James Toliver Craig, 45, a dentist in Aurora, Colorado, is seen in an undated booking photo released by the Aurora Police Department. — Aurora Police Department
(AURORA, Colo.) — A Colorado dentist has been arrested in connection with the “complex and calculated” poisoning death of his wife, local police said on Sunday.
The Aurora Police Department said James Toliver Craig, 45, was arrested on a charge of first-degree murder early Sunday morning.
Craig and his wife, who was suffering from “severe headaches and dizziness,” arrived at a local hospital at about 8:45 p.m. on Wednesday night, officials said.
She was placed on a ventilator after her “condition deteriorated rapidly,” police said in a statement, adding, “She was declared medically brain dead a short time later.”
An investigation into her “sudden” death showed she’d been poisoned, said Mark Hildebrand, a division chief with the department.
“It was quickly discovered this was in fact a heinous, complex and calculated murder,” Hildebrand said in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — Another atmospheric river is expected to hit California this week, bringing rain and snow to a large portion of the state as spring begins.
Much of California saw rain on Sunday, with an additional two to four inches expected on Tuesday and Wednesday. The heaviest precipitation will likely fall in southern California.
This week, the atmospheric river event will also bring an extra two to four feet of snow to the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
More snow is expected to fall in San Bernardino County in areas like Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead, bringing a risk of floods.
By Tuesday afternoon, parts of the West Coast are expected to see a break in the rain. San Diego and southern California will continue to see rain and snow throughout the day, as will the Sierra Mountains.
The heavy rain and snow are expected to continue in southern California and along the Sierra Nevada on Wednesday. Rain will also be along the entire coast through the Bay Area.
Heavy rain is expected to fall in central Arizona on Tuesday, where a flood risk also exists.
Heavy snow will move through the Rockies and give southwestern Colorado four to six feet of snow, helping the Colorado River Basin feed Lake Mead, which supplies water to cities such as Las Vegas.
More than 73 million people are under freeze alerts for Sunday night into Monday morning, as freeze warnings are in place for multiple states in the South, with agriculture in at least a dozen states from Texas to Virginia feeling the impact after a record-warm start to the year has kick-started the growing season.
Freezing temperatures may lead to reduced yields for the coming season.
Atlanta and Birmingham hit 30 degrees Sunday morning, with Jackson, Mississippi, reaching 20 degrees a day before the official start of spring.
More than a foot of lake effect snow fell in Wisconsin and Michigan, with more snow falling from Ohio to New York.
Sydney Benes with head of security Nate Sanders at Sullivan’s Pub. Sanders said Benes is looking to press charges against the two men who pushed her chair down the stairs and damaged it. — Julia Zukowski
(ERIE, Pa.) — Sydney Benes, a Mercyhurst University student whose unattended wheelchair was pushed down stairs in a viral video, hopes her story can be used for change and she can be an advocate for others in her situation.
The incident occurred March 11 at Sullivan’s Pub in Erie, Pennsylvania. A video posted to Twitter shows fellow student Carson Briere pushing Benes’ wheelchair down the stairs at the eatery and walking away.
Benes, a double amputee who lost her legs in a car accident in 2021, uses the chair while learning to use her prosthetics.
“All that was going through my head was ‘man I hope this was an accident, I hope that this wasn’t on purpose,” Benes told ABC News.
Nate Sanders, head of security at Sullivan’s Pub, said he was helping Benes go into the bathroom downstairs when he heard a loud noise.
“We heard something that sounded like somebody falling down the steps. We went out and checked, didn’t see any sign of anybody falling, but when it was time to bring her back up the stairs, we found her chair at the bottom of the steps,” he told ABC News.
Once they checked the footage, Sanders said they identified who it was, forced the boys to apologize to Benes, and escorted them out of the establishment.
“I grabbed him on the shoulders and said, ‘I’ve got video of you tossing a wheelchair down the steps like it’s time to go,” he said.
Sanders said the two student-athletes are now banned from the bar.
While there has been a GoFundMe created for Benes, she said she didn’t intend to keep all of the money raised to replace the broken wheelchair even though the goal was exceeded. Instead, she wants to donate the money to other causes and hopes this is an opportunity for change and fair treatment of people who are disabled.
“I can use it to show people what we go through, what we have to deal with, and how we wish to be treated,” she said. “We are treated like things, like second-class citizens; we’re not treated with respect.”
Mercyhurst University said Carson Briere and two other student-athletes were placed on an interim suspension from their athletic teams, per school policy, pending the outcome of the investigation. Briere has issued an apology.
“I am deeply sorry for my behavior on Saturday. There is no excuse for my actions, and I will do whatever I can to make up for this serious lack of judgment,” he said.
Briere’s father, interim Philadelphia Flyers GM Daniel Briere, also issued a statement of apology on his son’s behalf.
“I was shocked to see Carson’s actions in the video that was shared on social media. They are inexcusable and run completely counter to our family’s values of treating people with respect. Carson is very sorry and accepts full responsibility for his behavior,” he said.
ABC News reached out to the Erie Police Department for comment on the investigation and has not heard back.
(MOSCOW) — As Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived on Monday afternoon in Moscow, he was greeted at Vnukovo airport by a Russian military band, but not Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I am very glad, at the invitation of President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, to come back to the land of our close neighbor … I am sure my visit will be fruitful,” Xi said, according to Russia’s TASS News Agency, which is run by the state.
Xi’s visit with Kremlin officials amounts to China’s most visible show of support for its neighbor since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. The Chinese president’s visit comes days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of war crimes in Ukraine.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. ABC News’ Joe Simonetti contributed to this story.
(WASHINGTON) — On the nation’s largest Native American reservation – spanning 16 million-acres across Arizona, New Mexico and Utah – one in three households lacks running water, according to the Navajo Nation.
At the Supreme Court on Monday, the tribe will face off with the federal government and a group of states over what it calls a “broken promise” to bolster the reservation’s water supply.
The dispute involves the vital but increasingly strained Colorado River, a resource long the subject of litigation between states and carefully apportioned under a labyrinth of agreements to meet the needs of nearly 40 million Americans across the West.
The tribe argues that the 1868 treaty establishing the reservation “promised both land and water sufficient for the Navajos to return to a permanent home in their ancestral territory.”
It wants the Interior Department to assess the reservation’s water needs and develop a plan to meet them, which experts say would most likely involve diverting more water from the Colorado River.
“The Nation is still waiting for the water it needs,” the tribe writes in court papers, asking the justices to greenlight a “breach-of-trust claim” in federal court.
The government disputes that it ever explicitly agreed to provide water and says that even if water rights were implied by the treaty, there is no enforceable obligation.
“No substantive source of law expressly establishes the particular duty that the Navajo Nation asserts,” the government said in a court filing.
A federal district court sided with the government, denying the Navajo Nation’s claim, saying it had failed to identify a “specific, applicable, trust-creating statute or regulation that the government violated.”
A federal appeals court reversed, reasoning that the reservation could not exist without adequate water and therefore an obligation to supply it was implied.
The states – Arizona, Colorado and Nevada – argue the Navajo Nation should never have been able to bring the claim in the first place, since the Supreme Court has asserted exclusive jurisdiction over disputes involving the Colorado River in a series of decisions and decrees over decades.
They also argue that allowing the tribe to claim expanded water rights over the Colorado would upset pre-existing agreements and ultimately mean less water available to those communities that have come to rely on it.
A coalition of western water associations and consumer groups calls the case “critically important,” warning the Supreme Court about its potential to upend “stability and predictability” of the process to determine water rights.
Allowing the tribe to bring a claim, the groups say, “threatens to undermine the certainty of water rights not only in the Colorado River Basin, but also throughout other water-scarce regions of the United States more broadly.”
The tribe says the U.S. government’s 170-year-old promise should come first.
“The United States made a bargained-for treaty promise. The courts should enforce it,” the Navajo Nation told the court.
A 28-week ultrasound of the baby’s head shows normal brain structures that should have formed and then separated in the midline are not there. — Courtesy Kylie Overdorf
(NEW YORK) — Kylie Beaton was looking forward to having her second child later this year. Now, she’s faced with carrying an unviable pregnancy to its end due to Texas’ highly restrictive abortion ban.
According to a report from her doctor, Beaton’s baby has a rare, severe condition impacting the development of its brain, but she is unable to access abortion care in her home state.
“To have a woman go through so much torture along the way that’s going to stay with them forever,” Beaton told ABC News. “Whatever the case may be, you have to look at things from a different perspective.”
Texas has several abortion bans in place that prohibit nearly all abortions, except when a mother’s life is at risk or there is a risk of serious bodily harm. The state has civil and criminal penalties for performing banned abortions.
Beaton, who has a 4-year-old daughter with her husband, Seth, said the couple had been actively trying to get pregnant when they conceived the unviable pregnancy. Seth had been hospitalized with COVID pneumonia in June 2021. When he was finally released six months later, the couple started trying to have a baby right away, Beaton said. Beaton has polycystic ovary syndrome, which can make it harder for women to get pregnant, so it was all the more joyful when she learned their efforts were successful.
“I was really excited when we found that it was a boy, but that was short-lived,” Seth Beaton told ABC News. “Right now, I’m just terrified for my wife. She’s the strongest person I know and she’s just helpless right now. And it’s not fair for her and other women. And we have a daughter, I couldn’t imagine my daughter ever having to go through this.”
At her 20-week ultrasound appointment, Beaton said her physician discovered the fetus had a rare, severe anomaly — called alobar holoprosencephaly — in which the fetus’s brain does not develop into two hemispheres as it normally would, and the major structures of the brain remain fused in the middle.
The brain splitting into two hemispheres is a “critical stage in the development” and can impact the development of the nose, mouth and throat, Dr. Katie McHugh, an Indiana OB-GYN and abortion provider, told ABC News. The condition results in a very painful life and death for the fetus, McHugh said.
“Often times we will offer, if not recommend, pregnancy termination,” McHugh said.
The anomaly occurs in about 1 in 250 fetuses, but in just 1 in 16,000 live births, according to the Cleveland Clinic. In her seven years practicing as a maternal fetal medicine specialist, Dr. Carrie Rouse, an OB-GYN and maternal fetal medicine specialist at Indiana University Health, said she has only come across five cases. Beaton’s 28-week ultrasound shows the severity of her baby’s anomaly.
“The inside appears very empty,” said Rouse, who is not treating Beaton, but looked at her ultrasound. “The normal brain structures that we would see, that should have formed and then separated in the midline, are not there where they normally would be. This is a very concerning ultrasound.”
Beaton said her physicians told her the baby could survive out of the womb for a couple of weeks, at most, in the event that the pregnancy ends in a live birth. Rouse agreed with this assessment, pointing to what she said is a lack of development of normal brain tissue and empty fluid filling the head.
“This anomaly is typically lethal for most infants within days to weeks,” Rouse said. “Outliers are only able to survive with significant amount of invasive procedures and interventions.”
Babies with this condition never reach developmental milestones, meaning they won’t have any intentional interactions like smiling, and often can’t see, have severe seizures and hormonal abnormalities, according to Rouse. Very few outliers are able to survive up to a year and the level of intervention needed for babies with this condition to survive is extremely high; they often need mechanical ventilation or a life support machine, multiple medications and repeated lab draws, Rouse said.
“They live to a year with basically heroic measures,” Rouse said.
Beaton said her physician referred her to a specialist a week after her diagnosis. However, she said the specialist confirmed that due to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and Texas’ “trigger” law effectively outlawing nearly all abortions, the physicians’ hands were tied. She said the specialist told her he could not do anything to end the pregnancy unless Beaton developed a severe health issue or if the fetus dies in the womb.
Anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life has routinely argued that fetuses should be “honored and protected in law no matter how long or short their lives may be,” according to a statement earlier this month.
Representatives for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton and state Sen. Bryan Hughes, who authored one of the state’s abortion bans, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment about Beaton’s situation.
Beaton said she wanted to have a vaginal delivery, feeling like a scar from a cesarean section would be a constant reminder of what she had lost. A C-section also means that the couple would be advised to wait 12 to 18 months before trying to get pregnant again, the typical time physicians recommend women wait so their uterus can recover from surgery, according to the Center for Advanced Reproductive Medicine and Fertility.
“With this condition, in particular, because the head, the fetal head, develops at a different rate, often because of fluid collections, most of the time vaginal delivery is not an option. And so cesarean delivery is required,” McHugh said. “And this is going to be major abdominal surgery, with risks associated with it — for a baby that has maybe no chance of a normal life or potentially of survival at all, depending on the severity.”
Unable to get care in Texas, Beaton said she booked an appointment to get an abortion at a clinic in New Mexico in February.
But, she said when she went in for an ultrasound days before her appointment, she was told her baby’s head had grown too big and she could no longer get the procedure. The facility’s cutoff for abortions is 23 weeks and six days she said and the fetus’s head was already measuring at what it typically would at over 23 weeks of pregnancy.
“From there, we were pretty let down,” Kylie Beaton said.
She said she was referred to a clinic in Colorado that provides later-term abortion care, but that facility told them it would cost between $10,000 to $15,000 for the procedure, which was financially out of question, Beaton said. The New Mexico clinic would have provided the same procedure for $3,500, Kylie Beaton said. Neither estimate includes the cost of travel and accommodation.
Since then, the fetus’s head has continually increased in size, filling with fluid, she said. At her appointment on Monday, when she was 28 weeks pregnant, the fetus’s head size was measuring at what it typically would be at 39 weeks, a full-term pregnancy, the ultrasound showed.
“On that ultrasound, the head is measuring significantly larger than it should be. It’s measuring about 10 weeks further along than she actually is, which is very concerning,” Rouse, the Indiana Health System OB-GYN, said.
Rouse said Beaton’s C-section could be more complicated and risky as her pregnancy continues.
“You worry about ongoing growth of the fetal head of causing more complications at the time of delivery, like hemorrhage, needing a blood transfusion, needing to use a larger incision on her abdomen in order to to remove the infant, needing to use a larger and different incision on the uterus in order to remove the infant,” Rouse said. “There’s a risk of possibly uterine rupture just because of the stretch on the uterus. All of these things would make me pretty worried.”
“For a condition for which we expect the baby to pass away soon after birth, that baby is going to pass away because of the alobar holoprosencephaly, whether they are born at 39 weeks or earlier,” Rouse added.
Beaton said her physicians in Texas contacted other doctors in the state, hoping they had heard of an alternative regarding the state’s laws that would permit them to induce her labor since the baby’s head was at full term. Ultimately, Beaton said, doctors determined the size of the baby’s head was not a good enough reason to induce labor because her health is still not at risk.
“And if the state were to find out, they would most likely press charges,” Kylie Beaton said.
Texas’ anti-abortion law makes it a second-degree felony for any attempt by a medical professional to perform, induce or attempt an abortion, and a first-degree felony if the abortion is carried out.
“My specialist and my OB both had said I had to go essentially full term to at least 37 weeks unless something happens to either the baby or I, then they could induce,” Kylie Beaton said.
The couple said the law has left them feeling helpless and frustrated over not being able to make a humane decision for their baby.
“I mean, for them to say, ‘Well, you need to wait until you’re in a health crisis, a health issue to where your life’s in jeopardy, then that’s when we can take it.’ Well, then why do we have doctors?” Kylie Beaton said.
“Why are we taking medications for things like high blood pressure? Why don’t you wait until you have a heart attack? Or until you have, you know, the signs that you’re having a stroke to be on medication? All those things? It’s kind of the same way, if you look at it from our perspective,” she added.
Before this pregnancy, Beaton said she never would have considered getting an abortion. Now, she believes abortions should be allowed in cases like hers and for women with other health conditions to get the care they need.
“I’m personally not for it being a way of birth control. I do believe that there are certain instances where I deem that it is necessary,” she said. “Never in a million years would I expect or believe that we will be going through what we’re going through now.”
(SCARSDALE, N.Y.) — Five minors have been killed in a crash after a vehicle veered off a highway in Westchester, New York, according to officials.
The victims, four boys and a girl, ranged in age from 8 to 17 years old, according to a news release from Westchester County Public Safety.
The Nissan Rogue the children were traveling in struck a tree and caught fire after it veered off the Hutchinson River Parkway near the Mamaroneck Road exit in Scarsdale around 12:20 a.m. on Sunday, officials say.
A 9-year-old boy survived the accident, officials say.
Investigators believe a 16-year-old was driving the car, according to the release. No other vehicles were involved in the crash, officials said.
The victims are from Connecticut, police said. Their identifications will be released after next of kin are notified.
The full circumstances of the crash remain under investigation by the Westchester County Police Department.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — In an exclusive ABC News interview, former Vice President Mike Pence expressed dissatisfaction with the possible arrest of former President Donald Trump and expanded on pointed remarks regarding his former boss and the Capitol insurrection — as well as his vision for the future of the country as he mulls a potential 2024 presidential bid.
In a sit-down in Des Moines, Iowa, that aired Sunday, Pence told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl that Trump’s handling of Jan. 6 was one of the reasons the country and, perhaps more pointedly, Republicans need a “fresh start.”
“The president’s wrong. He was wrong that day and … I had actually hoped that he would come around in time, Jon, that he would see that the cadre of legal advisers that he surrounded himself with had led him astray,” Pence said after Karl played a clip of Trump defending the rioters. “But he hasn’t done so and it’s, I think, it’s one of the reasons why the country just wants a fresh start.”
Pence, who has been traveling across the country and recently released a memoir, has not been shy in suggesting that his party should be looking elsewhere for candidates for the White House, repeatedly saying he’s confident there will be “better choices” than Trump even as he says he has not yet made a decision about running himself.
He told Karl that any hypothetical support for Trump in the 2024 race is “yet to be seen” — though he wouldn’t rule it out while once again indicating there will be other options for the American people.
“We’re going to decide as a family whether we offer ourselves as one of them, but I think different times call for different leadership,” Pence said.
“I think the American people long for leadership at the highest level that’s focused on the issues that are affecting their lives. And also, I think they longed for leadership that will keep faith with our highest traditions,” he said.
But he remained vague about when, specifically, he might announce. He has said that he and his family hope to come to a decision by the spring but when Karl followed up, he demurred, only adding that he’s getting “closer” amid “prayerful consideration.”
Jan. 6 accountability
Since leaving office in 2021, Pence has worked to separate himself from Trump regarding the violence of Jan. 6 and the related push to overturn the 2020 presidential election. At the same time, he has said he remains proud of the administration’s work and legislative accomplishments — on lowering taxes, on military spending, on the border and more — which he reiterated in his ABC News interview, only days after again rebuking Trump’s choices around the Capitol attack.
Speaking at the white-tie Gridiron Dinner in Washington, Pence said earlier this month that “history will hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6.”
While the event wasn’t recorded, his quotes were published by journalists present — and he went further in his “This Week” interview.
“We all face the judgment of history, and I believe in the fullness of time that history will hold Donald Trump accountable for the events of Jan. 6, as it will other people that were involved,” he said.
Karl asked him: “In what ways?”
“Well it will be the judgment of history, I truly believe it. And I also think the American people will also have their say,” Pence said. “I mean the president is now a candidate for office again, he’s running for election, but as I go around the country, I’m convinced the American people have learned the lessons of that day.”
Pence said he had his own strong feelings about what happened but seemed to set that aside for a broader message as he weighs a potential campaign.
“I was angry that day. And while I believe in forgiveness, I’ve been working hard at that for a while. The president let me down that day. … but be honest with you, the emotions of that day, the emotion since, I just haven’t had time for it. To me, there’s just too many issues that we’re facing this country today under the failed policies of this [Biden] administration that I don’t have a lot of time for looking backwards.”
When pressed by Karl if he still finds Trump to be a man of his word, Pence conceded that he holds some disappointment in Trump personally, despite believing the pair delivered on their administration’s promises.
“One issue after another, I saw the president keep the word that he made to the American people and I was proud those four years to stand with him. And I know that grates on some people in the national media, Jon,” Pence said.
“As I wrote in my book, I’m incredibly proud of the record of our administration,” he said, though he acknowledged, “It didn’t end well, ended in controversy.”
Karl returned to the question: “I’m not asking you about the record. I’m asking you about the man.”
“I was deeply disappointed with the president’s words and conduct in the days leading up to Jan. 6 and on Jan. 6. … And I continue to be disappointed in the fact that the president has not seen his way clear to know that by God’s grace, we did our duty that day,” he said.
What happened at the Capitol turned into a breaking point, Pence said, despite his private conversations with Trump.
“When the president committed to a peaceful transfer of power [right after Jan. 6], when he condemned the violence at the Capitol, I thought we were back on track and in the week that followed we would we spoke, I was very direct with him about my experience, and my view of it, and my belief that I’d done my duty, and we parted amicably and respectfully,” he said. “But in the months that followed, he returned to that that same rhetoric he was using before Jan. 6, rhetoric that continues much up to this day, and that’s why we’ve gone our separate ways.”
In response to Pence’s Gridiron remarks, Trump told reporters that Pence shoulders some blame for the riot due to his refusal as president of the Senate to halt the certification of the presidential election results.
Trump also knocked Pence’s lagging popularity in surveys of Republican primary voters.
“I heard his statement, and I guess he decided that being nice isn’t working because he’s at 3% in the polls, so he figured he might as well not be nice any longer,” Trump told a group of reporters aboard his plane en route to Iowa last week.
GOP fissures on Ukraine
Trump is not the only other Republican with whom Pence has found noted disagreement. On Russia’s invasion, he contrasted his view with that of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republicans like him who voice skepticism of U.S. aid to Ukraine as they fend off Russia’s invasion.
DeSantis recently called the invasion a “territorial dispute.” Pence stressed to Karl that he feels it is crucial to stand with the Ukrainians.
“The war in Ukraine is not a territorial dispute. It’s a Russian invasion. It’s just the latest instance of Russia attempting to redraw international lines by force,” he said, “and the United States of America must continue at a quickened pace to provide the Ukrainian military the support that they need to repel the Russian invasion, and the stakes are that high.”
Though he has said that there’s no room in the GOP for “Putin apologists,” Pence did not further criticize DeSantis by name. However, he did add that “there are voices in our party that don’t see a vital American interest in Ukraine, but I see it differently,” and he said he found DeSantis’ perspective on the matter “wrong.”
Karl asked Pence how he felt about Trump’s own recent Ukraine comments, calling for a cease-fire that might preserve the current status quo, with Russia in control of some Ukrainian land.
“Whether it’s President Trump or others in our party around the country, there are those who see some choice before us other than giving Ukraine the ability to fight and win against the Russian invasion. I believe it’s imperative that we stand firm,” Pence said, “that we continue to provide the Ukrainian military the resources that they need to repel the Russian invasion. And that will be the fastest way to secure peace and stability in Ukraine and in Eastern Europe.”
A potential Trump arrest
There is one major area where Pence and Trump see eye-to-eye: Trump’s possible arrest.
On his social media platform Saturday morning, Trump claimed that he would be taken into custody on Tuesday in connection with the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into alleged hush money paid to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump also called for his supporters to protest.
He has denied wrongdoing, including denying having an affair with Daniels, but has admitted he paid her — once defending it as “very common among celebrities and people of wealth.”
A Trump spokesperson appeared to walk back his arrest comments in a subsequent statement this weekend, saying in part that there had been no notification that Trump’s potential arrest was coming on Tuesday and that “Trump is rightfully highlighting his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system.”
Pence echoed that to Karl.
“It just feels like a politically charged prosecution here. And I, for my part, I just feel like it’s just not what the American people want to see,” he said.
He said he believes Trump is “innocent until proven guilty.”
Karl asked Pence about his reaction to Trump calling for protests should he be taken into custody — which echoed Trump’s push for protests leading up to and during Jan. 6
Pence did not disavow Trump’s call, citing that “the American people have a constitutional right to peaceably assemble” though he stressed that any demonstration should occur “peacefully and in a lawful manner.”
ABC News has not verified Trump’s claims.
While Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office had no comment, he wrote in an email to staff obtained by ABC News that “we do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York.”
“I know that President Trump can take care of himself and — and this process will play out, if in fact an indictment comes down,” Pence told Karl. “But I just have to tell you that the politicization that we see … is deeply troubling to millions of Americans who want to see the equal treatment before the law.”
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Sunday pushed back on former President Donald Trump over his call to protest his potential arrest related to paying the adult film star Stormy Daniels.
“Violence is never the right answer, and I always worry about it. But this is another case of Donald Trump just trying to advance the interests of Donald Trump, not of the rest of the nation,” Warren, D-Mass., told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
“Let’s be clear about what’s going on here: No one is above the law, not even the former president of the United States, and if there has been an investigation, and that investigation should be allowed to go forward appropriately, if it’s time to bring indictments, then they’ll bring indictments,” Warren said. “That’s how our legal system works.”
In a statement on social media on Saturday, Trump claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday and that his supporters should protest to “take our nation back.” A spokesperson later walked some of that back, saying the former president was merely “highlighting his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system” and that there was no notification of an imminent arrest.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has been investigating whether Trump’s payment to Stormy Daniels — to allegedly cover up what Daniels claimed was an affair with Trump — constituted a violation of campaign finance law amid the 2016 election.
While Bragg’s office had no comment on Trump’s social media post, Bragg wrote in an email to staff obtained by ABC News that “we do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York.”
Trump has denied wrongdoing, including having an affair with Daniels, but has admitted he paid her, once defending it as “very common among celebrities and people of wealth.”
On “This Week” on Sunday, Warren said Trump was wrong to claim political persecution, a view echoed by his former vice president, Mike Pence, in a separate “This Week” sit-down.
“There’s no reason to protest this. This is the law operating as it should, without fear or favor for anyone,” Warren said.
Much of her interview was focused on the financial industry in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which led to the federal government stepping in to ensure all depositors at SVB received their money.
Karl pressed Warren, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, on any consequences she believes should be meted out, including criminal charges, and whether she had learned from regulators if any other institutions were at risk.
She declined to speak about “private conversations” but said, “Let me be clear about what I’m calling for right now: I’m calling for an independent investigation of the [Federal Reserve] and the whole regulatory system here. The Fed doesn’t just get to do it.”
“Do you think we could see criminal charges?” Karl asked.
“It depends. … The Department of Justice has opened an investigation. I think that’s appropriate for them to do. We’ll see where the facts take them. But we’ve got to take a close look at this,” she said.
Warren reiterated her anger with what she described as the cycles of banking busts and bailouts and said it was time for the government to impose regulations on banks that are not among the biggest in the country but still hold billions of dollars in assets.
“I’m also calling on Congress … to roll back the ability of the Fed to weaken regulations and calling for these CEOs to be held accountable so that we have laws in place to get claw-backs of their bonuses, of their giant salaries. And, when you explode a bank, you ought to be banned from banking forever,” she said.
In particular, she singled out the recent history of lessening regulations on banks like SVB, urged on by executives like former President and CEO of SVB Greg Becker, who had played down the danger to the broader economy, she said.
Just days before his bank’s collapse, Becker sold more than $3.5 million of his company stock holdings while publicly appearing confident to investors, ABC News previously reported. (Becker has not responded to multiple requests for comment from ABC.)
“These big multibillion-dollar banks loaded up on risk, they boosted their short-term profits, they gave themselves huge bonuses and big salaries and they exploded their banks. And so, where we stand now is now the federal government’s got to step back in and back up these multibillion-dollar banks,” Warren said on “This Week.”
“And I think there’s two halves to this: One half is the government is clearly doing that. But there are a lot of people saying, ‘Gee, if they’ve been so lightly regulated for such a long period, it’s important to look under the hood and see what’s happening with the other banks.'”
Warren, however, declined to go after some of her fellow Democrats for supporting a deregulatory bill in 2018, saying she had no problem with removing stress tests for community banks but that regulations should be reimposed on larger institutions.
“You got more than $50 billion? Then by golly, you ought to be subjected to stress tests and decent capital requirements and so on,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — Across the country, Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation that restricts transgender health care for minors.
At least eight states have passed laws or policies restricting this care, and 23 more state legislatures are considering similar legislation of their own.
Medical experts say that understanding transgender identities, gender dysphoria and how gender-affirming treatments work is key to understanding the impact these bans may have on patients.
“When it becomes too political, it becomes more about paying attention to very short sentences, but not paying attention to nuance” said Dr. Hussein Abdul-Latif, a pediatric endocrinologist at the Children’s Hospital of Alabama with a special focus on gender care.
“And that’s unfortunate, because this is not something that is very simple.”
Why do people undergo gender-affirming care?
Gender-affirming care can help treat gender dysphoria, which refers to the stress of being in a body that doesn’t feel like one’s own, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition, which provides up-to-date information on mental health conditions.
People experiencing gender dysphoria may feel that their physical body does not match their inner sense of who they are or that they do not desire the gender identity typically associated with their assigned sex at birth.
This can cause distress, depression and anxiety, according to medical experts. However, being transgender is not a mental illness.
“There’s not a blood test, there’s not an MRI we can do to determine who’s … dealing with dysphoria,” said Dr. Andrew Goodman, the medical director for Callen-Lorde, a community health center in Manhattan that specializes in LGBTQ health care. “We have to listen to people, and to trust them and what they’re telling us.”
A national survey in 2015 by The National Center for Transgender Equality reported that of the more than 27,000 trans Americans who responded, 38% of them knew they were trans before 5 years old, and 60% knew they were trans before 10.
Is gender diversity a new concept?
No. There is documentation of gender diverse individuals in a wide range of cultures around the world throughout history, dating back centuries.
Medical treatment for gender dysphoria, as it’s known today, was introduced in the early to mid-1900s in Germany.
Modern gender-affirming care is based on “decades of clinical experience and research and, therefore, they are not considered experimental, cosmetic or for convenience,” per the World Professional Association for Transgender Health standards of care.
What is gender-affirming care?
Gender-affirming care is about supporting someone’s identity, said Dr. Goodman. It helps align their physical appearance with their gender identity, and can include puberty blockers, hormone medications, and surgery.
Trans individuals often transition socially — by changing their name and pronouns, or dressing differently — before beginning any medications.
“I look for the need, the crisis… when the dysphoria really starts to intensify,” said Dr. Goodman, who explained this can be when a trans youth starts seeing puberty-related changes in their body.
Puberty blockers are used in people who have not started or completed puberty. Pausing puberty allows children to explore their gender identity without the growth of permanent sex characteristics, Dr. Abdul-Latif explained.
Puberty blockers mimic the body’s natural hormone, called GnRH, which suppresses the release of testosterone for biological males or estrogen for biological females, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
These are typically offered during the early stages of puberty, according to the Endocrine Society treatment guidelines. This stage of puberty can be determined by changes in the body such as enlargement in the testicles or breast bud formation. The average age for this developmental stage is 11-12 years old for biological males and 10-11 for biological females.
If these are stopped, a child will resume undergoing puberty with little to no proven side effects, according to medical experts ABC News spoke with.
Once kids are in the later stages of puberty, typically around the age of 15, they are no longer a candidate for puberty blockers and would transition to hormone therapy, explains Dr. Abdul-Latif. They are directly given estrogen or testosterone, based on their gender identity.
Changes from hormone therapy occur slowly and are less reversible, he explains, such as changes in voice and body hair.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health guidelines recommend a thorough biopsychosocial evaluation prior to initiation of hormone therapy, including a letter from a mental health professional, informed consent from the parents in accordance with national laws, and a thorough discussion of the risks and benefits with both patients and parents.
It’s not unusual for patients to stop hormone therapy and decide that they have transitioned as far as they wish, according to Abdul-Latif.
“A very important idea that I share with them is that they can change their mind anytime they want to, even when they start hormone therapy or puberty blockers,” Abdul-Latif said. “That is important for me to make sure that they are not continuing because of fearing that they will disappoint me. I certainly would not be disappointed. I’m there to serve them.”
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, gender-affirming surgery is only done on adolescents on a case-by-case basis. It does not come without risk, said Goodman, but for those experiencing severe distress with their body, surgery can be a major source of relief.
Surgeries include the removal of breast tissue, creating the appearance of breast tissue, or reconstructing of genitalia.
Is gender-affirming care safe?
All medications, surgeries or vaccines come with some kind of risk and gender-affirming care is no different, according to physicians. However, knowing the risks and benefits of treatment – and of not treating a condition – can help families make an informed decision.
“I never phrase the conversation [with patients] as this is totally benign…there are risks here. But the thing that we’re really considering is are these risks worth taking on because of the benefits? Because of the misery of dysphoria, because of how much it might be holding you back?” Goodman said.
“I can point to dozens of cases in my own practice where those risks absolutely were worth the benefits. We have made people’s lives tremendously better because we started hormones when they were at a young age.”
There is evidence of a slight reduction in bone mineral density for those on estrogen therapy for male to female transition. Dr. Abdul-Latif says he warns patients of this risk beforehand and if patients start to develop pain or weakness, dosing can be adjusted to lessen the effects.
Early research shows that testosterone therapy might increase cholesterol levels. However, a study published by the American Heart Association, has not demonstrated any evidence of increased cardiovascular risk.
Those receiving hormone therapy need routine lab monitoring and may require medication to manage their cholesterol.
Oral estrogen has been shown to increase risk of blood clots. When Dr. Abdul-Latif starts a patient on this medication, he strongly encourages patients not to smoke cigarettes as that can further increase risk of blood clots. Depending on the situation, he may switch to a non-oral form of estrogen as it carries less risk.
Estrogen therapy can decrease sperm count, so Dr. Abdul-Latif recommends trans women freeze their sperm before starting therapy. The long term effects of testosterone on fertility are still being studied, however this is discussed in detail before starting hormone therapy.
But those potential risks are often outweighed by the benefits.
Major national medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and over 20 more agree that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial, and medically necessary.
Transgender youth are more likely to experience anxiety, depressed mood and suicidal ideation and attempts, often due to gender-related discrimination and gender dysphoria.
Gender-affirming hormone therapy has been proven to improve the mental health of transgender adolescents and teenagers, according to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
It’s rare for people to reverse a transition after undergoing gender affirming care, according to research published in the journal LGBT Health. Research found that those who reverse their transition often do so because of pressures from family and social stigma.
Rates of regret for gender affirmation surgery are extremely low — research shows they hover around 1%. Rates of regret for knee and hip surgeries are significantly higher, studies show.
Ultimately, said Goodman, every trans child should be addressed individually.
“This is a purely medical decision between parents and families and physicians,” said Dr. Abdul-Latif. “It does not need interference and added pressure on a family that is already under pressure.”
