(FLAT ROCK, Mich.) — A gas leak that likely originated at a Ford Motor Company assembly plant in Michigan has prompted health officials to recommend that residents evacuate as the fumes from the fuel drift to nearby neighborhoods.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the Wayne County Health Department have urged people living east of Interstate 75 in Flat Rock, Michigan, about 30 miles southwest of Detroit, to leave their homes until further notice due to the possible presence of hazardous fumes from the fuel spill, according to a joint news release from the agencies.
The chemical of concern is the carcinogen benzene, a flammable and colorless liquid used to make other chemicals and can be hazardous to humans, according to the Michigan state health agency. Benzene is typically found in gasoline, crude oil and tobacco smoke.
Breathing in large amounts of Benzene, which has a sweet odor, can cause sleepiness, dizziness, headaches, vomiting or rapid heart rate. Long and short-term exposure can increase the risk of cancer, cause blood problems and harm the immune system, state health officials said.
More than 6 parts per billion of Benzene has been measured in sanitary sewers and some homes, but not every home, officials said.
“We don’t believe there is any imminent danger to residents at this time,” MDHHS Director Elizabeth Hertel told reporters at a news conference Sunday. “However, we are acting out of an abundance of caution at this time.”
On Friday, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy identified the Ford Motor Company assembly plant at Flat Rock as the fuel source of benzene found in Detroit sewers.
Initial estimates indicate that between 1,000 and 3,000 gallons of fuel leaked from the plant, said Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy spokeswoman Jill Greenberg, the Detroit Free Press reported. Firefighting foam is being used to suppress the vapors.
A representative for Ford did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
It is unclear when the leak occurred, but Ford discovered “what originally looked like a small leak in a pipe that carries gasoline used to fuel vehicles built at the plant” on Wednesday afternoon, Bob Holycross, vice president of sustainability, environment and safety engineering for Ford, said in a statement Friday.
“We shut down the fuel pipe, called in experts to remove gas from a containment tank and the primary storage tank, and notified officials of what we found,” Holycross said. “We believed then that the leak was contained to our property.”
Personnel are “urgently” working to address the fuel spill at the plant, which was closed over the Labor Day weekend, Holycross said, apologizing for the leak.
Although the evacuations are contained to a specific region, a larger area is expected to have been impacted by the gas leak, health officials said.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency last week in response to the spill.
“My top priority is ensuring that every resource is available to the city of Flat Rock, Wayne County, and Monroe County to determine where the odor originated so that we can clean up the affected area and prevent further harm,” Whitmer said in a statement.
(WASHINGTON) — Faced with new opposition to his domestic agenda from a key Democratic senator, one of President Joe Biden’s top advisers said the White House is “still full steam ahead on trying to get our legislation passed.”
“Look, Senator Manchin is a valued partner, we’re going to continue to work with him, but we’re also going to continue to push our agenda,” senior adviser to the president Cedric Richmond said on “This Week” Sunday, pressed by anchor George Stephanopoulos on how it will pass without the senator’s support.
“It’s not abnormal for this to happen in the legislative process … we’re still full steam ahead on trying to get our legislation passed,” he added.
With Congress set to return from recess next Monday, the fate of the president’s agenda is uncertain after moderate Sen. Joe Manchin declared in an op-ed Thursday that he would not support the $3.5 trillion budget resolution that Democrats alone, including Manchin, took the first step in passing last month through a process called reconciliation. Manchin called for a “strategic pause” on that bill, which contains many of Biden’s “human infrastructure” priorities, including health care, child care and revamping the nation’s energy sector to address climate change.
With significant Republican support, the Senate has also passed a $1 trillion traditional infrastructure bill, but progressive Democrats have threatened to try to tank the smaller package if the $3.5 trillion bill is not also passed.
Richmond cited Hurricane Ida, which caused over one million customers in Louisiana to lose power while killing at least 67 people across eight states, as evidence the United States needs to both invest in its infrastructure and in combating climate change. Richmond, a former congressman for Louisiana, accompanied the president to his home state to survey storm damage Friday.
“People should see now more than ever, how important it is to have resiliency and to shore up our electrical grid and invest in our infrastructure,” Richmond said. “These once in a century storms are starting to come almost every other year they’re bigger, they’re stronger they wreak more havoc. … people should see what the climate change is doing, and we’re going to address that.”
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Biden’s job approval underwater at 44%, down six points since late June as he faces broad criticism for his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Pressed by Stephanopoulos on whether this would make it harder for Biden to get his legislative priorities passed, Richmond brushed the figures aside.
“No, I don’t think so. I think what really will happen is people will start to realize what we need, the challenges that we’re facing,” Richmond said, citing COVID-19 and the hurricane. “We’re meeting the challenges and I think people appreciate that. Does it always bear out in poll numbers? Maybe, maybe not. … This has never been a president who worried about himself. He really worries about the country, so we’re not worried about polling numbers.”
Richmond also weighed in on the president’s response to Texas enacting the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, banning nearly all abortions after about six weeks. Similarly restrictive bills have been struck down by the courts, but the Supreme Court refused to immediately block Texas’s law, which has an unprecedented enforcement mechanism that puts the onus on everyday Americans rather than the government.
“We’re going to do everything we can to try to remedy that situation for people in Texas. It is just a cruel and destructive law on the rights of women,” Richmond said.
Biden has tasked the Department of Justice to look into the law, and also Health and Human Services and the White House Gender Policy Council to look at other options the administration can take to guarantee women still have the right to get a safe abortion, as established by the precedent set by Roe v. Wade, Richmond said.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she will bring forward legislation to codify Roe’s precedent, and Richmond said Biden supports that effort.
(SACRAMENTO) — Gov. Gavin Newsom has just nine days left to convince Californians that he deserves to keep his job. Now, some of the biggest Democrats nationally are traveling to the Golden State to help the governor make his case.
Three years into his first term in charge of the nation’s most populous state, Newsom is fighting to hold the job in the face of a recall vote he’s criticized as a partisan effort by Republicans.
In a bid to energize his base, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren kicked off a weekend of campaign stops for the governor in Culver City on Saturday, while Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is set to join Newsom at a rally in Southern California on Sunday. And after canceling a campaign trip last week, Vice President Kamala Harris is set to travel to the Bay Area Wednesday, according to Symone Sanders, Harris’ chief spokesperson.
“[Warren] commented, ‘Well this is like the entire presidential campaign,'” Newsom joked in a sit-down interview Friday with ABC News’ Zohreen Shah. “I’m so honored, but more importantly, they’re these strong women, and I think that’s one thing those three have in common.”
The governor added the support from Warren showed how high the stakes are for the recall.
“The consequences of California turning red not blue are profound in terms of the agenda that the senator is advancing, [President Joe] Biden is advancing,” Newsom said.
The results of the recall — a two-part ballot asking voters if they want to recall the governor, and if so, with whom — may depend as much on apathy as Newsom’s record in office.
“At the end of the day, if you can get more Democrats out, he’ll be fine,” Michelle Jeung, a Democratic strategist and partner at women-led political research firm MJE Strategies, told ABC News. “They need the national figures, because they don’t necessarily feel highly motivated by Gavin himself.”
Conservative radio host Larry Elder is the front-runner among Newsom’s opponents, according to FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker, though he’s polling at just 22.6%. But in a fractured field of alternates to Newsom — including 29-year-old YouTube star Kevin Paffrath; businessman John Cox, who lost to Newsom in 2018’s election; and former Olympian and reality star Caitlyn Jenner — Elder could still be elected governor if more than 50% of voters vote to recall the governor.
Ying Ma, Elder’s communication director, panned Newsom’s effort to call in national reinforcements.
“Involving others to try to rescue him merely shows that he’s in trouble and are desperately afraid of being kicked out of office very soon,” Ma told ABC News.
The push to excite Californians around Newsom comes with recent polling showing a tight race — just 52.1% of voters say they’ll vote to keep him, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average.
The embattled governor enjoyed some promising news this week though. A new poll from the Public Policy Institute of California showed 58% of likely voters will vote “no” on the recall.
“[We’re] taking nothing for granted,” Newsom told ABC News.
Warren, who like Klobuchar and Harris ran for president in 2020, made the argument that she’s in California because “fights are happening right now at the state level.”
“Look at Texas — a governor who is working hard to take away a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body and to block access to abortion,” Warren said, referring to the newly enacted law targeting abortion. “Look at what’s happening in Florida — a governor who’s saying that when public schools want to try to protect kids and teachers with masks that he’s going to cut off their funding.”
Both the governor and the senator made sure to emphasize the outcome of this recall wouldn’t just affect the 40 million Americans that live in California, but would have profound consequences across the country as Democrats look toward 2022 with a split Senate and narrow majority in the House.
“It’s democracy that’s at stake here,” Warren explained, adding a warning to Californians not motivated to vote because they think Newsom has a surefire victory. “If they don’t show up, people in California could wake up tomorrow and Larry Elder could be their governor and the rights that have so defined California for so long, just gone.”
When asked about the different decisions he could’ve made that might’ve prevented the race from being so close, Newsom said, “The last 18 months have been hard on everyone. … I’m trying to focus on our resiliency, let folks now we have their backs, they matter, we care.”
He added, “All of us need to raise the bar of expectation in terms of the work we do and our support for people that are still struggling and falling behind.”
(WASHINGTON) — Three people were killed and three others were wounded in Washington, D.C., in what police suspect was a “targeted” shooting by gunmen who jumped out of a car and opened fire on a group standing near a street corner, authorities said.
The triple-homicide unfolded about 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday in the Brightwood Park neighborhood in the northern part of the nation’s capital, Chief Robert Contee of the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department said at a news conference.
Contee said police officers were in the area when they heard multiple gunshots and raced to the intersection of Seventh and Longfellow streets, where they found six people shot.
He said the wounded individuals were taken to hospitals, where three of them, two men and a woman, were pronounced dead. He said the others suffered non-life-threatening wounds.
On Sunday morning, police identified those killed as 31-year-old Donnetta Dyson, 24-year-old Keenan Braxton and 37-year-old Johnny Joyner, all of Washington, D.C.
Contee released a still image taken near the scene by a police surveillance camera of a dark-colored, four-door Honda Accord the suspected shooters fled the scene in.
“We believe the suspects in this vehicle exited, fired shots into a crowd of individuals that were in the 600 block of Longfellow Street,” Contee said.
He said a reward of $75,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the suspects and added, “I’m pleading for the community’s help” in solving the crime.
Contee said investigators suspect multiple shooters opened fire. He said a firearm was recovered at the scene of the shooting.
“The motive still being investigated,” Contee said. “It appears there were individuals who were hanging out on the block and these individuals for whatever reason were targeted.”
Like in other major cities across the county, shootings and homicides have been on the rise in the District of Columbia. Homicides are up 14% compared to the same period as 2020, and 597 people have been assaulted with guns this year, a 5% increase over last year.
“We know that this issue is not unique to Washington D.C.,” Contee said, “but I think it speaks to the overall sickness that we’re seeing in our community and that sickness is gun violence.”
(NEW YORK) — President Joe Biden and Democrats are using the outcry over the new Texas abortion law to distract from other issues including Afghanistan, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said Sunday.
“(The Supreme Court’s decision) had nothing to do with the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade, it was only on if the plaintiffs had standing, people are using it to gin up their base to distract from disastrous policies in Afghanistan, maybe for fundraising appeals,” Cassidy told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. “I wish we’d focus on issues as opposed to — as opposed to theater.”
The severe new abortion law in Texas bans nearly all abortions in the state. The law makes most abortions illegal after six weeks of pregnancy and encourages anyone to sue a person they believe is providing an abortion or assisting someone in getting an abortion after six weeks.
In a 5-4 decision released late Wednesday night, the Supreme Court rejected a request by Texas abortion providers to block the new law.
Cassidy, who called himself “pro-life,” said the Supreme Court will “swat it away” once the law reaches them “in an appropriate manner.”
“If it is as terrible as people say it is, it will be destroyed by the Supreme Court,” Cassidy added. “But to act like this is an assault upon Roe v. Wade is, again, something the president is doing I think to distract from his other issues.”
Pressed further by Stephanopoulos on whether he thinks the Supreme Court decision signals they plan to overturn Roe v. Wade, Cassidy deflected, instead bringing up Hurricane Ida, Afghanistan and the bipartisan infrastructure deal.
“We can always talk theoreticals,” Cassidy responded. “But I’m kind of a guy who’s in the middle of a state in which 700,000 people don’t have electricity, in which we’ve got a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the administration is pushing a $3.5 trillion bill which will be to inflation what the withdrawal was to Afghanistan.”
Debate continues over the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that many Democrats demand pass in conjunction with the bipartisan infrastructure deal that Cassidy helped negotiate. On Thursday, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for a “strategic pause” on the budget resolution Democrats took the first step in passing last month.
Stephanopoulos asked Cassidy whether Manchin’s op-ed effectively kills the bill.
“You saw Senator Joe Manchin’s statement this week. As far as you’re concerned, does that kill the bill? And if it does, does it worry you that the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the smaller one that you support, will also die?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“Implicit in what Joe said is that he would accept a smaller (reconciliation) bill,” Cassidy responded. “I think a smaller bill is disastrous, but on the other hand, the two are delinked.”
“There’s going to be a vote on September the 27th on the bipartisan infrastructure bill,” Cassidy added. “The very fact that Joe is saying he has to negotiate means that the vote on the $3.5 trillion inflation-igniting bill that comes later will come later.”
Cassidy said he is concerned that if Manchin’s opposition stands, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would not pass the smaller bipartisan bill.
“Of course, I’m concerned about that, which is why I want Republicans to vote for it, too,” Cassidy said. “It should not be a party line vote in the House, it wasn’t in the Senate.”
The infrastructure bill includes provisions for disaster mitigation, which Cassidy brought up, encouraging those planning to vote no to tell people with no power due to Hurricane Ida.
“I say go down to Lafourche and Terrebonne Parish, to people who will not have electricity back until September 29th and tell them you’re going to vote against a bill which hardens our grid, which gives coastal restoration dollars, which has flood mitigation, which will build levees and protect Louisiana and other states from natural disasters, go to those parishes and tell them whatever cockamamie reason you have to vote no,” Cassidy said.
Hurricane Ida made landfall on Aug. 26, 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina did in 2005. The hurricane has left at least 67 dead in eight states.
On Thursday, Cassidy penned a letter to Biden requesting emergency disaster relief for Louisiana and met with him in his state on Friday.
Asked whether he is satisfied with Biden’s initial response, Cassidy told Stephanopoulos the situation is getting better.
“The federal partners have been there,” Cassidy said. “And so, I compliment the federal partners and thank them for that, but we need gasoline and we need electricity and we need housing. And then we need to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill for the long term.”
On the other crisis his state is battling — COVID-19 — Cassidy, a physician, said the delta variant case count is falling but vaccine rates remain low. He also encouraged people to get vaccinated.
“Our immunization rates are still way too low and our ICUs still have too many patients related to what is essentially a vaccine-preventable disease,” Cassidy said. “Yes, it’s getting better, but we can imagine future waves.”
(NEW YORK) — Vaccine hesitancy has subsided in the face of the delta surge, with the share of Americans who are disinclined to get a coronavirus shot now just half what it was last January. Support for mask mandates is broad and President Joe Biden’s approval for handling the pandemic has dropped sharply.
Alongside the steep rise in cases, there’s been a jump in perceived risk of catching the virus, from 29% in late June to 47% now, the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll finds. Yet worries about the consequences of infection are moderate, expressed by 39%, partly reflecting broad awareness of vaccine efficacy.
While 75% of adults have gotten a shot, per data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some hesitancy persists. Among unvaccinated adults, about 7 in 10 are skeptical of the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness, 9 in 10 see vaccination as a personal choice rather than a broader responsibility and just 16% have been encouraged by someone close to them to get a shot. Each is an impediment to uptake.
Further, few unvaccinated Americans, 16%, say the FDA’s approval of the Pfizer vaccine makes them more likely to get a shot; 82% say it makes no difference. And among those who work, again just 16% say they’d get a shot if their employer required it; many more say they’d quit.
The poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, finds approval of Biden’s handling of the pandemic dropping steeply, from 62% in June to 52% now. Forty-one percent disapprove, with the rest undecided. (Biden’s overall approval rating is just 44%, pulled down by criticism of his handling of the Afghanistan pullout, as reported Friday.)
Policies
On the policy front, the survey finds broad support for mask mandates, with smaller majorities lining up behind vaccine requirements:
Sixty-seven percent support school districts requiring students, faculty and staff to wear masks. As many support state or local orders requiring masks in public places.
Fifty-nine percent support school vaccine mandates for teachers and staff; 54% support this for students if a vaccine is approved for their age group. Public school parents, though, are less apt to support student mandates – 47% vs. 56% among others.
Close to half of all adults, 52%, support businesses requiring vaccination for employees who come into work – but that ranges from 45% among people who work for pay to 66% of all others. Many fewer people who work for an employer, 18%, say their employer currently has a vaccine mandate in place.
Marking the strength of vaccine resistance among some Americans, if a workplace mandate were imposed, three-quarters of unvaccinated workers say they’d quit their job (42%) or seek a health or religious exemption (35%). If those who sought an exemption didn’t get one, most say they’d then quit. In all, assuming no exemptions, 72% of unvaccinated workers not currently facing a workplace mandate threaten to walk if faced with one.
On the issue of vaccine information, one-third of unvaccinated Americans say they’ve heard or read things about the vaccines that have swayed them against getting a shot. (Many may have been predisposed to be receptive to that kind of information in the first place.) Just 4% say they’ve been swayed in favor, likely because nearly all such people are vaccinated by now. Sixty-two percent of the unvaccinated report no impact of what they’ve heard or read.
The survey touches on a few items unrelated to the pandemic. In one result, Biden has a 45-49% approval rating for handling the economy, with approval down 7 percentage points since it last was measured in April. Also 53% support $3.5 trillion in federal spending on new or expanded social programs, educational assistance and efforts to address climate change. Forty-one percent are opposed.
Vaccine attitudes
As noted, 47% of Americans think they have a high or moderate risk of getting sick from the coronavirus, up sharply from 29% in June as the delta variant has surged. Still, just 39% are worried about it, with only 7% very worried. (Worry is broader among vaccinated people, at 45% vs. the unvaccinated at 22%.)
In a different question in January, many more expressed concerns about infection: 60% overall were worried that they or a family member might get sick. That peaked at 69% at the start of the pandemic in the United States in March 2020.
About 7 in 10 Americans see the vaccines as safe and as many call them effective. Yet there are compunctions. Many fewer — 43% — call them very safe or very effective. And 27% don’t think they’re safe or effective. Vaccine hesitancy soars among people who hold these doubts; in a statistical analysis called regression, they’re crucial predictors of not getting a shot. As noted, among the unvaccinated, seven in 10 question vaccine safety and efficacy.
Another key predictor of vaccine uptake is the sense that it’s a responsibility to protect others, not just a personal choice. Yet the public only divides on this: 50% call it a personal choice; 48%, a broader responsibility. Among unvaccinated people, the share calling it a personal choice soars to 91%, and 8 in 10 of them feel strongly about this. Among the vaccinated, by contrast, 62% say it’s a responsibility to others.
Two other predictors of getting vaccinated, albeit weaker ones, are a sense that people who care about you want you to get a shot and one’s level of worry about getting infected.
In the first, fewer than half of adults overall, 47%, say someone who cares about them has encouraged them to get vaccinated. About as many, 43%, say those who care about them have stayed out of it; 5% say they’ve been actively discouraged from taking action.
Notably, among unvaccinated adults, only 16% say people who care about them have encouraged them to get a shot, versus 58% among vaccinated adults — evidence of how establishing a social norm of vaccination is another way to encourage uptake.
Groups
Lingering vaccine hesitancy — defined as people who say they definitely or probably will not get the coronavirus vaccine (as noted, 17% overall) — is especially high among rural residents (36%), very conservative people (36%), Republicans (30%), conservatives overall (30%), evangelical white Protestants (28%) and those with no more than a high school diploma (26%).
Attitudinally hesitancy peaks among those who lack confidence in the vaccines’ safety (57%) and effectiveness (52%). It’s 33% among those who think they have no risk of getting sick from the coronavirus and essentially the same (32%) among those who see getting vaccinated as personal choice rather than a broader responsibility.
By contrast, hesitancy is lowest among those with a post-graduate degree (6%), liberals (6%), Democrats (4%), those who’ve been encouraged to get vaccinated by people close to them (4%), those with confidence in the vaccines’ effectiveness (4%) or safety (2%) and those who see getting vaccinated as a broader responsibility (1%).
Methodology
This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Aug. 29-Sept. 1, 2021, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,006 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 30-24-36%, Democrats-Republicans-independents. In addition to traditional sample weights for age, race/ethnicity, sex and education, results were adjusted to reflect CDC vaccination rates.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Maryland. See details on the survey’s methodology here.
(NEW YORK) — A Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston has turned into a “crisis center” in the days after the most restrictive abortion law in the nation went into effect in Texas, with women desperate and begging for care, a distraught staffer told ABC News.
“People don’t know where to go,” Doris Dixon, who oversees patient access at the clinic, said in an emotional interview Friday with Rachel Scott for “Good Morning America.”
As of Wednesday, physicians in Texas are banned from providing abortions once they detect a fetal heartbeat, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy — before many women even know they’re pregnant.
The same day the law went into effect, one woman came in for a regular checkup at the Planned Parenthood clinic, Dixon said. During her checkup, she found out she was five-and-a-half weeks pregnant — still eligible for a legal abortion. But that same day, she also tested positive for COVID-19. By the time her mandated self-isolation will end, she’ll be too far along in her pregnancy to get an abortion under the new Texas law, Dixon said.
“To hear her beg for someone to help her was hard, she was begging,” Dixon said. “For me, I was trying very hard not to cry but the tears were coming down, they were there.”
Out-of-state clinics anticipate a surge in patients due to the law, which has increased the average miles a Texan must drive one-way to seek an abortion from 12 miles to 248, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization.
Dixon said some women she’s spoken to don’t have the financial means or the access to child care to travel out of state for an abortion.
“I’m angry. I’m actually angry because this is an attack on people’s constitutional rights to seek these services. And it’s between them and their doctors,” Dixon said with tears in her eyes.
As of Friday, Dixon estimated 70% of the women who called in seeking abortion care this week were turned away.
“They’ve relied on Planned Parenthood for years and we don’t have the answers,” Dixon said, again fighting back tears. “We usually have the answers — we don’t have the answers.”
Dixon has been working at Planned Parenthood in Houston for 13 years. This is the “worst” she has “ever seen it.”
“I feel like I take it personally,” Dixon said, choking back tears. “I have failed in my goal to help people.”
She said she fears this law will lead to high-risk attempts to self-abort pregnancies. The clinic has already seen at least one woman this week who tried to terminate her pregnancy herself after the Texas law went into effect, she said.
Before Wednesday, no law banned abortions earlier than 20 weeks of pregnancy nationwide. Many states had tried to enact early gestational bans, but they had all been blocked by courts.
The Supreme Court refused to block Texas’ law, which allows anyone to sue a person they believe is providing an abortion or assisting someone in getting an abortion after six weeks. The law does not make exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape.
On Friday, Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas won a court battle to protect their employees from some lawsuits. A judge granted them a temporary restraining order against Texas Right to Life, stopping the largest anti-abortion rights group in the state from suing Planned Parenthood abortion providers and health care workers under the law.
“This restraining order offers protection to the brave health care providers and staff at Planned Parenthood health centers throughout Texas, who have continued to offer care as best they can within the law while facing surveillance, harassment, and threats from vigilantes eager to stop them,” Helene Krasnoff, vice president for public policy litigation and law, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Texas Right to Life told ABC News the group is “undeterred” by the legal defeat and would not be “intimidated” by Planned Parenthood.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Navy has declared five sailors dead after they went missing following the crash of their helicopter off the coast of southern California on Tuesday.
“U.S. 3rd Fleet has shifted from search and rescue efforts to recovery operations, Sept. 4,” according to a statement.
The helicopter, based on the USS Abraham Lincoln, was conducting routine flight operations aboard the carrier when it crashed into the sea approximately 60 nautical miles off the coast of San Diego at 4:30 p.m. PDT on Tuesday.
A sailor aboard the helicopter was rescued shortly after the crash and three others who had been on the carrier’s deck were found injured. But five soldiers remained unaccounted for.
Over the next 72 hours, Navy and Coast Guard ships and helicopters carried out extensive flight and sea operations in search of the five missing sailors.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of five Sailors and those injured following the MH-60S helicopter tragedy off the coast of Southern California,” Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of Naval Operations, said in a statement. “We stand alongside their families, loved ones, and shipmates who grieve.”
The Navy said the crash is under investigation and that the names of the five sailors will be made public 24 hours after the last notification was made to families.
(NEW YORK) — After touring storm damage from Hurricane Ida in Louisiana on Friday, President Joe Biden will travel to the Northeast next, the White House said.
Overall, there have been at least 64 deaths across eight U.S. states related to Ida, including at least 49 in the Northeast.
New Jersey has seen the greatest loss of life tied to Ida, with at least 25 people dead and at least six people still missing as of Friday. Three tornadoes also were confirmed in New Jersey as the storm swept through Wednesday, mostly in the southern part of the state.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy confirmed on Twitter he will be joining Biden on the tour.
On Tuesday, @POTUS and I will survey devastating damage from Tropical Storm Ida in Manville. We’re grateful for the President’s leadership and support as we recover from this storm. Together, we will help New Jerseyans rebuild.https://t.co/srIK5Fepyc
In New York City, at least 13 people died due to the storm. All but two were found in basement apartments.
On Friday, Biden traveled to Louisiana to survey damage caused by Hurricane Ida.
“This storm has been incredible, not only here but all the way up the East Coast,” Biden told local officials in hard-hit LaPlace, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans.
“We came because we want to hear directly from you all, what specific problems you’ve been dealing with,” he said.
Biden told local officials he thought it was important to rebuild damaged infrastructure in a more resilient manner, such as placing power lines underground or making roofs stronger, and he spoke of the need to restore cellphone service so that residents can get in touch with loved ones and also learn about resources available to them.
Nearly a week after the storm, over 727,000 customers in Louisiana still remain without power statewide, according to data from PowerOutage.us.
The president also surveyed storm damage in the Cambridge neighborhood and took part in an aerial briefing by helicopter to Galliano, south of New Orleans, on Friday, according to the White House.
Before Hurricane Ida made landfall as a powerful Category 4 storm Sunday, Biden approved emergency declarations for Louisiana and Mississippi, authorizing FEMA to provide emergency assistance.
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who made history as the first openly gay Cabinet member to be confirmed by the Senate, and husband Chasten Buttigieg are officially fathers — twice over.
After announcing last month that the two were expanding their family, the former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana, mayor, officially introduced the couple’s new babies, sharing a black-and-white photo on social media of him and his husband each cradling a newborn in a hospital bed.
“Chasten and I are beyond thankful for all the kind wishes since first sharing the news that we’re becoming parents,” Pete Buttigieg said on Twitter. “We are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg to our family.”
Chasten and I are beyond thankful for all the kind wishes since first sharing the news that we’re becoming parents. We are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg to our family. pic.twitter.com/kS89gb11Ax
Pete Buttigieg, 39, said in a Twitter post last month that he and his husband were wanting to grow their family “for some time,” and they would “share more soon” on becoming parents.
The couple married in 2018. In an interview with The Washington Post in July, Chasten Buttigieg, 32, detailed their experience getting on adoption waiting lists for babies that have been abandoned or surrendered on short notice. He told the newspaper they had been trying to adopt for a year and had several close calls.
“It’s a really weird cycle of anger and frustration and hope,” he said in the interview. “You think it’s finally happening and you get so excited, and then it’s gone.”
While answering questions about his views on paid family leave on the campaign trail back in April 2019, Pete Buttigieg also spoke about wanting to have children.
“We’re hoping to have a little one soon, so I have a personal stake in this one, too,” he said at a rally. “We should have paid parental leave and find a way to have paid leave for anyone who needs caring.”
Pete Buttigieg has not yet revealed his plans for paternity leave.
ABC News’ Morgan Gstalter contributed to this report.
