(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Krysten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, is clapping back after she was videotaped and chased into a school bathroom over the weekend by a group of pro-Biden agenda activists, confronting her over her objections holding up Democratic efforts on Capitol Hill.
President Joe Biden has also weighed in on the encounter, when asked on Monday, calling it not appropriate but also “part of the process” for someone without Secret Service protection.
Sinema, in a new statement on Monday, called the display caught on video and posted online “no legitimate protest” and “wholly inappropriate.”
She claimed activists entered Arizona State University, where she was teaching, using “deceptive” and “unlawful” means.
“After deceptively entering a locked, secure building, these individuals filmed and publicly posted videos of my students without their permission — including footage taken of both my students and I using a restroom,” the statement said.
While she wrote she supports the First Amendment, she shunned the protest — by a group she doesn’t name but claims to have met with several times since she was elected to the Senate.
“Yesterday’s behavior was not legitimate protest. It is unacceptable for activist organizations to instruct their members to jeopardize themselves by engaging in unlawful activities such as gaining entry to closed university buildings, disrupting learning environments, and filming students in a restroom,” she wrote.
Video posted to Twitter on Sunday by the organization Living United for Change in Arizona or LUCHA, showed people chanting at and chasing the first-term senator into a bathroom, pressing her to support Biden’s Build Back Better agenda and progressive immigration policy.
ABC News has reached out to LUCHA for comment.
The confrontation comes as the moderate Democratic senator, along with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., continue intra-party negotiations on the topline number for a larger social spending package to accompany the already Senate-passed $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
“In the 19 years I have been teaching at ASU, I have been committed to creating a safe and intellectually challenging environment for my students. Yesterday, that environment was breached. My students were unfairly and unlawfully victimized. This is wholly inappropriate,” Sinema continued.
Her statement ended by putting the onus also on elected officials to foster a healthy environment for politics.
“It is the duty of elected leaders to avoid fostering an environment in which honestly-held policy disagreements serve as the basis for vitriol — raising the temperature in political rhetoric and creating a permission structure for unacceptable behavior,” she wrote.
Biden was asked about the recent protests facing both Sinema and Manchin in his remarks on Monday about the debt ceiling.
“Joe Manchin had people on kayaks show up to his boat to yell at him. Senator Sinema last night was chased into a restroom. Do you think that those tactics are crossing a line?” a reporter asked.
“I don’t think they’re appropriate tactics, but it happens to everybody,” Biden replied. “The only people it doesn’t happen to are people who have Secret Service standing around them. So it’s part of the process.”
Asked if Sinema has given the White House a topline number for the social package — somewhere between $1.5 trillion and $3.5 trillion — Biden said “I’m not going to negotiate in public.”
As the video went viral on Twitter over the weekend, accumulating more than five million views by Monday, pundits of all parties united in agreement that the behavior crossed a privacy line.
(WASHINGTON) — As the cry “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” rang out just after 10 a.m. Monday in Washington, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court emerged from behind a 44-foot velvet curtain wall, walking into their vaulted marble chamber for the first time in 18 months.
They entered a world — a courtroom, a docket, an American society — dramatically changed and charged with anticipation since they last convened in-person as major decisions loom on abortion, guns, the death penalty and religious freedom.
A chamber normally packed with hundreds of spectators is now limited to an audience of just five dozen clerks and members of the press — all covid-tested, N95-masked, and seated 6-feet apart. The lectern for attorneys, once 3 feet from the bench, now positioned 10-feet away.
Proceedings that for years were shielded from much of the public in real-time are now livestreamed on the Supreme Court website.
The justices took their seats in a new array for the first time since the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Chief Justice John Roberts, in the middle of the iconic mahogany bench, is now flanked by senior conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and senior liberal Justice Stephen Breyer.
Thomas, 73, who was famously silent for years during oral arguments before the pandemic, asked the first question of the new, in-person term and remained loquacious throughout. A sprightly Breyer, 83, repeatedly whispered to the chief with a smile from his new center-stage spot.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired from the court in 2018, was seated in a front box as special guest — a show of solidarity for the institution at a time when the court faces its lowest public approval rating in decades and a brewing crisis of credibility.
On the wings of the bench, the newest justices: Amy Coney Barrett on the right, appearing in-person for arguments for the first time; on the far left, an empty seat for Brett Kavanaugh, who dialed in by phone from home due to a COVID-19 diagnosis last week. (There were no audible signs of his illness; the court has said he is asymptomatic.)
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the only justice to don a face mask. Justice Samuel Alito was seen slumped back in his chair sipping from a stainless-steel thermos; he was the only justice to remain silent for the entire first case.
For nearly two-and-a-half hours, the justices heard arguments in two opening disputes: the first, a suit brought by Mississippi against Tennessee over the pumping of groundwater from a massive aquifer that stretches across eight states. The second case addressed a criminal procedural matter involving the Armed Career Criminal Act.
Free-for-all questioning among the justices, which had been sidelined during virtual sessions, was back in full force but remained civil and polite. Chief Justice Roberts has implemented a new procedure at the conclusion of each round, calling on each justice by name to see if they have any additional questions.
The court was gaveled in and out by newly-sworn Court Marshal Gail Curley, a recently retired Army colonel and judge advocate general officer who joined the court this summer as its 11th marshal in history. She is responsible for court security and operations.
Meanwhile, outside the court building protests raged over abortion. That issue will get its first public hearing of the term next Tuesday Oct. 12, in a procedural case out of Kentucky. The marquee abortion case of the year out of Mississippi — which asks the justices to squarely consider nearly 50 years of precedent since Roe v. Wade — is set for December.
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — Loved ones of Miya Marcano are demanding justice after a body believed to be the 19-year-old college student was found slain in a wooded area of Orlando. Investigators allege a maintenance man at her apartment complex is the “prime suspect” in her disappearance.
Family members are accusing the management of Arden Villas apartments where Marcano lived and worked of negligence for allowing Armando Caballero, 27, a maintenance man at the complex, to possess a master key fob that allowed him to access Marcano’s unit on the day she vanished. They claimed that several residents had complained of Caballero, who investigators said was found dead from suicide.
Marcano had told family members that Caballero made romantic advances toward her and she rebuffed him.
“You shouldn’t feel unsafe where you live,” Marcano’s cousin, Caili Sue, said during a news conference on Sunday in the parking lot of the Arden Villas apartments.
The family’s lawyer, Daryl K. Washington, said Marcano’s relatives are concerned that other residents of the apartment complex are in jeopardy due to what they describe as lapses in security.
“Death is something that is very difficult. But what makes death even more difficult is when it’s death that could have been prevented,” Washington said.
A body believed to be Marcano, a student at Valencia College in Orlando, was discovered around 10:45 a.m. on Saturday in a wooded area near the Tymber Skan apartment complex in Orlando, about 17 miles from where she lived.
Orange County Sheriff John Mina said investigators were led to the area based on Caballero’s cellphone records.
Mina said the records showed Caballero was near the Tymber Skan apartments around 8 or 9 p.m. on Sept. 25, the day Marcano went missing.
He said Marcano’s purse containing her identification was found near the body. While the Orange County medical examiner has yet to positively identify the remains as those of Marcano, Mina said investigators are “very certain” it’s her.
A key fob Caballero had to access apartments was used at Marcano’s unit just before her disappearance, authorities said. Following her disappearance, Marcano’s relatives said they found her usually tidy apartment a mess and that there were signs of a struggle.
Mina said police served a search warrant on Caballero’s apartment and vehicle within 24 hours of Marcano’s family reporting her missing. Police found Caballero dead in his apartment on Sept. 27 from an apparent suicide.
Washington said tenants of the Arden Villas apartment complex that he and family members spoke to expressed concern over alleged inappropriate behavior by Caballero. But the management of the Arden Villas complex said in a statement that it had received no complaints about Caballero “from any parties involved directly or indirectly with the situation.”
“The only way he was able to get access to (Marcano’s) apartment without permission was with the key fob. There need to be changes. We’re going to make sure another young girl doesn’t have to deal with what Miya had to deal with,” Washington said. “We feel had this apartment complex taken the proper steps, this person should not have even been employed at the complex.”
In its statement, the management of Arden Villas apartments said “all employees are vetted using a national background check service” and that Cabellero had “no record of burglary or sexual assault.”
The apartment complex, according to the statement from management, plans to beef up security, including posting a guard at the front gate.
“Additionally, we have upgraded our maintenance procedures to allow for appointment-only bookings,” the statement reads. “We are in the process of reviewing our entire security apparatus and will make changes or upgrades as warranted.”
(NEW YORK) — Starting Tuesday, PC owners who run Windows 10 will be eligible to download Windows 11 for free. But the ability to use Microsoft’s latest operating system will largely depend on your computer’s age, and what type of processor it uses.
When Microsoft first showed off Windows 11 over the summer, it also announced some restrictions on what types of PCs can run the new operating system. The company says your PC will need a special processor known as a Trusted Platform Module, or “TPM,” chip to run the new operating system.
“It’s a little chip the size of your fingernail that lives on the motherboard, sometimes it’s on the CPU,” says Digital Trends Managing Editor Nick Mokey. “It’s there for security purposes, there’s a good reason Microsoft wants it.”
In a June 25th blog post, Microsoft’s Director of Enterprise and OS Security David Weston wrote that the purpose of the company’s TPM requirement is to “help protect encryption keys, user credentials, and other sensitive data behind a hardware barrier so that malware and attackers can’t access or tamper with that data.”
Windows 11 launches against the backdrop of a rise in ransomware attacks. Some of those attacks, such as the SolarWinds hack, specifically targeted Microsoft code.
Mokey says newer computers are more likely to include the TPM chip.
“The exception would be some people who built their own computers might not have the chip that you need. Also some gaming computers don’t come stock with them,” says Mokey. “But if you have something within – that you bought sort of out of the box within the last few years it’s quite likely you’ll be able to run Windows 11.”
To figure out if your computer can run Windows 11, Mokey recommends using Microsoft’s “PC Health Check” app.
“It takes a couple seconds to download, it’ll run on your PC, look at the specs and tell you with no ambiguity whether you can run Windows 11.”
Windows 11 brings a number of non-security related updates to PC users as well. Microsoft has moved the Start menu from the bottom left corner of the home screen to the bottom center (though the system also gives users the option to move it back to the traditional location). And Mokey says that’s only the start of the design updates to the new OS.
“It’s definitely a very different look than Windows 10,” says Mokey. “I think it’s a cleaner look. Microsoft has implemented these, sort of, rounded, glassy-looking menus. Some of the animations are more fluid.”
He adds Windows 11 makes some under-the-hood changes as well.
“Microsoft has also promised some better performance. So that means both better battery life, better security… and there’s actually some perks for gamers in there as well, performance-wise,” says Mokey.
One of the buzzier features Microsoft is touting with Windows 11 is the ability to run Android apps on the desktop. That would allow users to download and run apps like TikTok through the Microsoft Store – just not right away.
“I think that was one of the features people were most excited about and Microsoft kind of threw a wet blanket on that,” says Mokey. “At launch that will not be available.”
Microsoft has not said when the feature will launch on Windows 11.
Hear ABC News Radio’s Cheri Preston report on Windows 11:
(WASHINGTON) — Two weeks before the “calamity” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen predicts could strike by Oct. 18, President Joe Biden on Monday blasted Republicans for “playing Russian roulette with the U.S. economy” in refusing to join Democrats to raise the debt ceiling so the U.S. does not default on its debt for the first time ever.
“The Republicans in Congress — what they are doing today is so reckless and dangerous in my view. Raising the debt limit is It’s about paying what we already owe, what has already been acquired. Not anything new,” Biden said. “The United States is a nation that pays its bills and always has. From its inception, we have never defaulted.”
“Not only are Republicans refusing to do their job, they are threatening to use their power to prevent us from doing our job, saving the economy from a catastrophic event. Frankly, I think it’s hypocritical, dangerous, and disgraceful. Their obstruction and irresponsibility knows no bounds, especially as we are clawing our way out of this pandemic,” he continued.
Biden’s amping up the pressure on the GOP to get on board comes ahead of Senate Republicans planning to block another bill down this week to raise the debt limit — an issue lawmakers have historically come together on for years.
Democrats are trying to pass a straightforward debt limit hike on their own with 50 votes — and no Republican support. But Republicans are filibustering the Democratic strategy — requiring 60 votes to move forward — and insisting that Democrats raise the debt ceiling through the much more complicated process of budget reconciliation that Biden says could involve hundreds of votes that could mean it wouldn’t get in time to avoid catastrophe.
Republicans have said they won’t support spending on Biden’s agenda, while Democrats are reiterating the point that raising the debt ceiling does not authorize new government spending but allows the government to pay for spending that previous politicians have already OK’d — including former President Donald Trump and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Biden seized on that point.
Pres. Biden: “The reason we have to raise the debt limit is, in part, because of the reckless tax and spending policies under the previous Trump administration. In four years, they incurred nearly $8 trillion in additional debt.” https://t.co/UkSrTz2XPzpic.twitter.com/9Y6Yh0Vphj
“Raising the debt limit is usually a bipartisan undertaking. And it should be. That is what is not happening today,” Biden said. “The reason we have to raise the debt limit is in part because of the reckless tax and spending policies under the previous Trump administration.”
“Republicans in Congress raised the debt three times when Donald Trump was president. Each time the Democratic support. Now they won’t raise it. Even though they are responsible for more than $8 trillion in bills incurred in four years under the previous administration,” he claimed.
He called on Republicans to allow Democrats to hold a vote this week without “procedural tricks,” he said, because at this point, “We are not expecting Republicans to do their part.”
“We are simply asking them not to use procedural tricks to block them from doing the job they won’t do. A meteor is headed for our economy,” Biden said. “You don’t want to help save the country? Get out-of-the-way so you don’t destroy it.”
Asked following his remarks if it’s possible the U.S. will not pay its debt, Biden said he couldn’t guarantee it.
“I can’t believe that will be the end result because the consequence is so dire. I don’t believe that. But can I guarantee it? If I could, I would, but I can’t,” he said, before leaving the room.
Biden gave a warning to Americans on the effects they could feel in the coming days.
“In the days ahead, even before the default date, people may see the value of their retirement accounts shrink. They might see interest rates go up, ultimately raising their mortgage and car payments. The American people, look, just say it this way. As soon as this week, your savings and your pocketbook could be directly impacted by this Republican stunt,” he said.
The impassioned plea echoed the treasury secretary’s at a hearing last week, where she warned raising the debt ceiling is “necessary to avert a catastrophic event for our economy.”
“It has nothing to do with future programs of payments, it’s entirely about paying bills that have already been incurred by this Congress, in previous Congresses, and it’s about making good on past commitments — as you said, paying our credit card bill,” Yellen said in a hearing last week.
While lawmakers came together and voted to avoid a government shutdown, Democrats were forced to remove language from that bill that would have also raised the debt ceiling as Republicans argue they’ll have to go at it alone through the budget reconciliation process.
McConnell, in a letter to Biden ahead of his remarks, reiterated his party’s opposition to helping Democrats and warned the president that it is time for him to “engage directly” with Democrats in Congress on raising the debt limit by themselves.
“Your lieutenants in Congress must understand that you do not want your unified Democratic government to sleepwalk toward an avoidable catastrophe when they have had nearly three months’ notice to do their job,” McConnell wrote.
“Bipartisanship is not a light switch that Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer may flip on to borrow money and flip off to spend it,” he continued. “We have no list of demands. For two and a half months, we have simply warned that since your party wishes to govern alone, it must handle the debt limit alone as well.”
The party standoff comes in an extremely polarized environment, when lawmakers are also debating passing one of the largest government spending packages in history, Biden’s approximately $2 trillion Build Back Better agenda and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal.
Biden reiterated in his remarks that raising the debt limit has “nothing to do with my plan for infrastructure or building back better — zero.”
As the negotiations on Capitol Hill have become intertwined, Republicans insist that if Democrats want to pass such a major spending bill through special budget rules that would require no Republican support, they can raise the debt ceiling on their own, too.
And if lawmakers remain deadlocked on raising the debt ceiling, the government could go into default — essentially, unable to pay bills, directly impacting the wallets of millions of Americans.
“It would be disastrous for the American economy, for global financial markets, and for millions of families and workers whose financial security would be jeopardized by delayed payments,” Yellen warned lawmakers in a hearing last week.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a “Dear Colleague” letter to his caucus on Monday said a deal must be reached “by the end of the week,” an exceedingly ambitious timetable in the partisan environment.
“Let me be clear about the task ahead of us: we must get a bill to the President’s desk dealing with the debt limit by the end of the week. Period. We do not have the luxury of waiting until October 18th,” he wrote.
Schumer also threatened to scrap the Senate’s recess next week if the GOP doesn’t help them rase the debt limit.
Currently, the federal debt is at $28.43 trillion, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s tracker. The current debt ceiling is actually $28.4 trillion — underscoring the pressure Yellen is under to continue paying the bills through “extraordinary measures.”
(NEW YORK) — Freeform and ice cream shop Carvel conjured up a sweet collaboration to celebrate the 31 Nights of Halloween.
Carvel added three limited-edition shakes, each one inspired by the Sanderson Sisters of Disney’s hit holiday movie “Hocus Pocus,” to get in the spirit for the network’s highly anticipated month-long movie lineup.
Sarah’s Chilling Churro Shake is a blend of crunchy churro pieces and cinnamon-sugar churro ice cream that’s topped with whipped cream and yellow sprinkles.
Winnie’s Glorious Cake Batter Shake is cake batter ice cream that’s blended then topped with whipped cream and orange sprinkles.
Mary’s Divine Cookies and Cream Shake combines classic vanilla soft serve with cookies and cream pieces that’s topped with violet sprinkles.
“Much like enjoying a Carvel ice cream treat, watching Freeform’s ‘31 Nights of Halloween’ and Disney’s ‘Hocus Pocus’ delivers a true sense of nostalgia and traditions,” Delia Wong, Carvel’s director of marketing, said in a statement. “With these shakes inspired by everyone’s favorite witchy sisters, Halloween and ice cream fans alike will have plenty of opportunities to soak up spooky season memories and create new ones.”
The custom treats are served in limited-edition cups with corresponding spoons for $4.79 available through Oct. 31.
This marks Carvel’s third year of partnership with Freeform. New to the festive collab is Ryan Porter’s Candier, which crafted a “Mostly Dead on the Inside” fall-scented candle line to light up the “31 Nights of Halloween.”
(NEW YORK) — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were all down Monday for millions of users across the U.S., according to outage site Down Detector.
Both the mobile and web browser editions of the apps were not working as of 11:42 a.m. ET, the site reported.
“We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience,” a Facebook company spokesperson told ABC News.
The Instagram and Facebook outages come shortly after a whistleblower came forward and claimed to CBS News that the company could do more to protect against hate speech and misinformation but it prioritizes profits over its users.
(NEW YORK) — Stanley Tucci is opening up about how his cancer battle three years ago affected his ability to enjoy one of his greatest passions — food.
The 60-year-old actor, who previously revealed he was diagnosed with a tumor at the base of his tongue three years ago, opened up about undergoing chemotherapy and radiation in a new interview with The New York Times.
Noting that he developed ulcers in his mouth in addition to losing his appetite, Tucci said food began to taste like “wet cardboard slathered with someone’s excrement.”
The “Devil Wears Prada star” admitted one of his fears during his fight with cancer was losing his ability to taste, adding, “I mean, if you can’t eat and enjoy food, how are you going to enjoy everything else?”
The actor said he was shooting his show, “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy,” at the time and his ability to swallow was affected.
“It was hard because I could taste everything, but I couldn’t necessarily swallow,” he explained.
In order to eat steak Florentina, “I had to chew it for 10 minutes to get it down my throat,” he added.
To comfort himself, Tucci admitted to binge-watching cooking shows, which he said he found “weird because even the smell of food then would just make me want to throw up.”
But he said he would “live vicariously through them” so he could have the experience of enjoying food again.
Tucci previously said he is now in remission and his cancer is unlikely to return.
(WASHINGTON) — As the U.S. sees its first notable decline in COVID-19 metrics in more than three months, with coronavirus-related hospital admissions and average daily new cases dropping by more than 30% over the last month, Dr. Anthony Fauci says the country is making progress against the current surge, but warned we’re not out of the woods yet during an interview on ABC’s This Week.
“We certainly are turning the corner on this particular surge, Jon,” the nation’s top infectious disease expert told This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Sunday. “But we have experienced over now close to 20 months surges that go up and then come down, and then go back up again. The way to keep it down, to make that turnaround continue to go down, is to do what we mentioned: Get people vaccinated.”
“When you have 70 million people in the country who are eligible to be vaccinated, who are not yet vaccinated, that’s the danger zone right there,” he added. “So it’s within our capability to make sure that that turnaround that we’re seeing — that very favorable and optimistic turnaround — continues to go down and doesn’t do what we’ve seen multiple times before, where it goes down and then it comes back up.”
Despite the positive signs, the U.S. also marked a grim milestone this week in the pandemic, surpassing 700,000 deaths from COVID-19 on Friday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
“This is the most formidable virus,” Fauci said, reflecting on the staggering death toll.
“There are certain elements about this that were just unavoidable, in the sense that there were going to be deaths, there were going to be a lot of infections globally, no matter what anyone did. But there were situations where we could have done better, and we can do better, and I think we’re living through that right now,” Fauci said, again pointing to eligible Americans who have not gotten vaccinated.
“When you say ‘Are some of those deaths avoidable?’ They certainly are. In fact, looking forward now, most of the deaths could be avoidable if we get people vaccinated,” he said.
One state taking action to increase vaccinations is California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new requirement for all eligible students in the state to get vaccinated without a testing opt-out.
While some parents have expressed their outrage over the move, Fauci argued that the requirements are really nothing new.
“I have been and I still am in favor of these kinds of mandates. You can make some exceptions to them, but in general, people look at this like this is something novel and new, when in fact, throughout, you know, years and years, decades, we have made it a requirement for children to get into schools to get different types of vaccines — measles, mumps, rubella and others,” he said.
“So when people treat this as something novel and terrible — it isn’t. A requirement for children to come to school, to be vaccinated with certain vaccines, is not something new. It’s been around for a very long time,” Fauci continued.
While increasing vaccinations remain the priority for the Biden administration, Fauci also noted the positive preliminary results of a new antiviral drug from the pharmaceutical company Merck, which showed it could lower the risk for hospitalization or death for someone infected with COVID by 50%.
Fauci stressed the drug would “absolutely not” be a replacement for getting vaccinated but said the future implementation of the drug held a lot of promise.
“It’s a big deal, Jon, I mean you have now a small molecule drug that can be given orally,” he said, “and the results of the trial that we just announced yesterday and the day before, are really quite impressive.”
