(NEW YORK) — The antiparasitic drug ivermectin did not reduce the risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19, according to a large study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Ivermectin was popularized as an alternative COVID-19 treatment despite a lack of strong evidence it helps. The recent study is among the largest that has failed to show a benefit.
In the study, researchers in Brazil compared more than 1,300 patients, some given ivermectin and others given placebo, and found no difference between the groups.
Early in the pandemic, lab experiments on cells suggested ivermectin could have some promise, but studies in people failed to back that up.
Some studies on ivermectin are ongoing, but today, we have several highly effective vaccines and COVID-19 treatments, with robust studies in people showing they work to dramatically reduce COVID-19 risk.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack is facing a time crunch as investigators scramble to piece together former President Donald Trump’s words and actions on Jan. 6, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., acknowledged Tuesday.
“We’re playing ‘beat the clock’ here against Trump’s inner coterie, which thinks they can impede our investigation,” Raskin told reporters.
The committee, which hopes to begin public hearings in May, is trying to wrap up dozens of witness interviews in the coming weeks.
Multiple senior Trump administration officials, including senior adviser Jared Kushner and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, are expected to appear virtually before the committee this week. Another senior aide to Vice President Mike Pence, Chris Hodgson, was spotted at the panel’s offices for an in-person deposition Wednesday.
“We’re going to do everything we can to get everyone’s cooperation that we can,” Raskin said.
That ticking clock is having an effect on how far investigators are willing to go to secure the testimony of witnesses and obtain documents.
Given the committee’s hearing schedule and self-imposed deadline to issue a final report in the fall, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that discussions with Vice President Pence and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani will result in interviews with congressional investigators.
The panel is also grappling with the fallout from reports that investigators have obtained text messages from conservative activist Ginni Thomas — the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas — pressing then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to attempt to overturn the election results.
Committee members have discussed whether to invite her to testify publicly, but have not publicly shared how they want to proceed.
They are also working to fill “quite a few gaps” in White House telephone logs obtained by the committee and first reported by The Washington Post and CBS News, Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said Tuesday.
Official records of Trump’s switchboard phone calls include a more than 7-hour gap in activity during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, during which time multiple phone conversations Trump is reported to have had with GOP lawmakers may have been made using the cellphones of key aides.
Schiff said the committee is working to determine what Trump was doing during that time.
While Schiff declined to get into specifics, the committee has repeatedly subpoenaed the cellphone records of Trump aides and allies, and has issued blanket preservation requests to telecommunications, social media and email companies and platforms.
“We have multiple sources of information, both in terms of gathering records, as well as witnesses who have come to appear before the committee who have described the president’s actions that day,” Schiff said. “We are putting together as complete a picture as we can, and not relying on any one source of information.”
While some committee members and staffers believe the panel should be taking more aggressive steps in trying to enforce subpoenas, any potential legal disputes might not be resolved before the end of the year, when Republicans may take control of the chamber.
On Monday, the panel recommended the full House hold two Trump White House officials, Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino, in contempt of Congress for ignoring subpoenas for records and testimony. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Wednesday that the House is planning to vote on the matter next week.
Trump ally Steve Bannon was indicted for defying the committee’s subpoena last November after the full House voted to hold him in contempt. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial isn’t set to begin until May at the earliest.
Meadows was also held in contempt by the House in December, but the former chief of staff has yet to face charges from the Justice Department — leading some lawmakers to criticize the DOJ for its failure to take action.
The committee has made clear in court filings that it believes Trump broke the law in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. And while a federal judge wrote this week that it was “more likely than not” that Trump committed felonies in the course of his actions, the Justice Department appears to be no closer to charging — or even considering charging — the former president with a crime.
“Attorney General Garland: Do your job, so we can do ours,” Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., said in a committee meeting Monday.
“We would, as a committee, like every entity around with some authority to move,” Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, R-Miss., told reporters Tuesday. “But obviously that’s out of our bailiwick.”
ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Over the last 24 hours, the Pentagon has seen “less than 20%” of the Russian troops that had been around Kyiv moving northward as they “reposition” into Belarus so they can be re-equipped for possible action in eastern Ukraine, the Pentagon’s top spokesman said Wednesday.
Also, The White House said Russian President Vladimir Putin is being misinformed by his top advisers about military developments in Russia, a development that the Pentagon labeled as “disconcerting.”
“We have seen over the last 24 hours the repositioning of a small percentage of the troops and the battalion tactical groups that Russia had arrayed against Kyiv,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said Wednesday. “Probably in the neighborhood of 20% of what they had, they are beginning to reposition some of those troops.”
Specifically, Kirby said the Russian troops near the Hostomel airport north of the city have been seen moving north towards Belarus. The airport had been the scene of heavy fighting from the opening hours of Russia’s invasion.
Separately, a senior U.S. defense official said some Russian troops had also been seen moving out of the Chernobyl nuclear facility. However, it remained unclear if they would all be leaving.
Some of those troops are being moved into Belarus, said Kirby, who added that none of the units have been seen returning to their home bases.
“If the Russians are serious about de-escalating, because that’s their claim here, then they should send them home, but they’re not doing that, at least not yet,” Kirby said. “That’s not what we’re seeing.”
Kirby said he was intentionally using the term reposition instead of a withdrawal to describe the movement of Russian forces “because the way it’s being spun by the Ministry of Defense is that they’re that they’re pulling back and they’re trying to de-escalate and depressurize the situation and we just don’t believe we haven’t seen any evidence of that.”
Instead, Kirby said the U.S. assesses that the Russians are “going to refit these troops, resupply them, and then probably employ them elsewhere in Ukraine.”
A senior U.S. defense official said U.S. intelligence believes that Russia may intend to shift some of these troops towards the fight in the Donbas region, which would be in line with public statements from Russian officials that they want to make that region a priority of their operations.
Even as some of the Russian troops around Kyiv move away, Kirby and the rest have established defensive positions. Kirby noted that Russian forces continue to launch missiles and artillery at the city and surrounding suburbs.
Kirby said that without getting into intelligence, the Pentagon concurred with comments in news reports attributed to a U.S. official that Putin is not being fully advised of Russia’s performance on the battlefield in Ukraine.
“We would concur with the conclusion that Mr. Putin has not been fully informed by his Ministry of Defense at every turn over the last month,” Kirby said Wednesday.
Kirby described that assessment as “disconcerting” and “an issue of concern.”
“The fact that he may not have all the context, that he may not fully understand the degree to which his forces are failing in Ukraine, that’s a little discomforting, to be honest with you,” Kirby said.
“If he’s not fully informed of how poorly he’s doing, then how are his negotiators going to come up with an agreement that is enduring? Certainly one that respects Ukrainian sovereignty,” he added.
“The other thing is you don’t know how a leader like that is going to react to getting bad news,” Kirby said. ‘
(WASHINGTON) — Early voting for Ohio’s May 3 primary starts in less than a week, and Election Day is just five weeks away. Yet the state’s congressional and legislative maps are still being litigated, leaving the approaching election in limbo.
As the redistricting process plays out throughout the country, states including Ohio, Missouri and Florida are scrambling as court cases drag on. Other states, including North Carolina, have already made the tough decision to delay their state primaries as a result.
Redistricting takes place every 10 years following a U.S. Census count and involves drawing lines that form congressional and state legislative districts from which public officials are elected. The process plays a significant role in shaping the political landscape for elections and determining which party gains control of Congress. That spells extensive legal battles as partisan players try to secure the advantage.
Federal judges are set to hear arguments Wednesday weighing different options for Ohio’s May 3 primary, which include pushing it back, holding two separate primaries or enacting previously rejected legislative maps.
The state Supreme Court has three times rejected state House and Senate maps drawn by the Ohio Redistricting Commission, saying they unconstitutionally favor Republicans and don’t correspond closely to the preferences of Ohio voters.
“Resolving this self-created chaos thus depends not on the number of hands on the computer mouse but, rather, on the political will to honor the people’s call to end partisan gerrymandering,” the court wrote in its most recent decision.
Though the Ohio Redistricting Commission has drummed up a fourth set of maps, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said it was impossible the issue would be settled in time for the primaries. Last week, he ordered all boards of elections to remove the state House and Senate races from ballots with the warning they might be added back if federal courts intervene.
“This has been so unpredictable, so I don’t know what to tell you,” Aaron Sellers, a spokesperson for the board of Elections of Franklin County, one of the largest counties in Ohio, told ABC News. “We are preparing for a May 3 primary until we’re told not to.”
Sellers says options such as holding two primaries — one scenario would be to have one election with the old maps and another with the new ones to replace the initial results — could pose logistical challenges for election officials as well as uncertainty for voters about what could happen if the courts reject the maps after voters cast their ballots.
“It would be hard to imagine that once a race took place, that they would rule the maps unconstitutional and have to do it again. But yeah, I suppose that could happen.”
It’s not just legislative state House and Senate maps in question in Ohio. The state Supreme Court is also weighing a new set of congressional maps, including races for the U.S. House of Representatives, after previously striking down a Commission-approved map, also for unfairly favoring Republicans. The court’s decision, however, isn’t expected until weeks after the primary election is scheduled.
“There is no reason to expedite this case. At this juncture, it is abundantly clear that this case will not be litigated prior to the 2022 primary election,” the court argued in its brief laying out the schedule for arguments.
The court timeline means the congressional maps courts previously said were unfair will likely be used in the primaries. The courts advised state lawmakers to push back the primary; however, a Republican-controlled legislature was able to block those efforts.
The refusal to delay the May 3 primary is already causing a host of problems and missed deadlines. Overseas and military ballots were scheduled to be sent in mid-March; however, without finalized districts, LaRose reached an agreement with the federal government to postpone mailing ballots until April.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed his state’s newly drawn congressional maps approved by a Republican-controlled legislature Tuesday. DeSantis had long promised to do so and pushed his colleagues to consider his own congressional map, which would give Republicans more power. With a primary in August, the Florida legislature will have to be called back for a special session to draw new districts.
In Missouri, redistricting remains unfinished even though candidacy filing for the 2022 midterm ended Tuesday evening. Part of the delay resulted from infighting among Republicans about how to draw congressional districts that would better benefit the party. Last week, the state Senate approved a congressional map, but it was not brought for a vote in the House because Democrats were split. The general assembly was not able to finalize a congressional map before candidate filing for the 2022 midterms ended Tuesday evening.
Democratic attorneys filed a lawsuit asking the courts to step in and draw new congressional districts for the state.
Maryland and North Carolina, however, aren’t taking chances and have already rescheduled their primaries. Earlier this month, the Court of Appeals of Maryland issued an order pushing back the state’s primaries by three weeks as redistricting battles continue to play out in court. And last December, the North Carolina Supreme Court ordered that the state’s 2022 primaries be delayed two months due to lawsuits challenging Republican-drawn congressional and legislative maps.
(NEW YORK) — As the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline prepares to launch its new three-digit number in July, mental health experts worry about workforce capacity issues hindering the ability to provide 24/7 crisis care.
The federal government has allocated a significant amount of funding to assist in the implementation of the new Lifeline number, 988, in a bi-partisan effort to address mental health concerns and assist in suicide prevention. The infusion of funding comes as mental health experts explore the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the nation’s population over the last two years.
Still, despite federal funding efforts to assist in the 988 implementation, call centers across the nation remain underfunded and understaffed at the state and local level. This means that calls from people seeking help may be funneled to one of the Lifeline’s national backup call centers, or go unanswered if the backup centers are overwhelmed.
At its current capacity, about 85% of calls to the Lifeline are answered at either the local or national backup level, according to a report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
“24 Months That Changed the World,” airs tonight at 10 p.m. EDT on ABC and tomorrow on Hulu.
The number of calls to the Lifeline is expected to increase following the adoption of the new number, according to SAMHSA.
“Fortunately, most [states] are taking this as an opportunity and are working towards increasing their Lifeline call centers within the network,” said Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “But when somebody calls in, and they wait, and they hang up — we have one chance to get this right for a person. Lives are literally at risk. These are people who are in crisis, might be having suicidal ideation. It’s incredibly risky when those calls don’t get through.”
Wesolowski explained that local call centers connect people to mental health care providers in their communities, as well as other resources, while the backup centers may not be able to provide that service.
“We want to deescalate the immediate crisis, which is what those trained crisis counselors do, but we also want to connect them to resources so they stay well,” Wesolowski said. “We don’t want to just have them keep cycling into crises — crisis after crisis — it’s really important that they get connected to needed care so they can get well and stay well beyond that crisis situation. So it’s those local crisis counselors that can really make those connections. When there’s not that local capacity. It’s a huge concern.”
Despite concern over full readiness ahead of the 988 launch, Lifeline Executive Director Dr. John Draper told ABC News that efforts to support the network at the state level have grown.
“We’ve never seen this level of activity in terms of states committing interest, and then being dedicated to supporting local crisis centers,” Draper said.
He explained that crisis centers have typically been seen as “peripheral” to the mental health system, but after 20 years of research around the efforts of the Lifeline, the understanding of their importance has shifted.
“It’s basically a free mental health service for people who are in distress. So that’s what some states are starting to realize is by investing in these centers, they can actually save costs, they can keep people from unnecessarily going to emergency departments, they can people keep people from certainly unnecessarily engaging with police for mental health and suicidal crisis,” Draper said. “If we can engage [people in crisis] in ways through a system that is really designed to care for them, as opposed to scare them, then we are going to be much more effective in keeping them healthy in the community. And that’s really what we’re trying to do.”
The system Draper described is often referred to as a “continuum of care” for people experiencing a mental health crisis.
Activists say the ideal version of this continuum would include locally operated call centers, mobile crisis response teams and community care facilities, which are sometimes referred to as crisis stabilization units.
Wesolowski explained that about 80% of calls to the Lifeline can be deescalated over the phone. Of the remaining 20%, a large portion can be addressed appropriately by a mobile crisis response team, which includes mental health professionals, paramedics and social workers. Those that require further care could be taken to a crisis stabilization facility, where they can receive short-term psychiatric urgent care, rather than being taken to a hospital.
Mobile crisis response teams and stabilization facilities are even less prevalent across the nation than call centers, making their availability to someone in crisis dependent on that person’s location.
However, several cities have implemented pilot programs to provide mobile crisis response services as an alternative to a law enforcement response for people experiencing a mental health emergency.
Last August, Denver announced it would be expanding its Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) Program after what the city called a “successful one-year pilot,” in a press release.
In that first year, the city says the program handled 1,400 calls.
“Of those, there were no arrests, no injuries and no need for police back up,” according to the press release.
In areas where these services are not available, law enforcement is often called to respond to someone in crisis, which can lead to escalation of the situation including that person’s arrest or even their death.
“I think that’s a really important component, to take law enforcement out of it,” Wesolowski said. “We don’t ask law enforcement to respond to other health care crises. That’s not their job. We ask medical professionals to do that. And mental health is health. So it’s really important that we take a mental health approach to these crises and provide health, not handcuffs.”
Over the last two years, a more widespread focus has been placed on suicide prevention and mental health care as experts weigh in on the effects the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the mental health of Americans.
Last month, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy testified before the Senate Finance Committee about the dramatic impact the pandemic has had on the mental health of young Americans, in particular.
Suicide attempts among young people have increased during the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that emergency department visits for teen girls who had attempted suicide were up more than 50% at the start of the pandemic, compared to 2019.
Murthy will discuss the need to address the mental health crisis among America’s youth during “20/20” special, which focuses on the impacts of the pandemic over the last two years.
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, help is available. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
(NEW YORK) — When David Bookstaver tested positive for COVID-19 he happened to have a telehealth consult with his doctor already scheduled that day, to talk about going on medication to moderate his high blood pressure.
On that call Bookstaver, 63, says his doctor mentioned his age and hypertension made him eligible for Paxlovid, Pfizer’s antiviral pill treatment, which has proven highly effective at keeping higher-risk patients out of the hospital, and preventing them from getting even sicker.
Bookstaver is fully vaccinated and boosted and didn’t feel too ill at the time – but warding off a turn for the worse seemed prudent. The doctor sent a prescription for the new medication to the pharmacy and his wife was kind enough to pick up his medicine and bring it home.
But when he read over the drug information, Bookstaver’s eyes caught on some of the fine print: the cholesterol medication he was already on – and the blood pressure medication he had also just been prescribed – were both listed as having potentially harmful interactions with the Paxlovid he had just been given.
“If I was really sick I probably would have gobbled the first dose up and not looked,” Bookstaver said. “I think most people don’t do due diligence. They trust their doctor implicitly. But if people aren’t checking the contraindications labels I think they kind of need to be told.”
Though highly effective, Paxlovid, like some other medications, does carry the risk of certain dangerous interactions with many other commonly prescribed drugs – including those which manage heart conditions and cholesterol. It is also not recommended for patients with severe kidney or liver problems.
“If we’re seeing increased concentrations of a statin, this could lead to muscle aches that then lead to impaired kidney function.” Dr. Jay Bhatt, an internal medicine physician and instructor at the University of Illinois School of Public Health and an ABC News contributor said. Complications like these, he said, often require hospitalizations for close monitoring.
Without knowing exact medication dosages it’s difficult to say just how dangerous potential side effects could have been, but Bhatt, who was not involved in Bookstaver’s treatment, said it’s a good thing it was caught by the patient beforehand.
As for the blood pressure medications, “we would be concerned about people’s blood pressure going so low that we’re not getting enough blood flow to the parts of the body that need it. People can pass out and fall. For old patients with comorbidities, that could have serious complications,” Bhatt said.
“Some drugs come with more considerations than others — the prescribing of this particular drug is complex, and it requires a lot of care,” Dr. Inga Lennes, senior vice president of ambulatory care at Massachusetts General Hospital, told ABC News. “There has to be a nuanced discussion between a doctor and a patient to make that determination about what is best and safest for your health: talking about not just about their true medication history, what they’re on — but also why they’re on it — is so important.”
The drug’s tangle of contraindications poses a treatment protocol catch-22: a patient’s qualifying risk factors that qualify them for Paxlovid may mean they’re already taking other medications for those risk factors which disqualify them for Paxlovid, experts said.
Pfizer told ABC News in a statement it is working to educate healthcare providers on how to manage “potential drug to drug interactions.”
“We are also working with some of the largest telemedicine companies to ensure their HCPs are knowledgeable about PAXLOVID and ready to treat appropriate patients, and we are reaching out to pharmacy customers directly to help address questions,” the company said.
Bookstaver said he chose not to use his prescription.
This shifting terrain of COVID treatments makes it all the more crucial for doctors to be aware of their patients’ full medical profile before signing off on a new prescription, experts said, since there may be potential harms in shifting around their usual drug regimen. And because a prescribing physician or pharmacy staff member dispensing the pills may not be familiar with the full gamut of drug interactions, they said it also underscores the importance of people advocating for their own health and being watchful of how their medicines interact.
“This is not a quick conversation like — oh, you’re COVID positive? You’re a certain age? Here, here’s your prescription,” Lennes said. “We’ve employed a real massive education effort to make sure that our people who are prescribing these really understand — there are some drugs that are very specific, they can only be given in certain situations for certain things and under certain circumstances, and it would be dangerous or unwise or unhelpful to prescribe them in any situation.
“All of those micro decisions add up to complexities both for providers and for patients that are hard to navigate and make it harder to automate,” Lennes said.
Paxlovid’s unique effect comes from the synergy of its two antiviral components. One part blocks the enzyme that breaks down the antivirals, leading to high levels of both medications in the body. A long list of other common medications use this enzyme, too – like the statins Bookstaver had already been taking.
The blood pressure medication he was set to start that same day, Amlodipine, is another one that uses these liver enzymes. These typically benign medications effectively become overdosed when taken with Paxlovid.
“Usually the adverse effects are an extension of what the drug is used for. For medications used for your blood pressure, you can have an interaction when your blood pressure gets way too low, dangerously low”, Dr. Stephanie Widmer, an emergency medicine physician and medical toxicologist, told ABC News. As for statins, “there is the risk of liver injury, and there’s the risk of severe muscle injury and breakdown, which could then lead to kidney injury.”
The Food and Drug Administration’s fact sheet on Paxlovid notes an extensive list of drug-drug interactions for health care providers, noting “caution is warranted” with Amlodipine, that “clinical monitoring of patients is recommended” and a dose decrease of the blood pressure drug may be needed if co-administered with Pfizer’s COVID pill.
Some of these interactions are absolute contraindications and must be stopped, while others are minimal and considered relative interactions, experts told ABC News.
In some cases a patient can pause their other treatments while they’re taking the COVID antiviral – three Paxlovid pills twice a day for five days. But for some patients, forgoing the other lifesaving medicines they’re already dependent on for a full business week may asking the impossible.
“No matter what medications you’re on, because the list is so long, you have to have the conversation with your doctor on if this is the right medication for me and what interactions am I at risk for,” Widmer said.
If dangerous drug interactions are unavoidable, doctors may recommend the antiviral pill from Merck instead, called molnupiravir, which has shown to be somewhat less effective than Pfizer’s but does not have any known medication interactions. However it is not authorized for people under 18, out of concerns it may impact bone and cartilage growth, and it is not recommended during pregnancy.
“I don’t think most people spend the time reading the fine print,” Bookstaver said – adding, he’s glad he did. “And especially if a person feels bad, they just want to feel better.”
ABC News’ Eric M. Strauss and Sony Salzman contributed to this report.
Y. Jay Lin, M.D., is an emergency medicine resident at NYU & Bellevue Hospital in New York and a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
(WASHINGTON) — The federal investigation into President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, over his tax affairs has intensified in recent weeks, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
An increasing number of witnesses have appeared before a grand jury impaneled in Wilmington, Delaware, in recent months, the sources said, and have been asked about payments Hunter Biden received while serving on the board of directors of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, in addition to other questions about how Biden paid off tax obligations in recent years.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Delaware, which has been leading the investigation, is expected to hear from more witnesses in the coming weeks, sources told ABC News.
Sources say that prosecutors have not made a decision yet on whether criminal charges against Biden are warranted, and that there is debate about whether Biden’s admitted past drug abuse could serve to undermine a criminal case over his financial decision-making.
A spokesperson for the DA’s office declined to comment to ABC News, as did a spokesperson for the Justice Department.
Chris Clark, an attorney for Hunter Biden, did not respond to a request for comment. The developments in the probe were first reported by The New York Times.
Hunter Biden confirmed the existence of the investigation in December 2020, shortly after his father won the presidency. Since taking office, President Biden has repeatedly pledged to uphold the independence of the Justice Department and not interfere in its work. The tax probe is being led by U.S. Attorney Dan Weiss, a Trump appointee who remained on the job after Biden was sworn in.
In a statement released through the Biden-Harris transition team in December 2020, Hunter Biden said that he and his attorney had learned of the investigation just days earlier, and that he was confident that he had handled his tax affairs “legally and appropriately.”
ABC News has previously reported that the investigation began in 2018 — more than a year before Biden announced his presidential run. Investigators paused their work ahead of the election and waited until after votes were cast to notify Hunter Biden’s legal team of the probe, a source told ABC News at the time.
Ahead of the 2020 election, political foes of then-candidate Joe Biden — including then-President Donald Trump — focused on Hunter Biden’s work as a board member for Burisma as well as a series of ill-fated investment endeavors in China. Trump and his allies sought unsuccessfully to characterize Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings over the past decade as evidence of Biden family corruption.
While government watchdogs have broadly taken issue with the ethical implications of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, the federal probe marks the first possible legal threat tied to his overseas work.
Sources told ABC News that prosecutors in Delaware are investigating the tax implications of Hunter Biden’s work in both China and Ukraine, among other business endeavors.
(NEW YORK ) — Eve Wilkowitz was 20 years old in 1980 when she was kidnapped, raped and strangled to death after she took a train home to Bay Shore, New York, from her secretarial job in Manhattan. Her body was found near her apartment on Long Island.
On Wednesday, Suffolk County police and prosecutors announced the killer was a man who died of cancer in 1991 and who had lived near the spot where Wilkowitz’s body was found three days after she never came home.
Investigators relied on advances in DNA technology to identify the suspect as Herbert Rice, who was 29 at the time.
“We’ve solved the 42 year old homicide case of Eve Wilkowitz,” Suffolk District Attorney Raymond Tierney announced at a news conference. “This was a study in persistence, in determination to work the case no matter what.”
Investigators relied on genetic genealogy, which has been used to help solve a number of cold cases across the country. It enabled police and the FBI to submit the DNA left on Wilkowitz’s body to consumer DNA databases that include countless people outside the criminal justice system.
A match was established through a relative of Rice. Investigators exhumed Rice’s body and compared DNA from his remains to the sample recovered from the initial rape kit, establishing him as the suspect.
Wilkowitz’s sister, Irene, thanked the investigators and recalled, through tears, when detectives knocked at her door with a message: “We’ve identified the person responsible for the death of Eve.”
“She never got to fulfill her dreams,” Irene Wilkowitz said of her sister.
Rice had three convictions for minor crimes that were ineligible for taking a DNA sample at the time.
“These types of investigations are never easy, but the relentless work and partnership helped us bring closure to the Wilkowitz family,” Suffolk Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said.
(OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.) — Oklahoma and Arizona became the latest states to impose transgender sports bans Wednesday.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a law banning transgender women and girls from competing on women and girls sports teams in state public K-12 schools and higher education institutions.
“When it comes to sports and athletics, girls should compete against girls. Boys should compete against boys. And let’s be very clear: that’s all this bill says,” the Republican governor said Wednesday at the bill signing, despite the bill’s exclusion of trans girls.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill that will ban trans girls from playing sports aligning with their gender identity in all public schools and any private schools that compete against them. Ducey also signed a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.
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.
Supporters of the bill disagree.
“This legislation simply ensures that the girls and young women who have dedicated themselves to their sport do not miss out on hard earned opportunities, including their titles, standings and scholarships due to unfair competition,” Ducey said in a statement on the bill.
ACLU of Oklahoma Executive Director Tamya Cox-Touré slammed the bill, saying that the state was harming a small and vulnerable population “while overlooking the real issues with gender equality in sports when it comes to funding, resources, pay equity, and more.”
“Promoting baseless fears about trans athletes does nothing to address those real problems,” Cox-Touré continued in a statement. “Ultimately, SB2 violates the United States Constitution and federal civil rights law, puts Oklahoma at risk of losing federal funding, and harms transgender youth, all to solve a problem that does not exist.”
Several major athletic organizations, including NCAA, the Olympics and the governing bodies for U.S. national sports leagues, allow transgender women to compete against cisgender women.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that trans youth often report feeling isolated and excluded in academic environments. That discrimination puts them at increased risk for poor mental health, suicide, substance abuse, violence and other health risks.
Welcoming school environments that prohibit bullying and harassment in schools have been linked to positive outcomes for these students, according to research in The American Journal of Public Health.
“This legislation offers a solution to a problem that simply does not exist in Oklahoma, but the harm it will cause transgender and nonbinary youth is very real,” said Casey Pick, a senior fellow at the LGBTQ suicide awareness organization The Trevor Project.
The Oklahoma law, called the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” will go into effect immediately.
Oklahoma and Arizona joined several other states in banning trans students from participating in sports that align with their gender identity. Among those instituting bans are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
Just days before Stitt signed the bill, Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed a similar bill and sent an impassioned letter against it to state legislators. The Republican-controlled legislature later voted to override his veto.
He stated that only four trans students are playing sports in Utah, with only one athlete in girls’ sports, and they are not unfairly dominating.
Cox said the high rates of mental health challenges transgender youth face due to discrimination influenced his decision to veto.
“Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something. Four kids trying to get through each day,” Cox said.
He added, “Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few. I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live.”
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, also vetoed a transgender sports bill and is now facing attempts from the legislature to override his decision.
(NEW YORK) — Severe weather on Wednesday has prompted tornado watches for parts of four southern states, including some areas still cleaning up damage from a swarm of twisters that hit last week.
Portions of Arkansas, northern Louisiana, east Texas and southeast Oklahoma were under a tornado watch issued by the National Weather Service, which is also forecasting wind gusts in excess of 75 mph and inch-size hail. The tornado warnings are expected to stay in effect through Wednesday night.
A wildfire burning in northeast Oklahoma has prompted evacuations.
A major storm system is pushing east out of the Rocky Mountains and is expected to bring severe weather outbreaks to the South.
Severe weather is forecasted for cities such as Dallas, Jackson, Memphis and Mobile.
A possible tornado touched down in Springdale, Arkansas early Wednesday, causing heavy damage to an elementary school and injuring seven people, two critically, according to ABC affiliate station KATV in Little Rock.
The Springdale School District said on its Facebook page that George Elementary School was damaged by a potential tornado. The district posted photos showing the elementary school’s destroyed gymnasium and reported that the school’s kitchen and cafeteria were severely damaged.
A tornado watch means conditions are favorable for tornadoes and severe thunderstorms in and close to the watch area. People in those areas are advised to be on the lookout for threatening weather conditions and stay tuned for announcements from local authorities.
The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning Tuesday night as storms moved into Oklahoma’s Seminole County, producing 60 mph wind gusts and inch-size hail.
The weather service also confirmed a tornado in eastern St. Joseph, Missouri, Tuesday night. No injuries were immediately reported and a damage assessment is taking place Wednesday.
Oklahoma emergency management officials were not only dealing with tornado warnings Wednesday but also fire warnings as well. Evacuations have been issued in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma, due to a wildfire. Roger Mills Emergency Management officials on Tuesday asked that residents to evacuate their homes in the Durham and Dead Warrior Lake areas in northwestern Roger Mills County, where severe weather is expected to move in on Wednesday.
Some areas where tornado watches have been issued were struck last week by more than 60 tornadoes that ripped through the southeast. Most of the tornadoes were reported in Texas, where a 73-year-old woman was killed and 10 people were injured in Grayson County.
Two tornadoes touched down on March 22 in New Orleans, causing widespread damage in St. Bernard’s Parish, including the Ninth Ward, Chalmette and Arabi. One person was killed in Arabi, officials said.
Severe weather this week has also stretched into the northeast, where a snow squall on Monday led to a multiple-car pileup on Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania State Police said on Wednesday that six people were killed in the pileup in Schuylkill County that included 39 commercial vehicles and 41 passenger vehicles.
Interstate 81 reopened just after midnight Wednesday following an investigation and cleanup.
ABC News’ Max Golembo and Whitney Lloyd contributed to this report.
