(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tested positive for COVID-19, her deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill tweeted Thursday.
Pelosi, 82, is vaccinated and boosted and does not have any symptoms, he said. This positive test comes after testing negative earlier in the week, Hammill said.
Pelosi on Wednesday tweeted a photo of her next to President Joe Biden.
Biden, who tested negative on Wednesday night, isn’t considered a close contact “as defined by the CDC,” according to a White House statement.
“The president saw Speaker Pelosi at White House events and had brief interactions over the course of the last two days,” the White House statement said.
“He will continue to be tested regularly. The president wishes Speaker Pelosi a speedy recovery,” the statement said.
Pelosi is second in line to the presidency after the vice president.
Other Washington officials to test positive this week include Attorney General Merrick Garland, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas.
Hammill added on Twitter that a planned congressional delegation to Asia, led by Pelosi, will be postponed.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with troops crossing the border from Belarus and Russia. Moscow’s forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.
Russian forces retreated last week from the Kyiv suburbs, leaving behind a trail of destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, U.S. and European officials accused Russian troops of committing war crimes.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 07, 10:29 am
Video shows trenches, tank tracks in radioactive Red Forest
Video has emerged purportedly showing trenches and tank tracks in Ukraine’s radioactive Red Forest.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense released the footage on Wednesday, claiming it as evidence that Russia ordered its soldiers to dig fortifications in the Red Forest near the shuttered Chernobyl nuclear power plant while occupying the area.
“Complete neglect of human life, even of one’s own subordinates, is what a killer-state looks like,” the ministry said in a post on Twitter alongside the video.
The Red Forest is the most radioactively contaminated part of the exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986.
Apr 07, 10:28 am
Russia claims attacks on more fuel depots in Ukraine
Russia claimed Thursday that its forces destroyed more fuel depots in Ukraine overnight.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that “high-precision air- and sea-based missiles” struck four fuel storage facilities “during the night” near the Ukrainian cities of Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv and Chuhuiv, from which the ministry claimed “Ukrainian forces were supplied with fuel” near Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Donbas.
Apr 07, 10:27 am
Russian forces ‘facing morale issues and shortages,’ UK says
Russia’s military remains focused on progressing its offensive operations in eastern Ukraine, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Thursday in an intelligence update.
According to the ministry, Russian forces continue to conduct artillery and air strikes along the line of control in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure targets are likely intended to degrade the ability of Ukraine’s military to resupply as well as to increase pressure on the Ukrainian government, the ministry said.
“Despite refocusing forces and logistics capabilities to support operations in the Donbas,” the ministry added, “Russian forces are likely to continue facing morale issues and shortages of supplies and personnel.”
Apr 07, 9:08 am
US Senate votes to resurrect WWII-era program to help Ukraine fight Russia
The United States Senate unanimously approved major legislation late Wednesday to resurrect a World War II-era policy that gives President Joe Biden the authority to expedite the delivery of weapons and other supplies to Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion.
The so-called Lend-Lease program was created during the Second World War and allowed the U.S. to swiftly resupply allies without bureaucratic barriers in the fight against Nazi Germany. The bill that passed in the Senate on Wednesday night would enable the U.S. to stay physically out of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine while providing allies with weapons and military equipment.
In a brief, late-night speech on the Senate floor in Washington, D.C., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Russian President Vladimir Putin and his military forces of carrying out “genocide” in Ukraine, calling the alleged atrocities “pure evil.”
“When we murder wantonly innocent civilians because of who they are, whether it be their religion, their race, or their nationality, that is genocide,” Schumer said, “and Mr. Putin is guilty of it.”
The Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022, as it’s called, would be specific to Ukraine and Eastern European nations to help remove obstacles to lending arms. The legislation would not create a new program, but would streamline the president’s current authority to lend the defense articles needed by Ukraine and Eastern European countries and expedite the delivery of defense articles to Ukraine. It would remain in effect through fiscal year 2023, according to a press release from the office of U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Shaheen introduced the bill with Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) in January. It will now be considered by the U.S. House of Representatives.
Apr 07, 5:21 am
Ukraine’s NATO agenda: ‘Weapons, weapons and weapons’
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba said his country had a “simple” agenda for Thursday’s NATO meeting.
“It has only three items on it. It’s weapons, weapons and weapons,” Kuleba told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.
NATO foreign ministers are meeting this week to discuss the situation in Ukraine, including whether to implement new sanctions and supply additional weapons, said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who spoke alongside Kuleba.
“So we are providing support, but, at the same time, working hard to prevent the escalation of the conflict,” Stoltenberg said.
Kuleba called on “all allies to put aside their hesitations” in aiding Ukraine.
“We are confident that the best way to help Ukraine now is to provide it with all necessary to contain [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, and to defeat Russian army in Ukraine, in the territory of Ukraine, so that the war does not spill over further,” Kuleba said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet with Kuleba on Thursday, according to his office.
“The G7 is committed to holding President Putin to account for his unprovoked war of choice and ensuring he endures a strategic defeat in Ukraine,” Blinken said on Twitter on Thursday.
(LANSING, Mich.) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is filing a lawsuit Thursday in an effort to protect abortion rights in the state.
“No matter what happens to Roe, I am going to fight like hell and use all the tools I have as governor to ensure reproductive freedom is a right for all women in Michigan,” she said in a statement. “If the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to protect the constitutional right to an abortion, the Michigan Supreme Court should step in. We must trust women — our family, neighbors, and friends — to make decisions that are best for them about their bodies and lives.”
Michigan is one of about 20 states where abortion could be immediately banned if Roe v. Wade were overturned because of either laws that predate Roe but were never removed from the books, so-called “trigger” laws that would go into effect in the event of the precedent being overturned, state constitutional amendments, or six- or eight-week bans that are not currently in effect but would ban nearly all abortions, according to a 2021 report by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
In Michigan’s case, abortion would be banned because of a 1931 state statute that criminalizes abortion, including in cases of rape or incest. The only exception would be in case of threat to the pregnant person’s life.
That statute has not been enforced since Roe made abortion a national right, but it could go back into effect if Roe were overturned. Whitmer filed the lawsuit, which names the elected prosecutors of 13 counties that have abortion clinics as defendants, to undo the statute.
As governor, she is utilizing the rarely used executive message power, which includes the governor’s right under the state constitution to “initiate court proceedings in the name of the state to enforce compliance with any constitutional or legislative mandate,” to push the case forward. Effectively, Whitmer is asking the Michigan Supreme Court to pick up the case directly, bypassing the time it would take in trial and appeals courts.
“This is no longer theoretical: it is reality,” Whitmer said in her statement about the possibility of Roe being overturned. “That’s why I am filing a lawsuit and using my executive authority to urge the Michigan Supreme Court to immediately resolve whether Michigan’s state constitution protects the right to abortion.”
She had previously supported an effort from the state Legislature to repeal the statute, however that effort has not moved the needle.
Whitmer’s move to protect abortion rights in this sped-up manner comes as Roe v. Wade faces its biggest challenge in its 49 years with the U.S. Supreme Court expected to hand down a decision in a case out of Mississippi early this summer.
That case revolves around a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of a pregnancy. Previous Supreme Court precedent had stipulated abortion was legal up to the point of viability, which typically happens around 24 to 28 weeks.
During oral arguments in December, the conservative justices openly raised the prospect of overturning decades of legal precedent, sending up flares around the nation that the landscape for legal abortion could be radically changed.
If abortion were made illegal in Michigan, the average Michigander’s driving distance to the nearest abortion clinic would expand from 11 miles to 261 miles, according to the Guttmacher Institute, as patients would have to travel out of state to seek an abortion.
With this, Michigan joins several states that have in recent months bulked up protections for abortion rights, apparently in response to the possibility of Roe being overturned.
“However we personally feel about abortion, a woman’s health, not politics, should drive important medical decisions,” Whitmer said in her statement. “A woman must be able to make her own medical decisions with the advice of a healthcare professional she trusts – politicians shouldn’t make that decision for her.”
This move also comes as the jury deliberates in a trial over an alleged 2020 plot to kidnap and kill Whitmer. The four men accused could face life in prison if found guilty.
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a bill Wednesday that would ban transgender women and girls from playing on school sports teams that correspond with their gender identity from grades six and up into college.
Under the proposed bill, students would play on teams based on their sex assigned at birth.
Beshear, who is a Democrat, joins two Republican governors who vetoed similar bills in Utah and Indiana. In his veto letter, he said he shares their concerns that the bills could provoke lawsuits against the state and cause harm against transgender people.
“Transgender children deserve public officials’ efforts to demonstrate that they are valued members of our communities through compassion, kindness and empathy, even if not understanding,” the governor stated.
Beshear also pointed to the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s transgender participation policy, which requires that trans student-athletes undergo hormone therapy after puberty to minimize potential gender-related advantages.
The KHSAA policy states that the organization “recognizes and promotes the ability of transgender student-athletes to participate in the privilege of interscholastic sports and sport-activities free from unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
However, Senate Bill 83 — the Fairness in Womens’ Sports Act — passed Kentucky’s legislature on March 24 with a GOP majority that could override Beshear’s decision.
Those in support of these policies, like bill sponsor Sen. Robby Mills, have said that they believe transgender women have a biological advantage against cisgender women.
“It would be crushing for a young lady to train her whole career to have it end up competing against a biological male in the state tournament or state finals,” Mills said during Senate debate on the bill.
There has been “no direct or consistent research” that shows that trans people have an advantage over cisgender peers in athletics, according to a Sports Medicine journal review of several research studies on potential advantages.
LGBTQ advocates applauded Beshear’s decision, saying that legislators behind the bill are bullying transgender youth.
“From the start, this bill has been more about fear than fairness,” said Chris Hartman, the executive director of Kentucky LGBTQ+ advocacy group the Fairness Campaign.
He continued: “In Kentucky’s entire school system, there is only one openly transgender girl we know playing on a school sports team. That student started her school’s field hockey team, recruited all of the other team members, and just wants the opportunity to play with her friends her eighth-grade year.”
(NEW YORK) — From sayings like “mommy juice” and “rosé all day” to happy hours, drinking is part of American culture, particularly for women.
One thing that is less discussed though is alcohol’s link to cancer, and how that impacts women.
“We’re finding that probably anywhere between 5% and 10% of all cancers worldwide are due to alcohol use,” Dr. Suneel Kamath, a gastrointestinal oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center in Ohio, told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “It’s something that we need to talk a lot more about.”
In addition to potentially facing depression, liver disease and obesity, women who consume about one alcoholic drink per day have a 5% to 9% higher chance of developing breast cancer than women who do not drink at all, and that risk increases for every additional drink a woman has per day, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
One study published in 2019 found that women who were not at high risk for breast cancer based on family history increased their risk of breast cancer from moderate drinking.
For women, a moderate alcohol intake per week is defined as seven servings of alcohol or less, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which advise women to have no more than one drink per day.
Heavy drinking is typically defined as consuming eight drinks or more per week, according to the CDC.
One serving of alcohol is just five ounces for wine and just one-and-a-half ounces for hard alcohol, far less than what is typically served in bars, restaurants and at home.
The data shows that even casual drinkers face a greater risk of cancer, most commonly liver and throat cancers but also colon and head and neck cancers, in addition to breast cancer.
“Over 100,000 cases of cancer a year were attributed to that type of drinking,” said Kamath. “I think that’s most surprising, that many of us really are comfortable with doing that and consider that to be very safe.”
Drinking alcohol is listed by the Department of Health and Human Services as a known human carcinogen.
Research shows that just as women metabolize alcohol differently than men, they also face more serious health consequences.
Women are more susceptible to alcohol-related heart disease than men; alcohol misuse produces brain damage more quickly in women than in men; women may be more susceptible than men to alcohol-related blackouts, or gaps in memory; and women who regularly misuse alcohol are more likely than men who drink the same amount to develop alcoholic hepatitis, a potentially deadly condition, according to the NIAAA.
“This is a perfect example of gender-specific medical differences,” said Dr. Jennifer Ashton, a board-certified OBGYN and ABC News chief medical correspondent, explaining the difference lies primarily in enzymes that women lack to metabolize alcohol. “This is significant and we can’t look at this, like so many other things in medicine, like it’s one size fits all.”
During the coronavirus pandemic, data showed that heavy drinking among women especially soared, while alcohol-related liver disease also rose among young women amid increased pandemic drinking.
Liz Piscatello, 37, describes herself as a moderate, social drinker and said she is willing to put the reward of alcohol over the risk.
“I’m a firm believer that everything causes something, and you cannot live your life being scared,” she said. “Live your life because you only live once. Tomorrow’s not promised, so have fun while you can.”
Kamath is among the medical experts warning though that the less alcohol intake the better for your health.
“What I recommend to people really is to limit alcohol intake as much as you can,” he said. “The less you can do, the better.”
According to Ashton, it is important that women be aware of the risks of alcohol and make a “deliberate choice” if they choose to consume.
“It’s not the only thing that we do that can have negative effects,” she said of alcohol. “It has to be a deliberate choice and we have to go into it with the awareness that we know, unfortunately, it’s just not good for us.”
(LONDON) — Russian forces have executed civilians in Ukraine in apparent war crimes, Amnesty International said Thursday.
The London-based international human rights group published new testimony after conducting on-the-ground research in areas around Ukraine’s capital amid Russia’s invasion. Its report adds to a growing body of evidence that Russian troops have committed war crimes amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — a charge that U.S. and Ukrainian officials have repeatedly made, but that the Kremlin vehemently denies.
Amnesty International said its crisis response investigators interviewed more than 20 people from villages and towns near Kyiv, many of whom claimed to have witnessed or have had direct knowledge of Russian soldiers committing horrific acts of violence against unarmed civilians across the region.
“In recent weeks, we have gathered evidence that Russian forces have committed extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings, which must be investigated as likely war crimes,” Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said in a statement Thursday. “Testimonies show that unarmed civilians in Ukraine are being killed in their homes and streets in acts of unspeakable cruelty and shocking brutality.”
The organization noted that deliberate killings of civilians, rape and torture, as well as inhumane treatment of prisoners of war, are human rights violations and war crimes, and that those who commit them should be held criminally responsible along with any superiors who knew or had reason to know about such atrocities but did not attempt to stop or punish the perpetrators.
The International Criminal Court, a United Nations Human Rights Council commission of inquiry and Ukraine’s prosecutor general have all opened investigations into possible war crimes by Russian forces. But the interviews conducted by Amnesty International and published Thursday provide a harrowing window into these kinds of attacks with grisly detail.
According to the report, one of the interviewees, 18-year-old Kateryna Tkachova, told Amnesty International that she was at home with her parents in the village of Vorzel, northwest of Kyiv, on March 3 when several tanks painted with the letter “Z,” which Russian forces have used to mark their vehicles during the invasion of Ukraine, rolled down their street. Tkachova said her mother and father, who were unarmed and dressed in civilian clothing, left the basement where they were hiding to go into the street, after telling her to stay put. Tkachova said she then heard gunshots.
“Once the tanks had passed by, I jumped over the fence to the neighbor’s house. I wanted to check if they’re alive,” Tkachova told Amnesty International. “I looked over the fence and saw my mother lying on her back on one side of the road, and my father was face down on the other side of the street. I saw large holes in his coat. The next day I went to them. My father had six large holes in his back, my mother had a smaller hole in her chest.”
Seven days later, an unnamed volunteer assisting with evacuations from the areas around Kyiv helped Tkachova leave Vorzel. The volunteer told Amnesty International that he had seen the bodies of Tkachova’s parents lying in the street near her house, according to the report. Amnesty International said it has also verified video showing the volunteer and Tkachova writing her parents’ names, dates of birth and dates of death on a piece of cardboard before placing it beside their bodies, which were covered with blankets.
An unnamed 46-year-old woman told Amnesty International that Russian troops entered her village of Bohdanivka, southeast of Kyiv, on March 7 or 8. On the night of March 9, the woman said she heard gunshots through the downstairs windows of her home, where she lived with her husband, 10-year-old daughter and 81-year-old mother-in-law. She told Amnesty International that she and her husband shouted that they were civilians and that they were unarmed. When they came downstairs, two Russian soldiers pushed them and their daughter into the boiler room.
“They forced us in and slammed the door,” she told Amnesty International. “After just a minute they opened the door, they asked my husband if he had cigarettes. He said no, he hadn’t smoked for a couple of weeks. They shot him in his right arm. The other said, ‘Finish him,’ and they shot him in the head.”
“He didn’t die right away. From 9.30 p.m. to 4 a.m. he was still breathing, though he wasn’t conscious,” she added, according to Amnesty International. “Blood was flowing out of him. When he took his last breath, I turned to my daughter and said, ‘It seems daddy has died.'”
A neighbor told Amnesty International that they witnessed Russian soldiers breaking into the woman’s house that night and also confirmed seeing her husband’s body slumped in the corner of the boiler room. The woman and her child escaped from Bohdanivka later that day. The woman’s mother-in-law, who has limited mobility, was left behind, according to Amnesty International.
Another woman, from an unidentified village east of Kyiv, told Amnesty International that two Russian soldiers entered her house on March 9, killed her husband and then repeatedly raped her at gunpoint while her young son hid nearby in the boiler room, according to the report. The unnamed woman managed to escape from the village with her son and they fled to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
“The intentional killing of civilians is a human rights violation and a war crime,” Callamard said. “These deaths must be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible must be prosecuted, including up the chain of command.”
Interviewees also told Amnesty International they had lost access to electricity, water and gas in the early days of the Russian invasion and that there was very limited access to food. There was poor cellphone service in the region, and some interviewees said Russian soldiers had confiscated or destroyed mobile phones whenever they saw residents carrying them, or threatened them with violence for having one.
Amnesty International found that threats of violence and intimidation were also widespread. One man in Hostomel, a town northwest of Kyiv, reported seeing an entire dormitory of people who were sheltering from shelling and were forced to go outside, where Russian military officers immediately fired gunshots over their heads, forcing them to drop to the ground. Two men from Bucha, another town northwest of Kyiv, also said snipers regularly shot at them when they went to salvage food from a destroyed grocery store near their home, according to Amnesty International.
Russian forces invaded neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, seizing territory and shelling cities seemingly indiscriminately. But they have faced strong resistance from Ukrainian troops, who have retaken some territory in recent days as Russian forces retreated.
According to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venedyktova, at least 410 civilians have been found dead in recently recaptured towns near Kyiv, particularly in Bucha, which has galvanized global outrage. While graphic evidence of the atrocities has emerged, including eyewitness testimony along with videos and images, Russia has claimed the scenes were “staged.”
Amnesty International said it has obtained evidence that civilians were also killed in indiscriminate attacks in Kharkiv and Sumy Oblasts, documented an airstrike that killed civilians queueing for food in the northern city of Chernihiv, and gathered evidence from civilians living under siege in the battered cities of Kharkiv, Izium and Mariupol.
“As these horrendous accounts of life under Russian occupation continue to emerge,” Callamard said, “the victims in Ukraine must know that the international community is determined to secure accountability for their suffering.”
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with troops crossing the border from Belarus and Russia. Moscow’s forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.
Russian forces retreated last week from the Kyiv suburbs, leaving behind a trail of destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, U.S. and European officials accused Russian troops of committing war crimes.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 07, 5:21 am
Ukraine’s NATO agenda: ‘Weapons, weapons and weapons’
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba said his country had a “simple” agenda for Thursday’s NATO meeting.
“It has only three items on it. It’s weapons, weapons and weapons,” Kuleba told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.
NATO foreign ministers are meeting this week to discuss the situation in Ukraine, including whether to implement new sanctions and supply additional weapons, said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who spoke alongside Kuleba.
“So we are providing support, but, at the same time, working hard to prevent the escalation of the conflict,” Stoltenberg said.
Kuleba called on “all allies to put aside their hesitations” in aiding Ukraine.
“We are confident that the best way to help Ukraine now is to provide it with all necessary to contain [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, and to defeat Russian army in Ukraine, in the territory of Ukraine, so that the war does not spill over further,” Kuleba said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet with Kuleba on Thursday, according to his office.
“The G7 is committed to holding President Putin to account for his unprovoked war of choice and ensuring he endures a strategic defeat in Ukraine,” Blinken said on Twitter on Thursday.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Senate is poised to vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on Thursday, paving the way for Jackson to become the first Black woman in history to sit on the nation’s highest court.
“It will be a joyous day. Joyous for the Senate, joyous for the Supreme Court, joyous for America,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday evening. “America tomorrow will take a giant step to becoming a perfect nation.”
It’s still unclear whether President Joe Biden will make an appearance following the afternoon vote, which is expected to be called around 1:45 p.m., or whether Vice President Kamala Harris, as president of the Senate, will preside over the chamber for the historic occasion.
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.
If confirmed, Jackson is not expected to be fully sworn in for duty until summer, once retiring Justice Stephen Breyer steps down.
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 which 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, and the couple share two daughters, Talia, 21, and Leila, 17.
Asked about her message to young Americans, Jackson recalled to the Senate Judiciary Committee of feeling out of place at Harvard in her first semester — and 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.'”
(BELLEVUE, Wash.) — Inside a nondescript commercial office complex east of Seattle, an acclaimed professional chef and an ex-Microsoft tech executive have been quietly perfecting the art of pizza making and redefining possibilities for the perfect pie.
Over the last three years, the chef, Francisco Migoya, and ex-exec, Nathan Myhrvold, have baked more than 12,000 pizzas and run 500 scientific experiments to produce what they call the definitive guide to one of the world’s most popular foods.
“We didn’t eat 12,000 pizzas, but believe me, there was a lot of pizza eaten during that time,” said Migoya in an interview. “There is no such thing as too much pizza.”
Their book, Modernist Pizza, is a 1,700-page tome whose three volumes weigh in at more than 35 pounds. The history and secrets of pizza perfection also carry a hefty price tag of nearly $300.
“The most important objective is for people who love pizza to have a deeper understanding of it, to learn ways of making it better, to — I guess you could say — perfecting it,” Migoya said.
Myhrvold, who founded the franchise Modernist Cuisine out of a passion for food, said the pizza project is also about culinary evolution.
“Continuous improvement is what brings you things that are just fantastically delicious,” he said.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, pizza sales have soared at popular U.S. delivery chains and many struggling non-pizza restaurants pivoted to get in on the take-out game. The crisis also fueled an interest in pizza making at home, data show.
“It’s a food that is very close to our heart and not just Americans but the world over,” Migoya said.
ABC News Live was given an inside look at the kitchen laboratory at Modernist Cuisine where a team of chefs and scientists were studying pizza techniques, from the making of dough to developing sauce and pioneering new methods.
A dehydrated whole Neapolitan pizza is pulverized into a spice powder to intensify the pizza flavor in dough. A gyrating distiller turns ordinary winter grocery store tomatoes into a flavor-packed fresh sauce. Industrial centrifuges churn out experimental pizza toppings, like pea butter extracted from frozen green peas.
“We are unapologetic about loving pizza, and part of that says, hey, you can make a very traditional one. But if you want to step out a little bit on the wild side and try some stuff that might seem crazy, you might find you like it,” Myhrvold said.
A 3D scanner analyzes freshly baked pies to measure volume accurately and discern how ingredients interact with each other on top of the sauce.
The data have been used to produce more than 1,000 pizza recipes as well as tips and tricks for home cooks and professional chefs.
The team examined whether the type of water you use matters (it doesn’t, they say); differences between sliced and shredded cheese; why pepperoni curls and how much topping you should put on; and strategies for enhancing leftover pizza at home.
The team also drew from pizza intelligence it gathered from trips to more than 250 pizzerias around the globe.
While the truly perfect pizza may be in the eye of the beholder, Portland, Oregon, has the best pizza scene in the country, Migoya said. The worst pizza he tried was from Argentina: “Bananas, pizza cheese and tomato sauce. It’s as bad as you think it is, maybe worse,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of committing genocide after he said hundreds of civilians were found dead in the town of Bucha following the Russian military’s withdrawal.
Ukrainian officials have said more than 400 civilians were killed in Bucha, many with hands tied behind their backs, shot at close range.
Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement Sunday that all photographs and videos published by the Ukrainian authorities alleging “crimes” by Russian troops in Bucha were a “provocation” and claimed no resident of Bucha suffered violence at the hands of Russian troops.
Russia has claimed all its units withdrew completely from Bucha around March 30. An ABC News analysis of videos and satellite imagery confirms some of the bodies seen lying in the streets of Bucha were there as early as March 19, when the town was still occupied by Russian forces, contradicting Russia’s claims that the scene was “staged” after its troops left.
President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal and the alleged acts committed by Russian troops “war crimes,” but fell short of calling it genocide. Experts say this could, in part, be a political decision.
“To say that a genocide is occurring, is also to say, we can’t sit on our hands and do nothing here,” David Simon, a senior lecturer and the director of the Genocide Studies program at Yale University, told ABC News.
The U.S. government also has an internal process for designating whether genocide has occurred. It took the State Department five years to designate that a genocide had occurred in Myanmar, Simon said.
This story explains the legal term “genocide” in relation to the war in Ukraine.
What is genocide?
Genocide is defined as an act “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” according to the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Acts of genocide against members of a group listed in the convention include killings; causing them serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting life conditions calculated to being about its physical destruction; imposing measures to prevent births; or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Genocide is not just any large scale violence, or violence that becomes particularly gruesome or grisly, Simon said. There has to be intent by the perpetrators to destroy the group, he said.
Killings are also not the only form of genocide that could have occurred in Ukraine, another expert said.
“Other attempts to diminish the group, by placing them in harsh conditions of life, like if you think about starving a group to death, and you actually think of some cities in Ukraine today, where through bombardment and cutting off the flow of humanitarian aid, people are potentially going to be starving,” Alex Hinton, the director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights and UNESCO Chair on Genocide Prevention, told ABC News.
Whether or not these violent acts allegedly committed by Russian forces against civilians are found to be acts of genocide, they are illegal under international law and warrant a response from the international community, Simon said.
“What we’re seeing in Ukraine almost certainly involves crimes against humanity, war crimes, and then to less well defined terms, ethnic cleansing and mass atrocities,” Simon said.
Legal threshold for defining genocide
The legal definition of genocide does not define a threshold for an amount of violence that has to have happened in order for it to be considered genocide.
“The importance of intent within the definition of genocide means really, that there is no legal threshold. Particularly because the convention says the ‘intent destroy in whole or in part’,” Simon said.
In practice, though, Simon said the possibility of genocide has usually come up when the number of deaths are in the thousands.
As of Wednesday, at least 1,480 civilians have been killed and 2,195 others have been injured in Ukraine since Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Consequences for genocide
The U.N.’s convention on genocide tells countries to take claims to one of the organs of the United Nations for the further prevention and suppression of acts of genocide. However, with Russia’s veto power, it is unlikely the Security Council, the organ primarily responsible for ensuring international peace and security, would be able to take action, Simon said.
There are a number of things states or geopolitical actors can do, Hinton said.
Organizations, including Human Rights Watch, and government actors are currently on the ground gathering evidence for a possible trial of those who may have committed crimes. An inquiry could also be launched to investigate the alleged war crimes committed.
The International Criminal Court has begun active investigations into potential war crimes committed, but Simon said it could take years for this to be litigated.
“In most cases, the ICC is able to act only after a conflict is essentially over,” Simon said.
The ICC’s investigation into crimes committed in Myanmar is still primarily in the investigation phase, despite the most intense parts of the violence happening in 2017, Simon said.
Investigators will need to prove it was Russia’s intent to destroy Ukraine or Ukrainians as a group. This evidence would be any articulation of the idea on social media, public broadcasts, in writing or even private communications, Simon said.
But, “there can be no actual case until those individuals that are under warrant are arrested and brought to the Hague for trial,” Simon said.
Radovan Karadzic, who committed war crimes in the former Yugoslavia during 1992 and 1993, and was convicted in the ICC, was at large until 2008.
“His trial, which included genocide charges, took place something like a decade and a half after the acts he undertook,” Simon said.
Experts say leaders should act either way
This violence could push actors to take a stronger stance against Russia, which could have included military action if Russia wasn’t a nuclear power, Simon said.
Biden has repeatedly said American troops will not join the war in Ukraine, warning that going head-to-head would lead to “World War III.” Biden has also denied requests from Zelenskyy for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
“But it may push Europeans to have more of a taste to expand sanctions to include Russian exports of gas and oil, which could be far more devastating to the Russian economy than the sanctions that are in place up to this point,” Simon said.
Hinton agreed that additional sanctions could be imposed, but said lines of diplomacy need to be kept open, Hinton said.
“There has to be a way to get out of the conflict, so diplomacy is absolutely critical,” Hinton said.
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators last held virtual talks on Friday where they discussed the proposed security guarantee treaty.
Ukraine proposed a new system of security guarantees similar to NATO’s collective defense clause which would legally require “guarantor countries” to provide arms and impose a “no-fly” zone over Ukraine, in the event of an attack.
Simon said the term “genocide” can often be used politically, to describe crimes that do not fit its legal definition.
“People tend to use genocide as a label for anything that upsets them. Indeed, the Russians have used Neo-Nazis and genocide against Russians as the pretext for invading in the first place, when there’s absolutely no evidence of anything, especially intent to destroy Russians within Ukraine,” Simon said.
Hinton agreed, saying, “genocide has always from the very beginning, been a sort of political football. It’s used and misused by states to serve their interest.”
A designation that the crimes committed against Ukrainian civilians amounts to genocide should not make a difference in the response, according to Simon.
“There are clearly violations of international law that are causing great harm to civilian populations. And that alone should should trigger a stronger response,” he said.
“We have enough evidence of crimes against humanity, that if we think that mass atrocities are a reason for ratcheting up pressure, militarily or otherwise, against the perpetrator force, we have that evidence with us now and we don’t need to have a determination of genocide to decide whether or not we find bodies in the street of Bucha repulsive or revolting,” Simon said.
