(NEW YORK) — Being infected with COVID-19 raises the risk of developing serious blood clots, a new study suggests.
An international team of researchers from Sweden, the United Kingdom and Finland compared more than 1 million people in Sweden with a confirmed case of the virus between February 2020 and May 2021 to 4 million control patients who tested negative.
They found three to six months after contracting COVID-19, patients were at increased risk of being diagnosed with blood clots in their legs or lungs, according to results published in the journal BMJ on Wednesday.
Specifically, patients had a significantly increased risk of deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot that forms deep in the thigh or the lower leg, up to three months after a COVID-19 infection.
Patients also had a heightened risk of developing a pulmonary embolism, a clot that develops in a blood vessel and travels to a lung artery, up to six months after having the virus.
The team said its results add to a growing body of evidence about the link between COVID-19 and serious blood clots, while adding new information about how long the risk might last.
“The present findings have major policy implications,” the authors wrote, adding that the report “strengthens the importance of vaccination against COVID-19.”
They also said the findings suggest that COVID-19 patients — “especially high-risk patients” — should take anticoagulation medicine, which are medications to help prevent these clots.
During the course of the study period, the team saw 401 cases of DVT among the COVID-19 patients, compared to 267 cases among the negative patients.
Meanwhile, there were 1,761 cases of PE among virus patients in comparison with 171 cases among the control patients.
COVID-19 patients were at higher risk of blood clots if they had underlying conditions, had a severe case of the virus or if they were infected during the first wave of the pandemic in early 2020.
However, there wasn’t just a risk of blood clots. The study also found an increased risk of any kind of bleeding up to two months after a COVID-19 infection.
The team noted there were limitations, including that the study was observational rather than a randomized controlled trial.
Additionally, the researchers recognized that clotting in COVID-19 patients may be underdiagnosed and information about patients’ vaccination status was not available.
Despite the risk of blood clots following COVID-19 infections being well-documented, it’s unknown what biological mechanisms are at play. However, there are theories.
One study from Michigan Medicine and the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute suggested “rogue” antibodies from a COVID-19 infection cause blood cells to lose their anti-clotting properties.
Another study from Yale School of Medicine suggested specific proteins are produced by endothelial cells — cells that line blood vessels — due to inflammation from the virus and lead to blood clots.
“It remains to be established whether SARS-CoV-2 infection increases the risk of venous thromboembolism or bleeding more than it does for respiratory infections, such as influenza, but also whether the period of [anticoagulation medicine] after COVID-19 should be extended,” the authors wrote.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Thursday confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, paving the way for her to become the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court.
Just before the 53-47 bipartisan vote, during a rare occasion when senators announce their votes standing at their desks, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called it “an even greater moment for America as we rise to a more perfect union.”
The White House said President Joe Biden would mark Jackson’s Senate confirmation with a South Lawn ceremony Friday. Vice President Kamala Harris, presided over the Senate and announced the vote.
Spectators in the Senate gallery cheered and almost every senator rose in an extended standing ovation.
Jackson watched the Senate vote at the White House with Biden and her family, a pool report said.
With the Senate barreling toward a two-week Easter recess, the Senate had first voted to cut off debate on Jackson’s confirmation, around ahead of the final roll call vote. It’s been 42 days since Biden nominated Jackson.
While Democrats have the votes to confirm Biden’s nominee on their own, three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney — will break ranks from the GOP to join them, marking a solid, bipartisan win for the Biden White House in a hyper-partisan Washington. Former President Donald Trump’s last nominee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, received no votes from Democrats.
Jackson is not expected to be fully sworn in for duty until summer, once retiring Justice Stephen Breyer steps down.
With Jackson’s ascension to the bench, for the first time, white men won’t be the majority on the Supreme Court.
In marathon hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Jackson was given the opportunity to tell the panel — and the American people — what it would mean to her to serve on the nation’s highest court.
“I stand on the shoulders of so many who have come before me, including Judge Constance Baker Motley, who was the first African American woman to be appointed to the federal bench and with whom I share a birthday,” Jackson said. “And, like Judge Motley, I have dedicated my career to ensuring that the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court building — ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ — are a reality and not just an ideal.”
Jackson endured nearly 24 hours of questioning from senators in the, at times, contentious and emotional, hearings.
“Not a single justice has been a Black woman. You, Judge Jackson, can be the first,” said chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill. “It’s not easy being the first. You have to be the best and in some ways the brightest. Your presence here today and your willingness to brave this process will give inspiration to millions of women who see themselves in you.”
Meanwhile, several Republicans assailed Jackson with accusations that she’s a liberal activist and “soft on crime”– taking issue with nine child pornography sentences she handed down, criticizing her legal work for Guantanamo Bay detainees, and questioning support she received from progressive groups.
“In your nomination, did you notice that people from the left were pretty much cheering you on?” asked Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
“A lot of people were cheering me on, senator,” she replied.
Notably, Graham voted to confirm Jackson to a lifetime judicial appointment last year but said he’ll vote no this time — and warned that if Republicans had control of the Senate, Jackson wouldn’t have received hearings to begin with.
Others in the GOP pressed Jackson to explain critical race theory, say whether babies are racist, and to define “woman” — questions Democrats repeatedly criticized as they took to defending her record and applauding her character.
“You did not get there because of some left wing agenda,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told her in a dramatic soliloquy, moving Jackson to tears. “You didn’t get here because of some dark money groups. You got here how every Black woman in America who has gotten anywhere has done. You are worthy. You are a great American.”
While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Jackson’s performance, at times, “evasive and unclear,” scrutinizing her judicial philosophy, Jackson insisted “there is not a label” for her judiciary philosophy — because she says she doesn’t have one. She told the committee, “I am acutely aware that, as a judge in our system, I have limited power, and I am trying in every case to stay in my lane.”
At age 51, Jackson currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to which she was named by Biden and confirmed by the Senate last year in a bipartisan vote. She has also been Senate-confirmed on two other occasions.
She will replace Justice Breyer, whom she once clerked for, when he retires at the end of the term. Jackson said last month, “It is extremely humbling to be considered for Justice Breyer’s seat, and I know that I could never fill his shoes. But if confirmed, I would hope to carry on his spirit.”
When Biden formally announced Jackson’s nomination at the White House, he fulfilled a promise made on the 2020 presidential campaign ahead of the South Carolina primary when he relied heavily on support from the state’s Black voters.
“For too long our government, our courts haven’t looked like America,” he said on Feb. 25. “And I believe it is time that we have a court that reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation with a nominee of extraordinary qualifications.”
Jackson’s parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown, Miami natives who grew up under segregation in the South, were on hand at the historic hearings to support their daughter — who they say was once told by a school guidance counselor to lower her sights.
Jackson, instead, soared.
Growing up, her mother was a public high school principal in Miami-Dade County, where Jackson attended public schools and was a “star student,” while her father was a teacher and, later on, county school board attorney. Jackson has fondly recalled memories of drawing in her coloring books next to her father studying his law school textbooks. Her younger brother, her only sibling, served in the U.S. military and did tours in combat. Two of her uncles have been law enforcement officers.
After graduating from Miami Palmetto Senior High School, Jackson went on to attend Harvard College and Harvard Law School. There she met her husband, Patrick, a general surgeon, at Harvard, and the couple share two daughters, Talia, 21, and Leila, 17.
Asked what her message to young Americans would be, Jackson recalled to the Senate Judiciary Committee that when she was feeling out of place at Harvard in her first semester — a stranger provided a remarkable lesson in resilience.
“I was really questioning: Do I belong here? Can I, can I make it in this environment?” she said. “And I was walking through the yard in the evening and a Black woman I did not know was passing me on the sidewalk, and she looked at me, and I guess she knew how I was feeling. And she leaned over as we crossed and said ‘persevere.'”
(BOSTON) — A Massachusetts toddler who weighed just over one pound when she was born at 25 weeks is home after spending the first 19 months of her life hospitalized.
Bradi Foster, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, was greeted with cheers and bubbles from her doctors and nurses when she left Franciscan Children’s, a hospital in Boston, this month with her parents, Darlene and James Foster.
The toddler was born on Aug. 9, 2020, in an emergency cesarean section after Darlene Foster suffered a placenta abruption, which is when the placenta separates from the wall of the uterus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
Bradi spent her first several months fighting for her life in the neonatal intensive care unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where she was born.
“I think they said it was around 40% chance of survival,” James Foster said of his daughter’s condition at birth. “Her lungs were not fully developed so she needed a lot of assistance just breathing and regulating her oxygen.”
The Fosters, also the parents to three older daughters, ages 6, 4 and 3, recalled having to wait nine days after she was born to even hold Bradi.
“It was scary,” Darlene Foster said. “She was smaller than our hands.”
In Bradi’s first months of life, she underwent heart surgery and battled a number of infections and lung and gastrointestinal issues, according to her parents.
Because Bradi was born early on in the coronavirus pandemic, the Fosters said they were typically allowed to have just one person with her at the hospital, an approximately 75-minute commute from their home.
“It was the toughest thing leaving our house to go to Boston to go see her and then have her sisters be like, ‘We want to go too. We want to see our sister,'” Darlene Foster said. “And some of the times I would just watch her in her little isolette and just look because she was sometimes too sick to hold.”
In January 2021, at just 5 months old, Bradi became so sick she had to be placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, machine, which removes carbon dioxide from the blood and sends back blood with oxygen to the body, giving the heart and lungs time to heal.
That same week, in a hospital across the street, Darlene Foster’s dad died after battling COVID-19.
“We had to say goodbye to him … and we were so sure that it was it for her,” she said, referring to Bradi’s critical condition.
Darlene Foster said that while she was at her dad’s funeral, she was notified by the hospital that Bradi had taken a turn for the better and would be taken off the ECMO machine.
From there, according to the Fosters, Bradi’s condition began to improve.
In July 2021, she was transferred to Franciscan Children’s, a post-acute rehabilitation hospital, where she continued her recovery.
After a tracheostomy was performed and Bradi no longer had to be on sedatives to keep her breathing tube in place, the Fosters said they saw their daughter come alive.
“We finally got to see her smile. Her eyes opened and she wanted to play,” Darlene Foster said. “We completely got our baby as soon as she got her trach.”
In the 19 months she spent hospitalized, Bradi underwent around 10 major surgeries and a dozen smaller ones, according to the Fosters.
Now that she is home, Bradi still has a tracheostomy tube and a gastrostomy tube (g-tube) for nutrition, but her parents said they expect both will be removed in the near future.
“We definitely have high hopes that she will be a normal kid, but it’s just going to take a little bit longer for us to get all those things out and progress her to where she should be for her age,” said James Foster. “But we definitely believe that she will be fully capable.”
Describing Bradi’s personality, he added, “We can’t believe how happy she is. After all of this experience that she’s had in life, she’s remained such a happy soul.”
When she arrived home for the first time, Bradi got to see her sisters for just the second time in her life.
“It is the best feeling in the world,” Darlene Foster said of having their family of six home together. “We just want to give hope to any other NICU parents, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”
(NEW YORK) — Valerie Bertinelli is opening up about mental health.
In a first-person essay published by New Beauty magazine on April 4, the actress and Food Network host revealed that her “mental health has improved immensely” since she ditched the scale.
“I stopped weighing myself when I finished writing my book, which was a big thing for me, and I haven’t gotten on a scale since,” Bertinelli wrote. “My clothes still fit; my jeans still zip up. I guess I was afraid that if I didn’t see what number I was and if I wasn’t able to keep an eye on it, that I would balloon up … but that hasn’t happened.”
“I feel like once that gets on its full journey, then maybe my body will follow. Maybe I’ll want to eat more fruits and vegetables, and drink less alcohol, and eat less sugar, and put things in my body that make both my body and my mind feel better,” she added. “It’s all a test and we’ll see how it works, but I do know that my mental health has improved immensely because I stopped looking at the scale every morning — and that’s the first big step for me.”
The One Day At A Time actress has been vocal about her struggles with her weight and body image. Last year, Bertinelli took a stand against body-shamers in an Instagram video after a follower told her that she needed to lose weight.
Bertinelli’s post resonated with many who then started sharing some of their own struggles. Celebrities also commended her for being open about her experience.
“For me, the big thing is my weight — it’s the thing that holds me back,” Bertinelli wrote in her essay for New Beauty. “But I want to start feeling the same about myself — no matter what weight I am. I don’t have to wait until I’ve lost weight to be kind to myself and to be kind to others.”
“It shouldn’t matter what I look like,” she added. “I’m trying to make that a reality in my life, and then, hopefully, my body will follow.”
(NEW YORK) — Television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, has a considerable financial stake in major pharmaceutical firms and Silicon Valley giants, newly released records show — despite railing against “Big Pharma” and “Big Tech” on the campaign trail.
The disclosures, released late Wednesday, indicate that the GOP candidate and celebrity television doctor has poured millions of dollars into companies like Amazon and CVS — a revelation seemingly at odds with a central tenet of his message to voters.
“I’ve taken on Big Pharma, I’ve gone to battle with Big Tech,” Oz said on Fox News in December. “I cannot be bought.”
A political newcomer, Oz is facing off against David McCormick, a longtime hedge fund executive, in a competitive Republican primary. Both men have immense wealth, and some observers say Oz’s investments could complicate his bid to connect with the Keystone State’s blue-collar voting base.
According to the disclosure report, Oz, together with his wife, owns between $6 million and $27 million in Amazon stocks, between $1.7 million and $6.6 million in Microsoft, and between $1.3 million and $5.7 million each in Apple and Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc.
Oz and his wife also have between $615,000 and $1.3 million in shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific, between $15,001 and $50,000 in Johnson & Johnson, and between $50,001 and $100,000 each in CVS and the pharmaceutical company AbbVie.
Notably, one of Oz’s campaign ads denouncing Big Tech includes Oz saying that he took on Facebook — and indeed his disclosures do not show him owning any stock in the popular social media company.
In all, Oz’s disclosure shows that he and his spouse together own between $104 and $422 million in various assets and holdings.
Among his other investments, Oz and his wife together own between $11 million and $51 million in shares of Asplundh Tree Trimming, a company co-founded by Oz’s wife’s family.
Other assets include between $6 million and $30 million in shares of the convenient store company Wawa, as well as between $5 million and $25 million in shares of the online health engagement platform Sharecare, where Oz sat on the board of directors until last year.
Oz and his spouse also own between $1.5 million and $6 million shares in the fertility clinic network Prelude Fertility, and between $500,000 and $1 million in shares of Pantheryx, a biotechnology company that specializes in bovine colostrum products. Oz has served as a director of both companies, the disclosure report shows.
According to the report, Oz and his spouse also own between $11 million and $47 million in commercial and residential real estate properties.
Over the past year and a half, Oz reported earning between $20 million and $50 million, including more than $2 million in salary as the host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” more than $7 million in profit from his company Oz Media, LLC, and millions of dollars in capital gains, dividends and interest from his various financial investments.
Yulii Zozulia/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
(MARIUPOL, Ukraine) — In one of the creepiest allegations to emerge from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin is being accused by Ukrainian officials of using “mobile crematoriums” to incinerate dead civilians in a deliberate effort to cover-up alleged war crimes in the hard-hit city of Mariupol.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko made the charge this week, saying he heard eyewitness accounts of Russian soldiers driving around Mariupol with crematoriums on lorries and collecting bodies of civilians while at the same time barring the International Committee of the Red Cross from entering the city with humanitarian aid.
“The world has not seen the scale of the tragedy in Mariupol since the existence of Nazis concentration camps,” Boychenko said on Tuesday. “The Russians have turned our entire city into a death camp. Unfortunately, the creepy analogy is getting more and more confirmation.”
In a statement released on its Facebook account, the Mariupol City Council said, “witnesses have seen evidence Russia is operating mobile crematoria in Mariupol, burning the bodies of dead civilians and covering up evidence of war crimes.”
The statement added “this is why Russia is not in a hurry” to let the ICRC and other human rights watch groups into Mariupol to rescue civilians still trapped there.
Boychenko and the city council said the portable human furnaces showed up in Mariupol after reports of alleged atrocities at the hands of Russian troops emerged in Bucha, a suburb of the capital city Kyiv. Ukrainian officials reported that at least 410 civilians were killed in Bucha, including many found with their hands tied behind their backs and shot in the head.
Boychenko said his once-thriving port city of 400,000 people has been completely decimated by bombing raids and estimated that around 5,000 people there have been killed.
U.S. defense officials told ABC News they have not confirmed the allegations that Russia is using mobile crematoriums to hide evidence of war crimes.
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Massachusetts, told ABC News on Thursday that he is not surprised by the reports.
Moulton, a former Marine and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that during a 2015 fact-finding mission in Ukraine that he went on with other House members, “credible sources” informed him that the Russian Army was using mobile crematoriums on its own soldiers in the Russian occupied Crimea, Ukraine. He said the sources told him Russia was using the devices to cover up the number of its soldiers killed in Crimea.
“We heard this from a variety of sources over there, enough that I was confident in the veracity of the information,” Moulton said. “None of that has changed. That is absolutely what was going on back then and I’m now hearing reports, unsurprisingly, that it’s happening again.”
Moulton said he has no reason to discounts reports from Ukrainian officials that Russia is using the incinerators to hide new war crimes.
“The bottom line is this is nothing new for the Russian Army and Vladimir Putin,” Moulton said.
In an interview with Turkish media this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged that Russian soldiers were “cleaning up” before allowing aid workers into the heavily bombed Mariupol.
Pressure has been mounting from the international community to bring war crimes against Putin and other Russian officials. The international criminal court in The Hague has launched an investigation into the atrocities allegedly committed against Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops since the invasion started on Feb. 24.
A report released Thursday by Amnesty International claims Russian forces have committed numerous war crimes throughout Ukraine. The organization said its crisis response investigators interviewed more than 20 people from villages and towns near Kyiv and many claimed to have witnessed civilian executions.
The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday voted to pass a resolution to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council in response to Russian forces’ alleged killings of civilians in Ukraine.
“I’m not sure who needs more proof that Russia is committing war crimes,” Moulton told ABC News. “They’re trying to cover their tracks.”
Russia has denied committing atrocities and targeting civilians.
(WASHINGTON) — When the Supreme Court struck down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s federal eviction moratorium in August 2021, experts and politicians predicted that expulsions would soar.
But eviction filings overall remained well below the historical average through 2021, according to the White House and housing experts.
“[Eviction filings] increased after the CDC moratorium ended, but they still aren’t anywhere near back to normal,” said Peter Hepburn, Princeton Eviction Lab statistician and quantitative analyst. “So we’re still at 60% of the historical average.”
Hepburn credited the influx of state and federal resources and ramped up legal assistance implemented during the coronavirus pandemic for the downward trend.
While some financial resources started during the pandemic outlasted the eviction moratorium, Attorney General Merrick Garland on Aug. 30, 2021, also called upon lawyers and law students to help fill the gap after the moratorium ended by helping with Emergency Rental Assistance applications, volunteering with legal aid providers and assisting courts with implementing eviction diversion programs, among other initiatives aimed at increasing housing stability.
Heeding that call were 99 law schools in 35 states and Puerto Rico, according to the White House.
“Over the past five months, over 2,100 law students dedicated over 81,000 hours to serve over 10,000 households,” said a statement released by the Biden administration.
Gene Sperling, the senior adviser to President Joe Biden who is spearheading the implementation of the American Rescue Plan, said the partnership with the legal community has been an “extraordinary national experiment.” The project — part of an “whole-of-government approach” — contributed to eviction diversion programs as well as rental assistance programs that kept eviction filings significantly below historic averages.
Funding worth $46 billion for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program — provided for households economically impacted by COVID-19 — also flooded the system at the same time these partnerships were emerging.
David Daix, a 45-year-old immigrant from the Ivory Coast and father of two residing in Henrico Country, Virginia, is one beneficiary of a newly beefed-up partnership between the Virginia Poverty Law Center’s eviction legal helpline and the University of Richmond School of Law.
After being let go from his customer service job in March 2020, Daix was unable to pay rent after his unemployment benefits expired a year later. His landlord filed for eviction in January 2022, he said. The helpline put him in touch with Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, which got his case dismissed in early February.
Daix is not alone. Richmond, Virginia, and its surrounding counties — Henrico and Chesterfield — have some of the highest eviction rates in the country, according to Princeton’s Eviction Lab.
These regions had a stark “access to justice” gap between represented and unrepresented individuals in court. From 2015 to 2019, only 1% of tenants in Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield were represented in local general district courts, according to the 2017 Virginia Self-Represented Litigant Study.
In 2020, tenant representation in housing court increased by 11% while 30% fewer landlords were awarded judgments, according to the RVA Eviction Lab. Four years ago, the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society didn’t have a single attorney who was practicing full-time housing law; now it has six.
“A new generation of housing advocates have been born out of this time,” Erika Poethig, White House adviser on Urban Planning and Policy, said at an eviction prevention event at the end of January.
The program began after the Biden administration reached out to Georgetown Law School Dean Bill Treanor, who spearheaded the partnership between law schools and the White House along with NYU Law School Dean Trevor Morrison.
Treanor said one of the most important legacies of the project is a renewed commitment to eviction prevention, and the White House and Department of Justice have said they intend to maintain the law school partnerships after the pandemic ends.
“Even after the pandemic is over, the underlying housing crisis will endure. This has helped make us all conscious [of] the importance of finding ways in which law students can help people facing housing crises,” Treanor said.
As part of the program, the University of South Carolina School of Law — located in Columbia, the city with the eighth-highest eviction rate in the country — helped fund Veterans Legal Clinics that serve indigent veterans with housing issues. The school also partnered with the NAACP housing navigators program.
“We’ve made the case to the General Assembly of South Carolina that these access to justice initiatives are vital to the public interest of South Carolina,” said William Hubbard, dean of the University of South Carolina School of Law.
Angela Onwuachi-Willig, dean of Boston University School of Law, said tenants often do not have access to legal assistance and don’t know how to fight an illegal eviction, especially during a pandemic.
“[Tenants] have no way of getting it back, they have no way of fighting against a landlord who has used something that’s improper,” Onwuachi-Willig said. “And imagine and during all of that, during a pandemic, when you’re also trying not to get sick.”
Onwuachi-Willig partnered with Naomi Mann, clinical associate professor, and Jade Brown, clinical instructor in the Civil Litigation and Justice Program, last spring. Brown helped develop the MA Defense for Eviction (MADE) for students to help tenants respond to initial complaints filed by landlords against them and generate pleas based on tenants’ answers.
“Hopefully, the pandemic has sort of revealed the cracks in our system, and where they are. It has certainly shown us how enormous the unmet need is, when it comes to housing law, the unmet legal need, in particular, is what we obviously are working on,” Mann said.
Students did not need to have a background in housing law to participate and, according to Brown, the project had a “profound” impact on many of them.
“Being able to work with Naomi and Jade on this definitely solidifies this is something that will be a part of my career for a long time,” said Julian Burlando-Salazar, a Boston University law student who was not previously planning to pursue housing law.
Burlando-Salazar partnered with another BU law student, Marie Tashima, to solve tenants’ disputes with landlords through mediation.
The movement toward getting tenants better representation in court was already underway in many states before the pandemic began.
Three states — Washington, Maryland and Connecticut — have enacted laws that require no necessary qualifications for tenants facing eviction to be eligible for free legal representation.
Eleven states have established a qualified right to counsel, including New York, where the state’s eviction moratorium ended on Jan. 15, 2022. That same day, Ciji Stewart was scheduled to appear in court and requested a lawyer from the Legal Aid Society.
Stewart, a mother of three living in Rockaway Beach in Queens, received a call from Sateesh Nori, the attorney in charge of the Queens Neighborhood Office of the Legal Aid Society.
“I was just telling Nori everything that was happening in my home and he got me an adjournment, which I didn’t know what was or could happen,” Stewart said. “He helped me file a suit for repairs against the landlord.”
Because she lived in New York, Stewart may have already qualified for legal representation. But since the federal program was developed, many more like her in other states have now begun to feel the same relief.
But while University of Richmond Law School Dean Wendy Perdue said the program represents progress in that it has helped show the necessity of legal representation, she said it’s still just a “drop in the bucket.”
“The Association of American law schools has collected the data nationwide — literally millions of hours of service that law students around the country provide,” she said. “It’s still only a drop in the bucket, but the only way you fill up the bucket is with a series of drops and so law students are having an important impact in filling some of the gaps that exist in legal services.”
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian troops invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Russian forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.
In recent days, Russian forces have retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv, the United States and European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 08, 6:19 am
EU president, top diplomat to meet with Zelenskyy in Kyiv
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the bloc’s top diplomat, Joseph Borrell, were due to arrive in Ukraine’s capital on Friday.
While in Kyiv, the pair will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It will be their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24.
Apr 08, 5:08 am
At least 30 killed, over 100 injured in attack on Ukrainian train station
At least 30 people were killed and more than 100 others injured in a rocket attack on a railway station in eastern Ukraine on Friday morning, authorities said.
According to Ukraine’s state-owned railway company, two Russian rockets struck the train station in the city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast.
“This is a purposeful strike on the passenger infrastructure of the railway and the residents of the city of Kramatorsk,” Ukrainian Railways said in a post on Facebook.
Donetsk Oblast Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said the station was teeming with civilians fleeing the Russian invasion. Kyrylenko accused Russian forces of wanting “to take as many peaceful people as possible.”
“Thousands of people were at the station during the missile strike, as residents of Donetsk Oblast are being evacuated to safer regions of Ukraine,” Kyrylenko said in a post on Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that the rockets targeted an area at the station where “thousands of peaceful Ukrainians were waiting for evacuation.”
“Not having the strength and courage to confront us on the battlefield, they are cynically destroying the civilian population,” Zelenskyy said in a post on Facebook. “This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop.”
Graphic images provided by Ukrainian officials showed the aftermath of the attack — bodies lying on the ground next to scattered luggage and debris, with charred vehicles parked nearby.
Apr 08, 4:33 am
Russian forces need ‘at least a week’ before redeploying, UK says
Russian forces in northern Ukraine have now fully withdrawn to neighboring Belarus and Russia, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Friday in an intelligence update.
“At least some of these forces will be transferred to East Ukraine to fight in the Donbas,” the ministry added. “Many of these forces will require significant replenishment before being ready to deploy further east with any mass redeployment from the north likely to take at least a week minimum.”
Meanwhile, cities in eastern and southern Ukraine continue to be shelled by Russian forces as the troops advance “further south from the strategically important city of Izium which remains under their control,” according to the ministry.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian troops invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Russian forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.
In recent days, Russian forces have retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv, the United States and European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 08, 9:36 am
Russia isn’t telling most families who’ve lost sons in war: US official
A senior administration official told ABC News that Russia isn’t informing the majority of families when someone is killed in the war.
The official said mothers and spouses are starting to show up outside military bases to try to get information but are told to leave.
The official said mobile crematoriums are being used to burn the bodies of some Russian soldiers.
-ABC News’ Martha Raddatz
Apr 08, 9:00 am
EU, UK target Putin’s daughters in fresh sanctions
The European Union announced Friday a fifth set of sanctions against Russian individuals and businesses, including a prohibition to buy and import coal and solid fossil fuels, with the package expected to include sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two adult daughters, Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova, who were sanctioned by the United States earlier this week.
The fresh sanctions also include a prohibition on Russian flagged ships accessing E.U. ports, further export bans on technologically goods and import bans on raw materials, accounting for billions of dollars.
An E.U. spokesperson would not confirm to ABC News on Friday morning that Putin’s daughters were among the latest individuals targeted, but said more details would be announced later in the day.
The bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said in a statement Friday that the “latest sanctions were adopted following the atrocities committed by Russian armed forces in Bucha and other places under Russian occupation.”
“The aim of our sanctions is to stop the reckless, inhuman and aggressive behaviour of the Russian troops and make clear to the decision makers in the Kremlin that their illegal aggression comes at a heavy cost,” Borrell added.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom formally announced new sanctions against Putin’s two daughters as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, targeting the “lavish lifestyles of the Kremlin’s inner circle.”
“Our unprecedented package of sanctions is hitting the elite and their families, while degrading the Russian economy on a scale Russia hasn’t seen since the fall of the Soviet Union,” U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement Friday. “But we need to do more. Through the G-7, we are ending the use of Russian energy and hitting Putin’s ability to fund his illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine.”
“Together, we are tightening the ratchet on Russia’s war machine, cutting off Putin’s sources of cash,” she added.
-ABC News’ Guy Davies
Apr 08, 8:09 am
Russia denies attack on Ukrainian train station
Russia denied its involvement in a rocket attack that killed dozens of people at a train station in eastern Ukraine on Friday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov alleged that the involvement of Russian forces in the attack on the railway station in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk was already ruled out by the Russian Ministry of Defense, based on the type of missile that was used — a Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile.
“Our Armed Forces do not use missiles of this type,” Peskov told reporters during a press briefing Friday. “No combat tasks were set or planned for today in Kramatorsk.”
Apr 08, 7:52 am
Death toll rises to 39 after attack on Ukrainian train station
At least 39 people were killed in a rocket attack on a railway station in eastern Ukraine on Friday, authorities said.
Two Russian rockets struck the train station in the city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast on Friday morning, according to Ukraine’s state-owned railway company, which in a statement via Facebook called the attack “a purposeful strike on the passenger infrastructure of the railway and the residents of the city of Kramatorsk.”
By Friday afternoon, Donetsk Oblast Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko confirmed that the death toll had risen from 30 to 39. He said in a statement via Telegram that another 87 were wounded, many seriously. The number of injured was down from earlier estimates of more than 100.
The attack occurred as “thousands” of civilians fleeing the Russian invasion were at the train station waiting to be taken to “safer regions of Ukraine,” according to Kyrylenko, who accused Russian forces of “deliberately trying to disrupt the evacuation of civilians.”
“The evacuation will continue,” the governor added. “Anyone who wants to leave the region will be able to do so.”
Graphic images provided by Ukrainian officials showed the aftermath of the attack — bodies lying on the ground next to scattered luggage and debris, with charred vehicles parked nearby. The remains of a large rocket with the words “for our children” in Russian painted on the side was also seen on the ground next to the main building of the station.
Earlier this week, large crowds of people were seen waiting on the platform to board trains at the Kramatorsk railway station as they fled the city in Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region.
Since 2014, Russia-backed separatist forces have controlled two breakaway republics of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in the Donbas. The separatists have been fighting alongside Russian troops to seize more territory there, after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Now, the Russian military is said to be refocusing its offensive in the Donbas as it withdraws its troops from northern Ukraine.
Apr 08, 6:19 am
EU president, top diplomat to meet with Zelenskyy in Kyiv
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the bloc’s top diplomat, Joseph Borrell, were due to arrive in Ukraine’s capital on Friday.
While in Kyiv, the pair will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It will be their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24.
Apr 08, 5:08 am
At least 30 killed, over 100 injured in attack on Ukrainian train station
At least 30 people were killed and more than 100 others injured in a rocket attack on a railway station in eastern Ukraine on Friday morning, authorities said.
According to Ukraine’s state-owned railway company, two Russian rockets struck the train station in the city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast.
“This is a purposeful strike on the passenger infrastructure of the railway and the residents of the city of Kramatorsk,” Ukrainian Railways said in a post on Facebook.
Donetsk Oblast Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said the station was teeming with civilians fleeing the Russian invasion. Kyrylenko accused Russian forces of wanting “to take as many peaceful people as possible.”
“Thousands of people were at the station during the missile strike, as residents of Donetsk Oblast are being evacuated to safer regions of Ukraine,” Kyrylenko said in a post on Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that the rockets targeted an area at the station where “thousands of peaceful Ukrainians were waiting for evacuation.”
“Not having the strength and courage to confront us on the battlefield, they are cynically destroying the civilian population,” Zelenskyy said in a post on Facebook. “This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop.”
Graphic images provided by Ukrainian officials showed the aftermath of the attack — bodies lying on the ground next to scattered luggage and debris, with charred vehicles parked nearby.
Apr 08, 4:33 am
Russian forces need ‘at least a week’ before redeploying, UK says
Russian forces in northern Ukraine have now fully withdrawn to neighboring Belarus and Russia, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Friday in an intelligence update.
“At least some of these forces will be transferred to East Ukraine to fight in the Donbas,” the ministry added. “Many of these forces will require significant replenishment before being ready to deploy further east with any mass redeployment from the north likely to take at least a week minimum.”
Meanwhile, cities in eastern and southern Ukraine continue to be shelled by Russian forces as the troops advance “further south from the strategically important city of Izium which remains under their control,” according to the ministry.
(TEL AVIV, Israel) — Two people were shot dead and several others were injured in a terror attack in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Thursday night, according to authorities.
At least 9 people were shot in the attack, with victims being taken to Ichilov, Sheba Tel Hashomer and Wolfson hospitals, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency medical service. Two men, “approximately 30 years old,” were pronounced dead at Ichilov Hospital.
Three people in serious condition — a 20-year-old man, 28-year-old woman and 38-year-old man — were being treated for serious injuries, according to the medical service. Four others were being treated for mild injuries.
Several other people at the scene were being treated for “stress symptoms,” according to Magen David Adom.
Israeli security forces tracked down and killed the alleged assailant in a shootout early Friday near a mosque in Jaffa, an Arab neighborhood in southern Tel Aviv, according to statements from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet. The suspect was identified by Shin Bet as a 29-year-old Palestinian man from Jenin, in the occupied West Ban.
Israeli officials said “several” shootings took place at Dizengoff Street, Gordon Street and surrounding areas in Tel Aviv. Dizengoff Street is a major street that runs through Tel Aviv and has many shops, bars and restaurants and would have been bustling with activity on a Thursday night.
“It has been a very difficult night,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett wrote on Twitter. “I send my condolences to the families of those who were murdered, and I pray for the complete recovery of the wounded. Security forces are in pursuit of the terrorist who carried out the murderous rampage tonight in Tel Aviv. Wherever the terrorist is — we will get to him. And everyone who helped him indirectly or directly — will pay a price.”
The deadly shooting on Thursday night was one of several recent terror attacks in Israel. There were three fatal terror attacks at the end of March. On March 30, five people were shot to death in Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv, by a man on a motorcycle who was later killed by police. One of the victims was a police officer, according to Magen David Adom.
Two days earlier, on March 28, two police officers were shot to death and four others were wounded in an attack. Then, a week prior, four people were killed in a stabbing attack in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba. The suspect was shot dead.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.
“Americans are, once again, grieving with the Israeli people in the wake of another deadly terrorist attack, which took the lives of two innocent victims and wounded many more in Tel Aviv,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to the families and other loved ones of those killed, and we wish a speedy recovery to the injured. We are closely following developments and will continue to be in regular contact with our Israeli partners, with whom we stand resolutely in the face of senseless terrorism and violence.”
“Horrified to see another cowardly terror attack on innocent civilians, this time in Tel Aviv,” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides wrote on Twitter. “Praying for peace, and sending condolences to the victims and their families. This has to stop!”
ABC News’ Nasser Atta, Bruno Nota, Christine Theodorou and Jason Volack contributed to this report.
