes.”
ABC News’ Mariam Khan and Katherine Faulders
Apr 19, 6:28 pm
Ukrainians have more planes flying than they did 2 weeks ago: Pentagon
Ukraine currently has more operable military planes currently than it did two weeks ago,
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday.
Ukraine has received additional aircraft, as well as parts to fix damaged planes, he told reporters during his latest briefing.
Kirby was reticent in providing any details on where the parts and planes came from but stressed that they did not come from the U.S.
“We certainly have helped with the trans-shipment of some additional spare parts that have helped with their aircraft needs, but we have not transported whole aircraft,” he said.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez
Apr 19, 6:15 pm
Zelenskyy addresses urgent need for military aid: ‘Every day matters’
In his latest national address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued to call on allies for military aid in the fight against Russia in eastern Ukraine, as the situation in Mariupol remains “severe.”
“If we had access to all the weapons we need, which our partners have and which are comparable to the weapons used by the Russian Federation, we would have already ended this war,” he said. “We would have already restored peace and liberated our territory from the occupiers. Because the superiority of the Ukrainian military in tactics and wisdom is quite obvious.”
Zelenskyy addressed Ukraine’s partners directly, saying that “every day matters.”
“Any delay in helping Ukraine gives the occupiers an opportunity to kill more Ukrainians,” he said.
Zelenskyy said Russian fire has “increased significantly” in the direction of Kharkiv and in the Donbas and Dnipropetrovsk regions. The situation in Mariupol in particular is “as severe as possible,” he said, while claiming that the Russian Army is blocking efforts to organize humanitarian corridors.
“The occupiers are trying to carry out deportation or even mobilization of the local residents who have fallen into their hands,” the president said. “The fate of at least tens of thousands of Mariupol residents who were previously relocated to Russian-controlled territory is unknown.”
ABC News’ Alexandra Faul
Apr 19, 5:00 pm
Biden again blames COVID, Putin for rising prices hitting US consumers
President Joe Biden, speaking at the New Hampshire Port Authority on Tuesday, sought to distance his administration from the rising prices and inflation U.S. consumers are facing — once again pointing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and Russian President Vladimir Putin as the main culprits.
“So, let’s be absolutely clear about why we have such high prices now, there are two reasons. First was COVID,” Biden said. “And the second big reason for the inflation is Vladimir Putin — not a joke. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has up driven gas and food prices all over the world.”
Biden said the major breadbaskets for wheat in the world are Ukraine and Russia with the United States and Canada right behind.
“What we saw in the most recent inflation data last month, about 70% of the increase in inflation was a consequence of Putin’s price hike because of the impact on gas and energy prices,” Biden said.
Biden said he is doing “everything” he can to lower prices and that savings are already starting to come through for consumers.
“I’m doing everything I can to bring down the price to address Putin’s price hike. That’s why I authorized the release of $1 million barrels per day for the next six months from our strategic petroleum reserve,” Biden said.
Biden said he is calling on Congress to pass his “human infrastructure” bill that has long stalled on Capitol Hill over policy disputes and the price tag.
(NEW YORK) — Lori Vallow pleaded not guilty Tuesday to murder charges related to the deaths of her two children in 2019. Her husband Chad Daybell had previously pleaded not guilty on similar charges.
Vallow and Daybell appeared in court in Fremont County, Idaho. Last week, a judge ruled that Vallow was fit to stand trial after she was recently released from an Idaho mental health facility.
Nearly two years ago, authorities discovered the remains of Lori Vallow’s children on property belonging to Chad Daybell, Vallow’s husband and the children’s stepfather.
Since then, authorities said Vallow and Daybell’s story has publicly unraveled and both face charges in connection to multiple murders.
Daybell appeared in court Tuesday morning for a hearing on whether his trial should be moved from Fremont County to Ada County after the defense argued that the jury in Fremont County may be swayed by extensive media coverage in the area.
After hearing multiple arguments and witness testimony, the judge announced that a written ruling would be released at a later date.
Following Daybell’s court appearance, Vallow appeared in court for arraignment and pleaded not guilty to all charges. She’s charged with three counts of first-degree murder: her children, J.J. Vallow and Tylee Ryan, and her husband’s first wife, Tammy Daybell.
The couple is scheduled to face trial starting in January 2023. Daybell and Vallow could face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted on multiple first-degree murder charges.
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon has been providing daily updates on the U.S. assessment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s efforts to resist.
Here are highlights of what a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Tuesday on Day 55:
‘Limited’ Russian offensive operations so far in eastern Ukraine
The U.S. has seen “limited” Russian offensive operations southwest of Donetsk and south of Izium, but these are believed to be “preludes to larger offensive operations that the Russians plan to conduct,” a senior U.S. defense official said.
“These are actual ground offensives, and they are being supported, of course, by some long-range fires, mostly artillery, which is right out of the Russian doctrine,” the official said.
But while there is ongoing fighting in the region, a more devastating offensive is still in the works.
“You’ve seen comments by [Ukraine’s] President Zelenskyy yesterday, and even for [Russian Foreign Minister] Lavrov, about this new offensive beginning … We think that these … are preludes to larger offensive operations that the Russians plan to conduct. So, we’re not pushing back on the notion that offensive operations have begun, but again, we think that this is a prelude of larger offensive operations that are potentially still in the offing here,” the official said.
The Pentagon believes Russia’s military is working to learn from its mistakes fighting in the north, where it was plagued with logistical and supply problems, conducting what officials call “shaping operations” to set favorable conditions on the battlefield before beginning its new offensive in earnest.
“In other words, continue to reinforce, continue to make sure they have logistics and sustainment in place, continue to make sure that they have proper aviation and other enabling capability,” the official said.
Over the last 24 hours, two Russian battalion tactical groups (BTGs), or up to 2,000 more combat troops, have been sent into Ukraine, according to the official. This brings the total to an estimated 78 BTGs inside the country, all in the south and east.
About 75% of Putin’s total combat power originally arrayed against Ukraine remains, according to the official. This takes into account all military capabilities, including troop casualties, destroyed vehicles and aircraft, and expended missiles. This is the lowest assessment we’ve heard out of the Pentagon.
Fall of Mariupol and Donbas ‘not inevitable’
“People speak about this as if it’s inevitable, that Mariupol is going to fall, that it’s inevitable that Donbas will be taken by the Russians. We don’t see it that way. And we’re doing everything we can to make sure that it’s not inevitable,” the official said.
With fighting concentrated around Donbas, Ukraine has to move aid coming in from the U.S. and others all the way across the country.
“Right now we know from our discussions with the Ukrainians that they are getting this materiel, it’s getting into the hands of their fighters,” the official said.
But Russia aims to isolate Ukrainian forces in the east.
“Clearly what the Russians want to do is cut them off and to defeat them in the Donbas,” the official said, reiterating that defeat is not inevitable.
Ukraine has more operable planes than two weeks ago
At a separate briefing later Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Ukraine currently has more operable military planes right now than it did two weeks ago because Ukraine has received additional aircraft as well as parts to get damaged planes flying again.
Kirby was reticent to provide any details on where the parts and planes came from but stressed that they did not come from the U.S.
“They have received additional aircraft and aircraft parts to help them get more aircraft in the air,” Kirby said at the on-camera briefing at the Pentagon.
“And that’s not by accident, that’s because other nations who had experience with those kinds of aircraft have been able to help them get more aircraft up and running,” said Kirby.
“We certainly have helped with the trans-shipment of some additional spare parts that have helped with their aircraft needs, but we have not transported whole aircraft,” he said.
Russian missile strikes
The U.S. assesses Russia has fired at least 1,670 missiles against Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion. The official noted that bad weather lowers visibility, making it harder for the U.S. to observe launches and other battlefield actions, so the actual number could be higher.
Despite the recent airstrikes in Kyiv and Lviv, Russia’s firepower is focused on Mariupol and Donbas.
