(NEW YORK) — Puerto Rico is facing yet another devastating hurricane that has knocked out electricity across the island, just as the five-year anniversary of the deadly, destructive Hurricane Maria passes.
President Joe Biden has authorized FEMA to supply federal emergency aid to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in response to Hurricane Fiona, which touched down on Sept. 17 after strengthening from a tropical storm.
More than 1.5 million people are without electricity as torrential rain, 85-mph winds, and what the National Hurricane Service calls “catastrophic” flooding, pummels the U.S. territory.
Here are organizations helping deliver relief efforts in the wake of this latest hurricane:
United Nations World Food Programme: international disaster relief
The United Nations group is on the ground providing relief assessment emergency equipment to support recovery efforts in the Dominican Republic following severe flooding and power outages.
The U.N. is one of the world’s largest humanitarian organizations, working with victims of climate change, conflict and other disasters.
GoFundMe: hosting personal fundraisers
GoFundMe has dedicated a page to verified fundraisers for people affected by the hurricane in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
“We are working around the clock to ensure the families, businesses and communities affected receive the quick and trusted support they need,” GoFundMe said in a statement.
Verified fundraisers are vetted by GoFundMe, and funds are held until the recipients can be added to the fundraiser to withdraw the money themselves.
Hispanic Federation: a coalition of organizations rebuilding Puerto Rico
The Hispanic Federation has helped rebuild homes, health centers and farms, supply solar panels, and more through community-based projects following the devastation of Hurricane Maria. The federation responded then by supplying 25 relief planes that carried 7.4 million pounds of food, water, medicine, solar panels and resources to the island and coordinated with mayors on the ground to organize donation delivery.
In the wake of Hurricane Fiona, Hispanic Federation is already on the ground providing emergency relief services.
Their efforts have been combined with hyperlocal organizations such as La Maraña and ViequesLove that focus on different aspect of recovery, many of which were born out of the needs highlighted by Hurricane Maria.
PRxPR: disaster relief fund donating 100% of funds
The PRxPR Relief and Rebuild Fund, run by the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico, has delivered humanitarian aid to the island in the wake of Hurricane Maria’s devastation. Maria killed roughly 3,000 people and left the infrastructure of the country devastated.
The fund works with local organizations to address basic, economic, agricultural and energy needs in an effort to provide immediate and long-lasting relief to communities.
Fundación Comunitaria de Puerto Rico (The Puerto Rico Community Foundation)
The Puerto Rico Community Foundation has been working for more than 35 years to increase access to renewable energy, drinking water, housing, education and economic development for the people it serves.
The foundation has reactivated the Community Recovery Fund for Puerto Rico to help recovery efforts following Hurricane Fiona.
Foundation for Puerto Rico
The Foundation for Puerto Rico was created to “unleash Puerto Rico’s potential in the global economy.” Now, the organization plans to prioritize relief in the wake Hurricane Fiona, calling for donations and volunteers.
“Our priority is to focus on the emergency that the country is facing and achieve the recovery of Puerto Rico together,” said the organization in a tweet.
SBP: disaster management headed to Puerto Rico
SBP is a nonprofit based in New Orleans, Louisiana, that was created after two volunteers saw what they called “the inefficiency and unbearably slow progress” of institutional or traditional rebuilding processes in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. The group aims to reduce the time between when a disaster hits and when recovery reaches those affected.
SBP says as soon as weather conditions are safe, it will touch down in Puerto Rico to help recovery efforts.
The group will “partner with local and regional organizations to establish contact lists and distribute recovery supplies to impacted communities,” according to the SBP website.
It said it will “connect with state, parish, and municipal leaders in affected areas to ensure survivors and communities secure access to vital recovery resources, protect survivors from fraud, and set clear and aggressive recovery goals to build back quickly and more robust than before.”
(NEW YORK) — Regions along the Atlantic basin likely won’t see relief once Hurricane Fiona passes, as four more systems follow in the Category 4 hurricane’s wake.
Tropical Storm Gaston is the newest named system to form in the Atlantic. The storm currently carries winds of 65 mph and is located off the Azores, the archipelago in the mid-Atlantic.
The storm will strengthen as it drifts to the east but is forecast to perform a loop-de-loop and head west-northwest, eventually transitioning into a post-storm system.
Meteorologists expect Gaston to remain a “fish storm” because it will only affect marine life, other than some ships that will redirect their routes to avoid the storm.
It is unclear whether the same will apply to three more systems that have formed off the west coast of Africa.
At least one of the systems is likely to strengthen into a named storm as it heads toward the Caribbean in the coming days.
The next named storm will be Hermine, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The succession of storms threatening the Caribbean comes after Hurricane Fiona wreaked havoc on islands such as Guadalupe, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico — where the majority of utility customers lost power as a result of the storm. At least two fatalities have been reported.
Fiona is now heading north toward Bermuda as a strong Category 4 storm with winds at 130 mph — prompting a tropical storm warning and hurricane watch there and an increase in rip current threats along beaches on the East Coast of the U.S. Fiona is not forecast to hit Bermuda directly but is expected to pass just west of the island.
The recent uptick in activity comes after a record quiet stretch in July and August.
(NEW YORK) — Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, President Joe Biden on Wednesday cast the defining conflict facing global leaders as a duel between democracy and autocracy, directly responding to new threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin to escalate the war in Ukraine.
The speech is Biden’s first at the forum since Russia’s invasion, offering him the opportunity to condemn the Kremlin in front of an audience of fellow heads of state.
Biden opened his remarks with a strong rebuke of Putin after he earlier Wednesday ordered a partial mobilization of reservists in Russia and raised the specter of using nuclear weapons after a retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
“Let us speak plainly, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded its neighbor, attempted to erase the sovereign state from the map,” Biden said. “Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenants of the United Nations Charter.”
“Just today, President Putin has made overt nuclear threats against Europe and reckless disregard of the responsibilities of a nonproliferation regime,” Biden continued. “Now, Russia is calling, calling up more soldiers to join the fight and the Kremlin is organizing a sham referendum to try to annex parts of Ukraine, an extremely significant violation of the U.N. Charter.”
Biden called the conflict “a war chosen by one man” and slammed Putin for his attacks on Ukraine’s schools, railway stations, hospitals.
“Even more horrifying evidence of Russia’s atrocity and war crimes: Mass graves uncovered in Izium, bodies, according to those that excavated those bodies, showing signs of torture. This war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state, plain and simple. And Ukraine’s right to exist as a people. Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you believe, that should not–that should make your blood run cold,” he said.
Biden reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to help Ukraine and called on other U.N. members to do the same.
“Each of us in this body who determined to uphold the principles and beliefs we pledged to defend as members of the United Nations, must be clear, firm and unwavering in our resolve,” he said.
Biden also announced a commitment of $2.9 billion in global food aid, an effort to address growing famine in the Horn of Africa, and rising food prices worldwide due to the war in Ukraine, and inflation.
As Biden grapples with a series of complicated global issues, the high-stakes summit presents a range of challenges for the administration.
The no-shows
Although U.N. General Assembly meetings offer an abundance of opportunity for face-to-face diplomacy — something the president prides himself on — two key players weren’t in attendance: the leaders of Russia and China.
“Our competitors are facing increasingly strong headwinds, and neither President Xi nor President Putin are even showing up for this global gathering,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday.
In Putin’s case, the most pressing of those headwinds are losses on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to administration officials.
Ahead of an engagement with his counterpart from the U.K., Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced reports that Moscow plans to hold sham referenda in occupied territories in Ukraine to pave the way to annex territory.
“I think this is also not a surprise this is happening now. We have seen in the last weeks significant gains by Ukraine,” Blinken said. “It’s a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of Russian failure.”
But as a number of other heads of state push for negotiations for peace, the gathering won’t offer a robust opportunity for Biden to pursue that path with the leaders of the countries involved in the conflict. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is in New York, but there are no plans for a meeting with U.S. officials on the books.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will also give a speech on Wednesday, but he will do so remotely as the only leader allowed to appear virtually this year.
China’s Xi Jinping’s absence means there’s no chance an in-person meeting with the president, something that hasn’t happened since Biden took office. And the two have an ever-growing list of differences to discuss.
The past months have seen multiple escalations, with China responding to any step perceived as the U.S. moving towards recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign state with shows of force, a strategy a senior State Department official described as an attempt to normalize military pressure.
While the administration says Washington’s long-standing “One China” policy remains in effect, Biden also said U.S. troops would defend Taiwan if it were attacked.
The impermanent 5?
Russia’s exalted position as one of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council has thrown a significant wrench in the body’s efforts to check its aggression, prompting calls that it should be removed altogether.
U.S. officials appeared to be aligning behind a plan that, instead of subtracting Russia as a permanent member, would seek to make additions to the Security Council.
A senior State Department official said that Biden would attempt to “reenergize” the push for reform by arguing the arm needs to be “more representative of the world’s population, and filled with countries that are ready to work together.”
The odds of expanding the council appear slim. Reforming its makeup would require amending the U.N. charter, a step that Russia or any other permanent member could veto.
The rest of the agenda
While the war in Ukraine is shaping up to dominate the General Assembly, administration officials have stressed they want to take on other global issues as well.
Biden in his speech discussed the need to tackle food insecurity, the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis and climate change.
“Let this be the moment, we find within ourselves, the will to turn back the tide of climate devastation and unlock a resilient, sustainable clean energy economy to preserve our plant,” Biden said.
One pressing matter facing the White House is its push to return to an Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran. Indirect negotiations appear to have stalled again, and officials from both countries appear increasing pessimistic that the pact can be renewed.
Sullivan said Biden plans to reiterate that the U.S. is open to returning to an agreement, but that he isn’t anticipating any major breakthroughs.
Even a meeting with one of America’s closest allies has its thorns. Biden will hold his first meeting with the U.K.’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, as the differences between the two’s economic policies become ever apparent.
Recently, Truss said completing a long-awaited trade deal with the U.S. was not a key priority and unlikely to happen anytime soon. But Sullivan said it would be on the president’s list.
“I do think that they will talk about the economic relationship between the U.S. and the U.K.,” Sullivan said, adding they would also hit other areas where Truss and Biden have more in common, such as support for Ukraine and addressing Europe’s energy crisis.
(NEW YORK) — For 20 years, Donald Trump and his family enriched themselves through “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentations,” New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges in a new lawsuit that accuses the Trumps of “grossly” inflating the former president’s net worth by billions of dollars and cheating lenders and others with false and misleading financial statements.
The civil lawsuit, filed Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeks a $250 million judgment and a prohibition on any of the Trumps leading a company in the state of New York.
Among other allegations, the suit claims that the former president’s Florida estate and golf resort, Mar-a-Lago, was valued as high as $739 million, but should have been valued at around one-tenth that amount, at $75 million. The suit says that higher valuation was “based on the false premise that it was unrestricted property and could be developed for residential use even though Mr. Trump himself signed deeds donating his residential development rights and sharply restricting changes to the property.”
“We found that Mr, Trump, his children, and the corporation used more than 200 false asset valuations over a ten year period,” James said at a press conference announcing the charges.
James is referring her findings to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who could possibly open a criminal investigation into bank fraud, according to a footnote in the lawsuit.
Through “persistent and repeated business fraud,” the Trumps convinced banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than deserved, according to the lawsuit, which named the former president, three of his adult children, the company, and two of its executives, Allan Weisselberg and Jeff McConney.
“Mr. Trump made known through Mr. Weisselberg that he wanted his net worth on the Statements to increase — a desire Mr. Weisselberg and others carried out year after year in their fraudulent preparation of the Statements,” the lawsuit said. “The scheme to inflate Mr. Trump’s net worth also remained consistent year after year.”
Weisselberg last month pleaded guilty to unrelated criminal charges of tax evasion brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has been conducting a parallel investigation.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and has called the investigation a politically motivated “witch hunt” by an attorney general he has called “racist.” James, who is black, rejected a settlement offer from the Trump Organization last month to resolve the matter, sources told ABC News.
“Today’s filing is neither focused on the facts nor the law — rather, it is solely focused on advancing the Attorney General’s political agenda,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said in a statement Wednesday. “It is abundantly clear that the Attorney General’s Office has exceeded its statutory authority by prying into transactions where absolutely no wrongdoing has taken place. We are confident that our judicial system will not stand for this unchecked abuse of authority, and we look forward to defending our client against each and every one of the Attorney General’s meritless claims.”
During a deposition last month, Trump repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The lawsuit includes numerous instances in which Trump invoked the Fifth when asked to explain how the company calculated the value of certain properties. In a civil trial, jurors would be able to draw a negative inference about Trump declining to answer.
The attorney general’s investigation began in March 2019, after Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified before Congress that Trump’s annual financial statements inflated the values of Trump’s assets to obtain favorable terms for loans and insurance coverage, while also deflating the value of other assets to reduce real estate taxes.
Trump valued his Trump Tower apartment at $327 million, James said Wednesday. “No apartment in New York City has ever sold for that amount, she said, adding the inflated valuation was based on exaggerated square footage despite Trump knowing it wasn’t that big.
The suit also said a 2012 statement valued rent-stabilized apartments in the Trump Park Avenue property as if they could be rented at market value. As a result, units collectively worth $750,000 were valued at nearly $50 million, according to the lawsuit.
Trump Turnberry, a golf club in Scotland, was valued at nearly $127 million, but the suit said that since it opened in 2017 the golf course has operated at a loss each year.
“As a result, using values for the golf course ranging between $123 million and $126.8 million based on employing the Fixed Asset Scheme is materially false and misleading; the golf course should have been valued at a much lower figure,” the attorney general’s suit said.
“The examples I laid out barely scratch the surface,” James said Wednesday.
“The magnitude of financial benefit derived by Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization by means of these fraudulent and misleading submissions was considerable,” the suit said.
(LONDON) — Princes George and Louis and Princess Charlotte, three of Queen Elizabeth II’s 12 great-grandchildren, have taken on a new last name in the wake of the late monarch’s death.
George, 9, Charlotte, 7, and Louis, 4, are now using the last name Wales, a change from the name they’ve each used since birth, Cambridge.
The siblings, whose parents are Prince William and Kate, now go by the titles Prince George of Wales, Princess Charlotte of Wales and Prince Louis of Wales.
The children’s new titles were used in the Order of Service released by Buckingham Palace for the queen’s funeral Monday, which George and Charlotte attended alongside William and Kate.
The change comes after their parents received the titles of the Prince and Princess of Wales from William’s father King Charles III.
Charles made the announcement in his first address as king on Sept. 9. With the title change, Kate becomes the first person to use the “Princess of Wales” title since Williams’ late mother Princess Diana. Charles’ wife Camilla, now the Queen Consort, was referred to previously as the Duchess of Cornwall.
With the queen’s death, William is now the heir to the throne and George, Charlotte and Louis are second, third and fourth in the line of succession, respectively.
Additionally, as heir to the throne, William inherited Charles’ prior title of the Duke of Cornwall and now oversees the duchy of Cornwall, the private estate that was established in 1337 to provide financial independence for the heir and their family.
William, Kate and their children were formerly known as the Cambridges, as the couple previously held the titles of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
The new last name for the family of five comes just as George, Charlotte and Louis begin classes at a new school.
The siblings had their first day at Lambrook School in Berkshire the week of Sept. 5, the same week their great-grandmother died.
George, Charlotte and Louis moved to the preparatory school in Southeast England after their family moved this summer from Kensington Palace in London to Adelaide Cottage, a four-bedroom cottage on the grounds of Windsor Castle.
In school, the siblings will be known as George Wales, Charlotte Wales and Louis Wales.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Sep 21, 9:32 AM EDT
White House reacts to Putin’s partial military mobilization
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s partial military mobilization for his ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine is “definitely a sign that he’s struggling,” according to the White House’s National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
“And we know that,” Kirby told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos during an interview Wednesday on Good Morning America.
“[Putin] has suffered tens of thousands of casualties. He has terrible morale, unit cohesion on the battlefield, command and control has still not been solved. He’s got desertion problems and he’s forcing the wounded back into the fight,” Kirby added. “So clearly manpower’s a problem for him, he feels like he’s on his back foot, particularly in that northeast area of the Donbas.”
Some 300,000 Russian reservists are expected to be conscripted, which Kirby noted is “a lot.”
“That’s almost twice as much as [Putin] committed to the war back in February,” he said.
Kirby said Putin’s latest nuclear threats are “typical” but something the United States and its allies still take “seriously.”
“We always have to take this kind of rhetoric seriously,” he added. “It’s irresponsible rhetoric for a nuclear power to talk that way, but it’s not atypical for how he’s been talking the last seven months and we take it seriously. We are monitoring as best we can their strategic posture so that if we have to, we can alter ours. We’ve seen no indication that that’s required right now.”
And if Russia does use nuclear weapons, “there will be severe consequences,” according to Kirby.
While Moscow appears poised to annex Russian-held regions in Ukraine and attempt to politically legitimize it with sham referendums in the coming days and weeks, Kirby said the United States will still consider those areas Ukrainian territory.
“We’re going to continue to support Ukraine with security systems and other financial aid, as the president said, for as long as it takes,” he added. “That is Ukrainian territory. It doesn’t matter what sham referendum they put in place or what vote they hold, it is still Ukrainian territory.”
Sep 21, 7:47 AM EDT
Putin orders partial mobilization, says he won’t ‘bluff’ on nukes
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a partial mobilization of reservists in Russia, in an apparent admission that his war in neighboring Ukraine isn’t going according to plan.
In a seven-minute televised address to the nation that aired on Wednesday morning, Putin announced the start of the mobilization — the first in Russia since World War II. The measure is expected to draft more than 300,000 Russian citizens with military experience, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.
The move comes as Moscow is poised to annex all the regions it occupies in Ukraine in the coming weeks, with plans to hold sham referendums this weekend to legitimize its actions. By declaring those areas officially Russian territory, Putin is also threatening that any continued efforts by Ukraine to retake them will be seen as a direct attack on Russia. In his speech Wednesday, the Russian leader raised the specter of using nuclear weapons if Ukraine continues to try to liberate the occupied regions.
“In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity to our country, for the protection of Russia and our people, we of course will use all means in our possession,” Putin said. “This is not a bluff.”
“Those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the wind can turn in their direction,” he added.
It’s an attempt to regain the initiative after disastrous setbacks in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Russia has been suffering severe manpower shortages in Ukraine after months of heavy losses, mainly because the Kremlin has pretended it is fighting not a war but a “special military operation.” That, in part, allowed Ukraine’s spectacular counteroffensive in the country’s northeast two weeks ago, which led to the collapse of Russia’s frontline there.
Military experts and Russian commentators themselves had acknowledged that without a mobilization, Moscow is not capable of anymore offensive operations in Ukraine and in the longterm might well be unable to even hold the territory it has already taken.
Putin has balked at ordering a mobilization, until now, because of the huge political risks it carries for him at home. Russians have proved relatively supportive of the war while they have not been ordered to fight it, but this carries much bigger risks now of domestic unrest. It will bring up dangerous memories of the Soviet disaster in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
Yet Putin has clearly decided he must take the risk, with losing the war in Ukraine seen as an existential danger to his regime.
The mobilization order has profound implications for not just Russia and Ukraine, but also for Europe and the United States. It means Putin is expanding the war in Ukraine even further, ready to throw hundreds of thousands more people into it — making the fight harder again for Ukraine, while also raising the threat of nuclear strikes on it. And at home, Putin is going to enter uncharted waters.
Sep 20, 3:50 PM EDT
US and Ukraine bolster efforts to prosecute Russia for war crimes
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland met Tuesday with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin and signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen their investigative partnership in pursuing prosecutions against Russians accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine.
“America and the world have seen the horrific images and the heart-wrenching reports of the brutality and death caused by the unjust Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Garland said following the meeting at the Department of Justice in Washington.
Garland said the DOJ’s War Crimes Accountability Team has provided Ukraine with a “wide variety” of technical assistance on criminal cases, including collecting evidence and forensic analysis.
The memorandum of understanding, Garland said, will allow the two countries to “work more expeditiously and efficiently” in their investigations of Russian war crimes.
Kostin also delivered somber remarks on war crimes uncovered by Ukrainian investigators since the start of the Russia’s invasion. He said that two hours before his meeting with Garland, a prosecutor in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine informed him of a village “where about 100 graves” were just discovered.
“This place is not safe at the moment since it needs de-mining,” Kostin said. “But this is a new example of mass atrocities by the aggressor. This is a sign that Russia uses not only prohibited means and methods of warfare, but this is a clear and intentional policy of Russia.”
-ABC News’ Alexander Mallin
Sep 20, 2:49 PM EDT
Ukraine conflict could increase food prices, food insecurity: Study
The impact on crop production due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will likely continue to increase global food prices and food insecurity, though not as much as initially feared, according to a new study.
The price of corn and wheat are expected to increase by 4.6% and 7.2%, respectively, and crops such as barley, rice, soybeans and sunflower are also anticipated to rise, according to a study from Indiana University published this week in Nature Food.
Nations with current existing food insecurity will be most impacted by the conflict, according to the study.
Other countries, including Brazil, have stepped up their production to fill the gap left by the lack of exports coming out of the region, offsetting some of the impacts on world food prices and food insecurity, the study found. Clearing more land and vegetation to grow crops could increase deforestation and carbon emissions, the study said.
-ABC News’ Tracy Wholf
Sep 20, 2:35 PM EDT
White House slams referendums in Russia-backed regions of Ukraine
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said referendums planned for this week in Russia-backed areas of eastern and southern Ukraine are a “sham.”
“Russia is throwing together sham referendums on three days notice as they continue to lose ground on the battlefield and as more world leaders have distanced themselves from Russia on the public stage,” Sullivan said in a briefing Tuesday at the White House.
He also slammed legislation being pushed through the Russian parliament to lay the ground for a general mobilization of men aged 17-27 as “scraping for personnel to throw into the fight.”
“These are not the actions of a confident country. These are not acts of strength, quite the opposite,” Sullivan said. “We reject Russia’s actions unequivocally.”
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Sep 20, 12:24 PM EDT
Kremlin says referendums to be held in separatist regions of Ukraine
The Kremlin made a series of dramatic announcements Tuesday, signaling its response to its failing military campaign in Ukraine.
The Kremlin said referendums will be held later this week in Russian-backed regions of eastern and southern Ukraine for people to vote on whether to join Russia.
Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs, called the proposed vote “sham referendums” in a post on Twitter.
“Russia has been and remains an aggressor illegally occupying parts of Ukrainian land,” Kuleba said. “Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will keep liberating them whatever Russia has to say.”
Depending on the results of the referendums, which critics say is a foregone conclusion, Russia will suddenly consider territory it has occupied in Ukraine as its own.
Meanwhile, legislation is being rushed through the Russian parliament, laying the ground for a general mobilization of men aged 17-27, an age range that could be expanded.
Russian state media reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his minister of defense will address the nation Tuesday night.
According to a Moscow-based military analyst, even parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas, which are not currently controlled by Russian forces, will be considered Russian territory.
After its apparently successful offensive in northeastern Ukraine, the Ukranian military now appears to be pushing further east and is contesting areas of the eastern Donbas region.
In a highly symbolic moment, Ukrainian forces claim they have retaken a village in Luhansk, in the northern part of the Donbas, an area the Kremlin took control of in July.
Sep 18, 4:01 PM EDT
Zelenskyy says preparation underway to liberate all of Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Sunday that he interpreted a lull in fighting after a series of victories by his country’s military forces as preparation for the liberation of all of Ukraine.
“Maybe now it seems to some of you that after a series of victories, we have a certain lull,” Zelenskyy said.
He went on to say, “this is not a lull. This is preparation for the next series. To the next series of words that are very important to us and must sound. Because Ukraine must be free … all of it.”
Ukrainian troops made good on Zelenskyy’s call to take back lands claimed by Russian forces with an aggressive counteroffensive over the past week in the country’s northeast region.
Ukrainian officials said their forces drove out the Russian in two key areas in the Kharkiv region and are not going to let up.
Sep 18, 1:59 PM EDT
Biden says China not supplying Russia weapons to use in Ukraine
President Joe Biden said in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes that it does not appear China is sending weapons to Russia to use in Ukraine.
“Thus far there’s no indication that they’ve put forward weapons or other things that Russia has wanted,” Biden said in the clip from the interview released Sunday.
That’s consistent with the message his administration has repeatedly shared for months. But it doesn’t mean China has stopped helping Russia in other ways, including purchasing Russian oil.
Biden recounted how he had previously told China’s President Xi Jinping that if he thought “Americans and others are gonna continue to invest in China based on your violating the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia, I think you’re making a gigantic mistake. But that’s your decision to make.”
Biden also said he does not think there’s currently a “new, more complicated cold war” with China, as the interviewer, Scott Pelley, put it.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Sep 18, 12:06 PM EDT
‘True face of aggression’: Ukrainian ambassador condemns Russia over mass grave
Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, accused Russia on Sunday of committing “war crimes of massive proportions” after a mass grave was discovered in Ukraine.
“It’s tortures, rapes, killings. War crimes of a massive proportions,” Markarova claimed in an interview with ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “That’s why we need to liberate the whole territory of Ukraine as soon as possible because clearly Russians are targeting all Ukrainians. Whole families. Children. So, there is no war logic in all of this. It’s simply terrorizing and committing genocide against Ukrainians.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address on Thursday that a mass grave was found in the recently recaptured territory of Izyum. Over 400 bodies could be buried in the site, according to Ukrainian officials.
Markarova said the majority of the bodies recovered from the site are Ukrainian, including entire families. She also said most of the remains showed “clear signs of torture.”
She said an investigation of the mass grave is underway and that with the assistance of the United States her country is continuing to prepare national and international criminal cases against Russia.
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians, despite evidence otherwise.
“It’s so important for everyone to see the true face of this aggression and terrorist attack Russia is waging,” Markarova said.
(WASHINGTON) — A new bill from a pair of Republican lawmakers would prevent the Biden administration from lifting key sanctions on Iran over the country’s alleged support of efforts to assassinate high-profile Americans and critics on U.S. soil.
The bill, set to be introduced Wednesday by Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, would codify Trump-era sanctions imposed on Iran — specifically, on major industries and financial institutions — according to legislative text shared first with ABC News.
Should the U.S. and its allies reach an agreement with Iran in ongoing negotiations to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement reached under President Barack Obama, the PUNISH Act would prevent the Biden administration from lifting the Trump sanctions — and unfreezing billions of dollars in Iranian assets — until the State Department can certify that Iran has not supported efforts to kill prominent American citizens or Iranian dissidents on American soil for five years.
While the Democratic majority isn’t expected to consider the proposal, it signals Republicans’ intent to pressure and constrain Biden’s foreign policy agenda and negotiations with Iran should they retake control of either chamber of Congress in the November elections.
“President Biden should not provide a dime of sanctions relief to the largest state sponsor of terrorism, which is actively trying to kill U.S. officials and citizens, at home and abroad,” Ernst will say Wednesday, according to prepared remarks shared with ABC News.
In August, an alleged Iranian operative with links to the country’s Revolutionary Guard Corps was charged by the Justice Department in what prosecutors called a plot to murder Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton. The Justice Department accused the Iranian government of supporting the assassination attempt in response to the 2020 U.S. missile killing of military leader Qasem Soleimani. (Iran has claimed the case is “baseless” and politically motivated.)
Bolton and several top Trump administration officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Iran envoy Brian Hook, reportedly receive government protection due to ongoing threats from Iran.
The U.S. government has said Iran encouraged attacks on author Salman Rushdie, who was stabbed in August at a public event in upstate New York. (Iran denied involvement.) And in July, a federal court unsealed an indictment charging four Iranian nationals with conspiring to kidnap an outspoken Iranian American activist and journalist in Brooklyn.
It’s against this backdrop that Republicans say they must try to limit the White House’s ability to change sanctions without assurances of nonviolence.
“Whether you want to argue whether it’s a return to the [2015 nuclear agreement] or a new deal, it astounds me that we are continuing to negotiate with a regime with active plots against American officials … that is instigating attacks on Americans citizens,” Waltz told ABC News.
Republicans and some Democrats have questioned the Biden administration’s efforts to reenter the Obama-era deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program after the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and slapped on sanctions as part of a “maximum pressure campaign.” Iran responded by enriching more uranium at higher levels beyond the limits of the deal.
Biden’s critics have expressed concerns that Iran can still develop its nuclear program in secret while using newly unfrozen assets and oil revenue to support terrorist proxies and other groups across the Middle East that threaten U.S. interests and allies.
Last year, a bipartisan group of 140 U.S. lawmakers urged Biden to reach a “comprehensive” deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program and address other national security issues.
In an interview with CBS News that aired Sunday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi denied his country’s involvement in the alleged attempt against Bolton and said American pledges to abide by a new nuclear deal would be “meaningless” without a “guarantee” that the U.S. would not withdraw from a future deal and reimpose economic sanctions on Iran.
Raisi, who is now in New York for the U.N. General Assembly and is scheduled to address the gathering on Wednesday, met with French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday amid a stalemate in indirect negotiations over the return to a nuclear agreement.
Both sides have exchanged proposals in recent weeks, but they publicly remain at odds over a U.N nuclear watchdog investigation and Iran’s insistence on a guarantee that the U.S. would not pull out of any deal.
Republican efforts to codify sanctions on Iran are “designed to tie this president or future presidents’ hands so he or she cannot waive these sanctions to encourage better Iranian behavior and bring Iran’s nuclear behavior under a modicum of control,” Daryl G. Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, who has called for a return to the nuclear agreement, told ABC News.
Waltz, the lead author of the bill in the House, told ABC News that he thinks Iran “is constantly holding out because they believe they can get a better deal.” Waltz argued that if the country’s leaders “see these things codified by Congress, and they see clear action by the Congress, then that puts them in a weaker negotiation position.”
(NEW YORK) — The wage gap that sees Black women earning less than white, non-Hispanic men can cost them as much as $2,000 per month, $23,000 per year and more than $900,000 over the course of a 40-year career, according to the National Women’s Law Center, a policy-focused organization that fights for gender justice.
Sept. 21 marks Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, the date that Black women have to work to in 2022 to earn what their male, white, non-Hispanic counterparts earned in 2021.
Last year, the day fell on Aug. 3, meaning that Black women this year have had to work over six weeks longer into the year to try to make up for their lost wages.
In the United States, Black women are on average paid 58 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to Census Bureau data shared by the American Association of University Women, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering women and girls.
Women of all races working full-time in the U.S. are paid 83 cents to every dollar earned by men, according to the AAUW. Equal Pay Day fell on March 15, the day that women have to work into 2022 to earn the same as their male counterparts did last year.
“Because women earn less, on average, than men, they must work longer for the same amount of pay,” the National Committee on Pay Equity said in a statement on Equal Pay Day. “The wage gap is even greater for most women of color.”
According to National Women’s Law Center data, a Black woman who starts working at age 20 would have to work until she is almost 80 years old to earn what a white, non-Hispanic man is paid by age 60.
Black Women’s Equal Pay Day comes this year as Black women are still trying to recover from the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, a time during which they lost jobs at a higher rate than other groups in the country.
Unemployment rates dropped or remained the same for almost every race or ethnicity except Black women, with an unemployment rate almost double that of white Americans, according to the National Women’s Law Center. In August, while many groups joined the labor force, 45,000 Black women left.
Black women also continue to be hit hardest by the student debt crisis in the U.S., with around 1 in 4 Black women holding student debt, according to data from the Census Bureau and the American Association of University Women.
Just over a decade after starting college, Black women, on average, owe 13% more than they borrowed, while white men, on average, have paid off 44% of their debt, according to The Education Trust.
One of the reasons Black women owe so much more in the years after graduating college is the gender pay gap, experts say.
Gloria Blackwell, CEO of the American Association of University Woman, said because Black women earn less, many are burdened by student debt for the larger part of their career. She described what Black women face in the workplace as the “perfect storm” of both a racial wealth gap and gender pay gap.
“When you are a Black woman and you have this burden of student loans, it impacts every aspect of your life,” Blackwell told ABC News last month. “It impacts whether you can pay for basic living expenses, whether you can afford transportation or even the rent in order to have a decent place to live, let alone save for a house or be able to start a family or take care of your family. It’s a burden on Black women on whether they can save for retirement or afford rent or be able to move to a better neighborhood.”
Black women enroll in college at higher rates than other groups. However, a 2020 report from the Lean In organization found that the gender pay gap is largest for Black women who have bachelor’s degrees.
“Black women are ambitious — they’re more likely than white men (35%) and white women (26%) to say they want to become top executives,” the report stated. “But even in the same job, Black women are paid less than white men.”
Experts including Blackwell and Nicole Mason, president and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, say the solution for closing the gender pay gap for Black women needs to come from both the government and private sectors.
On the federal level, Mason said the passage of legislation like the Paycheck Fairness Act can help promote pay equity and transparency, while enforcement of existing civil rights and equal employment laws can help lower workplace discrimination.
“Employers have a role to play in terms of making sure there is pay equity and making sure that women across the board earn what they’re worth and the skills and talents they bring to the table,” Mason previously told ABC News. “And as a culture and a society, we have a lot of work to do in terms of breaking gender stereotypes around women in the workplace, their value and how much women should be paid for their work.”
(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Fiona strengthened to a Category 4 storm on Wednesday, after killing at least four people in Puerto Rico and leaving the entire island without power.
The storm dropped 6 to 20 inches of rain in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with up to 30 inches of rain falling in southern and southeastern Puerto Rico. The rain caused rivers to rise over their banks and triggered rock and mudslides, according to officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
As of early Wednesday morning, the storm system was carrying maximum sustained winds of 130 miles per hour as it moved away from Turks and Caicos after dropping heavy rains over parts of the islands. Winds could possibly increase to 140 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
Fiona is expected to move parallel to the eastern United States, passing between the East Coast and Bermuda late Thursday into early Friday, the National Weather Service said.
The East Coast could see high surf, rip currents and even coastal flooding over the coming days. Meanwhile, a tropical storm watch remains in effect for Bermuda, which could see heavy rain, gusty winds and coastal flooding on Thursday night and Friday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
FEMA officials said during a press conference Tuesday that at least four people have died in Puerto Rico due to Fiona. A public health emergency was declared in the U.S. territory.
On Monday, officials reported that one person was killed as the then-Category 1 storm slammed the island. The Arecibo resident was attempting to fill his generator with gasoline while it was on, causing an ignition, officials said.
No one has been reported missing as of Tuesday afternoon, according to Steve Goldstein, the National Weather Service’s liaison to FEMA.
FEMA officials were still assessing the extent of the damage in Puerto Rico, saying it is too early to estimate the financial impact of the storm.
Fiona made a second landfall Monday in the Dominican Republic near Boca de Yuma on the eastern side of the island with sustained winds of 90 mph and even higher gusts.
Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi warned residents that more rain was expected on the island through Tuesday evening.
“We are going through a difficult moment but our people are strong and very generous,” he said during a press conference.
Four helicopters are in the air surveying damage from Fiona. The governor said it would take at least a week to determine the extent of the damage left by the storm.
In addition to the four deaths cited by FEMA, at least two other people died in a shelter due to natural causes, but those have not been labeled as storm-related, Pierluisi said.
Restoring power in Puerto Rico
LUMA Energy said that only 300,000 out of 1.5 million clients have had power restored on the island as of Tuesday morning, with more expected in the coming days.
“We assure you that a large part of Puerto Rico will have electricity today and tomorrow,” Abner Gomez, spokesperson for LUMA Energy, said at a press conference Tuesday.
In an update Tuesday afternoon, FEMA said that 80% of customers still remain without power.
The governor said Monday the goal is for “a large number of LUMA customers” to have power “in a matter of days.” However, LUMA said in a statement Sunday that “full power restoration could take several days.”
Hospitals on the island are currently operating on generators, according to the governor.
Only 34% of households on the island have potable water after rivers grew and heavy rainfall impacted the system — meaning more than 834,000 people are without drinking water, the governor said Monday.
More than 1,000 people have been rescued by authorities, including a woman rescued Sunday who was stuck in a tree for seven hours after trying to look at the damage, officials said.
Heavy rainfall causes flooding across the island
Fiona strengthened to a hurricane from a tropical storm Sunday morning. The National Hurricane Center said Fiona made landfall in southwestern Puerto Rico on Sunday at 3:20 p.m. ET, dumping torrential rain on much of the island.
Some regions measured up to 25 inches of rain by 8 a.m. Monday.
A flash flood emergency was issued due to many rivers rising very quickly out of their banks. The Rio Grande de Arecido river rose 13 feet in one hour.
A bridge near Utuado, a town in the central mountainous region of the island, has collapsed, cutting off the communities of Salto Arriba and Guaonico, local newspaper El Vocero de Puerto Rico reported.
The portion of the bridge that collapsed is on Highway 123, a branch of Highway 10, which serves as a link between both roads and is one of the accesses to the University of Puerto Rico at Utuado campus, according to El Vocero.
The bridge, installed by the National Guard following Hurricane Maria, cost about $3 million to construct, the newspaper reported.
The rain saturated areas in the southeastern part of Puerto Rico, along with the mountainous areas, where potential mudslides could cause the most damage.
Prior to landfall, Pierluisi said Puerto Rico was prepared as it could be, with enough resources and manpower in place to respond — adding that the island learned its lessons from the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria in September 2017.
“We’re much in a much better position than we were five years ago,” he said.
Where Fiona heads next
After passing through the Caribbean, the storm system will head northward, passing just east of Turks and Caicos before tracking near Bermuda, forecasts show. The storm system will continue to gradually strengthen in the coming days as it moves north and then northeast this week.
The Dominican Republic is expected to receive up to 10 inches and some regions in Turks and Caicos are expected to see 8 inches of rain.
On Tuesday, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic will continue to see gradually improving conditions, however, lingering showers and thunderstorms will still be likely, potentially impacting initial cleanup and recovery efforts.
Winds could be as high as 125 mph as the storm passes near Bermuda, bringing strong winds, heavy rain and storm surge. The latest model shows Bermuda will not see a direct hit, with the worst of the storm passing just west of the island.
While it won’t make landfall in the U.S., the hurricane will affect the entire East Coast with huge waves, rip currents and coastal flooding from Florida to Maine as it moves northward.
President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico on Sunday, which allows federal agencies to coordinate all relief efforts.
Biden’s decision has the “purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in all 78 municipalities in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,” the White House said in a statement.
FEMA Administrator Deanna Criswell arrived in Puerto Rico on Tuesday to coordinate the emergency response, the White House said. “Hundreds” of federal responders are already on the island, including members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
(NEW YORK) — When terrible things happen, like the kidnapping and murder of Memphis, Tennessee teacher Eliza Fletcher, many wonder what could have been done to prevent it.
A young woman who said she was sexually assaulted by the same suspect in the murder of Fletcher said police did not do enough for her case — and failed Fletcher.
“I’m angry. Not a day goes by that I didn’t think about this,” said Alicia Franklin.
Franklin, 22, spoke to ABC News’ Good Morning America in her first television interview.
Franklin was allegedly assaulted by suspect Cleotha Abston Henderson a year before Fletcher went missing, but the DNA results from her rape kit were not reported until after Fletcher disappeared.
“They had more than enough evidence that night when they interviewed me to get him off the streets. But they didn’t,” Franklin told ABC’s Erielle Reshef.
Henderson only appeared in court last week for charges related to Franklin’s incident, including especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated rape and illegal possession of a firearm after results from the submitted 2021 rape kit linked him to Franklin’s case. He pleaded not guilty.
Franklin and her lawyers contend that if Franklin’s rape kit had been processed sooner, authorities would’ve been able to identify Henderson and get him off the streets.
“I didn’t want to believe it because I just never thought that my case would have [been] tied to [Fletcher’s] case. I was shocked,” she said. “I’m still kind of trying to process everything.”
In Sept. 2021, Franklin said she met a man who went by “Cleo” on an online dating site and the two texted and talked on the phone for weeks before finally planning to meet in-person for a dinner date.
She said she agreed to pick him up from what he claimed was his apartment, which she says turned out to be abandoned.
“When we walked in the house, he put a gun to my neck,” said Franklin, who said he brought her to a White Dodge Charger behind the apartment. “He forced me in the car, he raped me.”
At the time, Franklin says she was four months pregnant.
“I told him I was pregnant. He didn’t care,” she said.
Afterwards, Franklin said he brought her back into the vacant apartment at gunpoint before he left in a car and Franklin escaped.
She said the next thing she did was drive herself to the hospital, then to a Rape Crisis Center, where she was given a rape kit and interviewed by sex crimes detective. She said, on the night of her attack, she gave authorities the man’s phone number, walked them through the crime scene, described his car, his dating profile and all the details of the assault.
Franklin said she was told at the time that there was “not enough evidence” to charge the man for rape. Over the next year, she said she kept pressing authorities for answers, but felt she was given the “runaround.”
GMA reached out to the Memphis Police Department for comment, but did not receive a response. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) said they were unable to answer specific questions about Franklin’s case, but offered a statement.
“TBI’s role in forensic processing of evidence and providing the results of that analysis is to support law enforcement investigations,” the TBI said in part of a statement. “We do not make decisions on how the information we provide is utilized. That decision is solely made by the investigative agency, usually in consultation with the prosecuting attorney.”
Franklin is now suing the city of Memphis and the apartment complex where she says the attack happened.
Earlier this month, Henderson was charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and tampering with evidence in connection to Fletcher’s disappearance. Henderson has yet to enter a plea to the charges stemming from Fletcher’s homicide.
After Fletcher’s body was found near a vacant duplex, Henderson was also charged with first-degree murder, premeditated murder and first-degree perpetration of kidnapping.
Fletcher, a married mother of two, was last seen jogging near the University of Memphis campus early in the morning, when she was approached by a man and forced into a dark-colored GMC Terrain, which was caught on surveillance video.
If her case had been processed sooner, Franklin claims that Fletcher’s death could have been prevented.
“I definitely believe she would have still been alive today,” she said.
