(GAYLORD, Mich.) — A mysterious illness that killed over a dozen dogs in northern Michigan has been identified, officials said.
The Otsego County Animal Shelter said in a statement Aug. 19 that over 20 dogs in the county had died due to a “parvo-like” illness, a disease that’s highly contagious and often deadly in dogs. The shelter’s director, Melissa Fitzgerald, released a statement on Aug. 9 saying that most of the dogs who died were less than 2 years old and died within three days of showing symptoms.
On Wednesday, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Michigan State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory confirmed that the disease was canine parvovirus.
In their initial tests, Fitzgerald said the tests came back negative for parvovirus, and the “best guess” was that the cause of death was a new strain of the virus.
Officials said the affected dogs did not have a history of complete vaccination.
According to the Otsego County Animal Shelter, the illness is not affecting one breed over another, but appears to be more common in puppies and elderly dogs.
“This situation is complex because although the dogs displayed clinical signs suggestive of parvovirus, they consistently test negative by point-of-care tests performed in clinics and shelters,” MSU Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory Director Kim Dodd said in a statement Wednesday.
“Screening tests for parvo are done to help guide immediate isolation, disinfection, and treatment protocols. While those tests are valuable in the clinical setting, they are not as sensitive as the diagnostic tests we can perform here in the laboratory. We continue to further characterize the virus in hopes of better understanding why those animals were testing negative on screening tests,” she added.
“When MDARD first learned of these cases in northern Michigan, we immediately reached out to the veterinarians and animal shelters involved and began our response efforts,” Wineland said in a statement on Monday. “Protecting animal and public health is one of the department’s key pillars, but it is a team effort. Dog owners need to ensure their pet is up to date on routine vaccinations as it’s the first step in keeping your pet healthy.”
Jennifer Holton, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, told ABC News that because parvovirus is not a reportable disease, officials are mostly working with anecdotal information.
“Parvo is an incredibly hardy virus,” Holton said. “And by that, I mean it can survive various temperatures and all kinds of things.”
Holton said it’s essential for pet owners to get their dogs vaccinated and alert their veterinarian if they see signs of illness in their dogs.
She added that proper cleanup, to halt the spread of the disease through fecal matter, is also essential, particularly in high capacity areas like shelters, doggy day cares and other animal-friendly places.
While the mystery surrounding the current death rates is concerning, Holton said officials have the investigation under control.
“The word ‘panic’ has been used a lot; that is certainly not what we’re doing here,” Holton said. “Prioritizing animal health is one of the key fundamentals of what our animal industry division in this department does on the daily.”
(NEW YORK) — Come January, 25-year-old Maxwell Frost will likely be the first member of Generation Z elected to Congress.
Frost is projected to win Florida’s 10th Congressional District Democratic primary, held Tuesday, ABC News reports. Frost defeated Randolph Bracy, whom much of the party establishment backed.
Following his projected win, Frost thanked his community for supporting his campaign.
“I love this community and my decade-long fight for everything and everyone in it is just getting started,” he said in a press release.
Frost, who just turned 25 this year, was a national organizer for the ACLU and then became the national organizing director of March for Our Lives, a youth-led organization dedicated to ending gun violence.
If he wins in November — when he’ll face military veteran Calvin Wimbish — he will fill the reliably blue seat of Rep. Val Demings, who on Tuesday won the Democratic nomination for Florida’s Senate race.
Frost has the backing of leading progressives like Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey and Bernie Sanders.
He spoke with ABC News in March about his run for Congress, saying then that he believes it’s time to elect younger leaders who better represent the values and ideas that the younger voters care about and want to see.
Some of the major issues Frost ran on include gun control, “Medicare for All” and addressing climate change.
The 2022 election cycle marks the first-time members of Generation Z — those born after 1996 — are eligible to run for seats in the House of Representatives, where legislators must be 25 years old by the time they’re sworn in.
Another Gen-Zer may join Frost in Congress in the new year: Karoline Leavitt, a former congressional and Trump White House aide who is running in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District Republican primary, will be on the ballot in September, when she will learn if she continues to the general election in November.
(NEW YORK) — Democrats are projected to win a special House election in New York on Tuesday in a race seen as a potential bellwether for this year’s midterms, ABC News reports.
The contest between Democrat Pat Ryan and Republican Marc Molinaro in New York’s 19th Congressional District was sparked when Democratic Rep. Antonio Delgado was appointed lieutenant governor.
Ryan and Molinaro, both of whom are local county executives, were running in the 19th as it existed prior to redistricting. But the seat being decided in Tuesday’s special election will cease to exist in January — and both candidates ran in primaries for separate seats on Tuesday as well.
The 19th has been among the swingiest in the country, with President Joe Biden carrying it by fewer than 2 points in 2020 and former President Donald Trump winning it by about 7 points in 2016.
With 99% of the expected vote being reported on Tuesday, Ryan was leading Molinaro 51-49.
The special election was seen as potentially indicative because of the messages tested by the two candidates — each trying to motivate their base and sway independents.
Molinaro focused on inflation, which remains at decades-long highs. Ryan, meanwhile, campaigned heavily on abortion access, saying it was a “freedom” issue after the Supreme Court this summer reversed Roe v. Wade.
Republicans continue to point to polls showing that the economy is among voters’ top concerns and that Biden gets poor approval ratings.
However, Democrats say that voters will be motivated by the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion and argue that the recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, among other major legislative priorities, could blunt the electoral impact from headwinds like inflation.
(NEW YORK) — New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler is projected to defeat Rep. Carolyn Maloney, ABC News reports, after a bitter incumbent-on-incumbent primary on Tuesday that forced Manhattan Democratic voters to pick between two senior House lawmakers.
With about 81% of the expected vote reported, Nadler won with 56% over Maloney, who trailed with 25%. Suraj Patel, a 38-year-old attorney and former Obama staffer who ran on a generational argument against the two septuagenarians, came in third place with 18% of the vote so far.
Nadler will be the heavy favorite in the general election in the deep-blue district.
He and Maloney, erstwhile legislative allies both elected in 1992, helm the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, respectively. They were forced into the same district after a heavily gerrymandered map drawn by Democrats during redistricting was thrown out in court, leading an outside third-party mapmaker to redo the decennial lines.
Nadler played a prominent role in former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment and touted the need for New York City to have at least one Jewish lawmaker in its House delegation. Maloney, meanwhile, boasted that Democrats should prioritize keeping a woman in Congress,
The primary became increasingly nasty as Election Day neared.
Nadler highlighted Maloney’s votes on high-profile issues, including her past support for the Iraq War and Bush-era Patriot Act and opposition to the Iran nuclear deal during the Obama administration.
Maloney, meanwhile, appeared to knock Nadler over his stamina, even though he, at 75 years old, is just one year her junior.
She seemingly seized on his age after he sat at a primary debate while Maloney and Patel stood. She also expressed worries about “if for some reason someone will not serve their term,” citing “tons of rumors out there.” She later reportedly said she thinks Nadler would finish another term.
Patel, who came within 4% of unseating Maloney in a 2020 primary, sought to cast himself as a fresh face against the two longtime lawmakers, boasting in a press conference on Monday that “this is not 1992 anymore.”
(NEW YORK) — Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney is projected to win his Democratic primary on Tuesday, ABC News reports, after he moved seats in New York’s redistricting shuffle and faced progressive backlash in the process.
As the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Maloney is entrusted with protecting the party’s House majority in November. On Tuesday, though, he had to fight for his own spot in Congress.
He went up against New York state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi. With more than 82% percent of the expected vote reported, Maloney was leading Biaggi 66-33. Their race, one of the last notable Democratic House primaries of the midterm season, highlighted party splinters ahead of what’s expected to be a tight November fight to retain control of Congress.
Five-term incumbent Maloney — New York’s first openly gay House member — saw his own political career come under attack by some other Democrats early in the cycle, when he upended progressive hopes for the 17th District by choosing to run there instead of his previous seat.
His decision to run where he lives, rather than staying in New York’s 18th where most of his current constituents are, pushed freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones — the progressive who currently represents most of the new district — to vie for New York’s 10th, which was possible because Rep. Jerrold Nadler left the 10th for the 12th (completing the redistricting shuffle).
Maloney apologized for the scuffle, acknowledging he could have handled the process better.
He has largely campaigned on what he’s encouraged other frontline candidates to focus on this election cycle: a slate of Democratic legislative victories despite other political headwinds — like President Joe Biden’s unpopularity — ahead of what is expected to be a difficult midterm. He’s also come after Biaggi for attempting to campaign on the liberal wins, claiming her progressive streak of “tearing down our President and other Democrats” had “nothing to do” with their success.
“Look, you’re seeing us come back in the polls. Our frontliners are battle tested and strong. They have a huge advantage, by the way, over their Republican opponents in terms of their campaigns, their cash on hand. They’re getting their votes right. They have historic deliverables that they’ve brought home to their districts,” Maloney said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, days before his own primary.
Biaggi, a leader in the state legislature’s progressive movement who rose to prominence when she defeated a notable incumbent in 2018, was long seen as something of an underdog to Maloney, who also handily outraised her, $4 million to $807,000.
Still, the race attracted a cast of high-profile Democrats backing both candidates. Maloney had the endorsements of former President Bill Clinton — for whom he served as senior adviser while Clinton was in the White House — as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and The New York Times’ editorial board.
Biaggi, meanwhile, had the support of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and The Working Families Party. (Hillary Clinton, who was involved in Biaggi’s wedding ceremony, stayed out of the race.)
In a related dynamic, Maloney’s decision-making as head of the DCCC drew fire from some in his party after news that the organization spent almost half a million dollars on a primary advertisement that spotlighted Donald Trump-endorsed John Gibbs over incumbent Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Meijer, one of the few pro-impeachment Republicans in the House. (Meijer later lost his race, though observers noted the DCCC’s involvement was relatively marginal.)
On Meet the Press, Maloney defended Democrats’ decision to boost pro-Trump candidates over more moderate Republicans.
“Absolutely not did we put party over country,” Maloney said. “The moral imperative right now … is to keep the dangerous MAGA Republicans who voted to overturn our election out of power.”
He added, “This danger didn’t start with Mr. Gibbs. By every measure, he’s the weaker candidate. Don’t take my word for it: The Cook Political Report says it’s far more likely the Democrats are going to win that seat now. That’s doing our job.”
In November, Maloney will face Republican state Assemblyman Mike Lawler in a district that has a slight Democratic lean, making it more of a tossup.
(WASHINGTON) — Ahead of another deadline on the restart of payments for America’s $1.7 trillion in federal student loans, President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced a plan to cancel debt for a subset of Americans and continue to keep a pandemic-era pause on the repayments — a sweeping move he has openly weighed in some form or another since his time as a candidate.
“In keeping with my campaign promise, my Administration is announcing a plan to give working and middle class families breathing room as they prepare to resume federal student loan payments in January 2023,” Biden wrote in a Twitter post.
Pell Grant recipients can qualify for up to $20,000 in debt forgiveness as part of Wednesday’s broader announcement on student loan forgiveness. Other student loan borrowers who don’t have Pell Grants will still have loans forgiven up to $10,000, as has been previously reported.
Both forgiveness options are for people who earn less than $125,000 per year, or $250,000 as a household.
According to the White House, Biden will give remarks Wednesday at 2:15 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room.
Biden’s social media post also announced an extension of the pause on student loan payments through Dec. 31, 2022 — the final extension — a move that’s intended to give time for the transition back to repayment. Multiple people familiar with White House policy discussions previously told ABC News that the loan pause, first put in place under President Donald Trump during the disruptions of COVID-19’s onset, was expected to be extended. Millions of borrowers were due to restart payments on Sept. 1.
In an interview on Tuesday afternoon, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona told ABC News that the much-anticipated decision on loan forgiveness would come “soon” but was vague on details.
“We recognize it’s an important issue for many families. And we want to make sure that they get the information directly from the president,” Cardona said.
One-third of federal loan borrowers have less than $10,000, meaning they could see their debts completely wiped out should this policy come to fruition. Another 20% of borrowers, around nine million people, would have their debt at least slashed in half.
Including a broader debt forgiveness plan for Pell Grant recipients would wipe out the debt for up to 20 million borrowers, the White House estimated, and reach 43 million people in total.
Such a major cancelation may seem like a big step for Biden to take without Congress, but legal and policy experts say it’s clearer: The move would be well within the president’s authority — it just hasn’t been wielded before because of the political implications.
“The president has some pretty broad authority under the Higher Education Act,” said John Brooks, a law professor at Fordham University who focuses on federal fiscal policy.
“A lot depends on the size of the cancellation. The smaller the amount of cancellation, the easier the question is,” Brooks said. “Wiping out all student debt with a single stroke might be tougher, but the president through the secretary of education does have the power to adjust the amount of loan principle that any borrower has.”
Still, Biden could get taken to court — possibly by loan servicing agencies who would lose revenue or by members of Congress who may believe Biden is spending money in a way that hasn’t been appropriated by legislators.
Outside experts also wonder how long the processes would take to cancel student loans once a policy is announced — and how complicated it would be for borrowers to work their way through it, which are details that have yet to be released.
Some fear that people might fall through the cracks if applications to cancel debt become too labor-intensive because of the prospective income cap.
“The White House is about to ask the Education Department to do something that is extraordinarily difficult, and that is going to have the effect of denying debt relief to low-income folks, economically vulnerable folks, who have the hardest time navigating these complicated paperwork processes,” Mike Pierce, executive director and co-founder of the Student Borrower Protection Center, a think-tank that advocates for universal debt cancellation, told ABC News in an interview.
Pierce and other supporters for more progressive debt cancellation, including the NAACP, said the smoothest path would include full and universal cancellation for everyone.
“If the rumors are true, we’ve got a problem. And tragically, we’ve experienced this so many times before,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement Tuesday, reacting to the details of the potential policy announcement.
“President Biden’s decision on student debt cannot become the latest example of a policy that has left Black people – especially Black women – behind. This is not how you treat Black voters who turned out in record numbers and provided 90% of their vote to once again save democracy in 2020,” Johnson said.
But for many borrowers and advocates for canceling student debt — particularly the nearly half of people with federal student loans who would see their debt extinguished or cut significantly — Biden’s policy would still be cause for major celebration and be seen as a start to reforming the college and university system, where rising costs have become a major area of focus.
For Michigan teacher Nick Fuller, a possible Biden announcement on student loans could come just before the financial crunch of winter, when his heating bills skyrocket.
Though Fuller worked hard his first few years out of school to pay down his school debt, and then had his loan frozen for much of the pandemic, he’s concerned that restarting payments on top of monthly living costs could put him over the edge.
“I think things will get really tight in the winter because my utility bills are higher,” Fuller told ABC News. “I mean for January and February — the highs are zero and the lows are -20 [degrees] for almost two months.”
The frozen temperatures might sting a little bit less if Biden forgives $10,000 of Fuller’s remaining student loan bills, he said.
“It’s about two-thirds of the debt that I have left,” he said.
That would make payments “a lot more affordable and a lot more manageable in my situation,” he said.
Easing the student debt crisis — which is also how Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos described the issue in 2018 — could also aid a crippling teacher shortage that has caused thousands of staff vacancies at the start of the latest school year, something Fuller has seen himself.
Pinched salaries and rising inflation have had many teachers on edge with the loan forgiveness deadline approaching.
And because Black students are among the fastest growing group of people taking on debt, advocates argue that canceling some student loans could also begin to address racial inequities.
Shareefah Mason, the dean of Educator Certification at Dallas College, feels this impact firsthand as a Black woman with student debt. She leads the apprenticeship component of a program that pairs students with residency partners to ensure they earn while they learn, effectively reducing education debt for aspiring teachers.
“I bear the weight of $70,000 in student loans,” Mason told ABC News. “The data shows that student loan debt exponentially impacts and disproportionately impacts Black women.”
The average amount of student debt accrued by Black women is more than any other group at $38,800, according to Education Trust, a nonprofit focused on education reform.
But Mason’s program, the very first full-time paid teacher apprenticeship in the state of Texas, allows students to earn one of the cheapest bachelor’s degrees in the state, Mason said.
The goal, she said, is to aid future educators in breaking the generational barriers that she has faced as a Black woman.
Mason said “they will not have to worry about student loan debt,” which could open more doors for minority communities that have historically lacked the means to access higher education.
“My students will be able to earn, as a first year teacher in the city of Dallas, upwards of $60,000,” Mason said.
For the nation’s most impacted borrowers, Mason said, “there needs to be a space created for them to make enough money to pay their student loans without having to sacrifice their ability to create generational wealth for their families.”
(NEW YORK) — With the emergence of COVID-19 and the recent surge in monkeypox cases, scientists and doctors who specialize in infectious disease are issuing increasingly dire warnings, saying wealthy countries can no longer afford to ignore small outbreaks abroad.
For decades, diseases that primarily affected lower and lower-middle income countries were relegated as “neglected” diseases, having less funding, fewer resources and little attention. Monkeypox, for example, has been smoldering quietly in Western Africa since 2017. Now, scientists are increasingly warning that global infectious disease outbreaks could become the new normal.
“I think it’s very clear that we’re living in a new age of pandemics,” said Dr. Jay Varma, a professor of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine.
“We’ve been dealing with infectious diseases since we appeared on this planet,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Although the advent of antibiotics, vaccines and basic sanitation measures have helped control infectious diseases, the acceleration of international travel in recent decades has unleashed viruses that may have otherwise been contained in one region.
“What’s occurring in one geographic area may not remain in that geographic area [because] a pathogen can travel by the speed of a jetliner,” says Adalja.
Experts say people tend to focus on problems closer to home, and tend to be unaware of diseases spreading beyond their borders.
“There’s sort of this false sense of security, that when something is spreading somewhere where you don’t live and don’t know anyone, it’s easy to think that it will just sort of continue that way,” says Stephen Kissler, Ph.D., a research fellow at the Harvard Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases.
Oftentimes, officials work to limit travel to slow the spread of disease, as occurred globally during the COVID-19 pandemic or the Zika outbreak in the United States. But that strategy rarely halts the transmission of a virus.
“One of the important lessons of public health is that diseases don’t respect administrative borders and they certainly don’t carry passports or request visas,” said Varma.
Historically, less funding has existed to study viruses that primarily thrived outside U.S. borders.
“Public health [is underfunded]. Infrastructure is underfunded. And that’s especially true in resource poor settings where infectious disease burden is significant,” said John Brownstein, Ph.D., an ABC News contributor and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Now, there is evidence that pandemics are picking up pace. In the past 15 years, seven emergency declarations have been made by the organization — H1N1, Ebola (twice), Poliomyelitis, Zika, COVID-19, and just recently, monkeypox.
“Ultimately, these declarations are helpful, because they unlock resources, support, visibility, and education that are important in the sort of response to an emerging infectious disease,” Brownstein said.
But not every virus — or every country — gets such resources. Just this last week, scientists have been monitoring a few dozen cases of a new virus in China called the Langya virus (LayV). Because there’s limited evidence of LayV spreading between people, experts are not overly concerned at this time, but they note that dealing with new infectious diseases is not uncommon.
“We still see the sort of power architecture of the world, to be heavily imbalanced, towards countries that have historically, over the past 200 years, held the most power and political way. And that’s primarily countries in Europe and the United States,” said Varma.
In responding to COVID-19 — a truly global pandemic — governments scrambled to protect their own citizens first. The COVAX initiative aimed to share COVID vaccines equitably around the world, but never reached its full potential, experts say.
“When you have a sort of gift to the world, like the development of highly effective COVID vaccines, they’re immediately gobbled up by the countries that have the most power and wealth, leaving the rest of the populations around the world which don’t benefit from that wealth behind,” said Varma.
Pharmaceutical companies also serve as the lifeline for many that depend on vaccines or medications to protect themselves and their loved ones. Yet, the incentive to combat neglected diseases is limited — especially early in an outbreak, when very few people are sick.
“[Neglected diseases] are a small market compared to what a pharmaceutical company might be going after like high cholesterol or heart disease or something like that, that’s much more lucrative,” said Adalja.
Experts noted that the global health community increasingly works together to stop the spread of emerging diseases. But funding remains a consistent hurdle to ensure that outbreaks are contained quickly and efficiently.
“I do think that there’s always a window of opportunity, with any emerging outbreak, to do something and potentially prevent it from spreading more broadly,” said Kissler.
(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:
Aug 24, 9:13 AM EDT
Biden announces new aid package, congratulates Ukraine on Independence Day
President Joe Biden in a statement Wednesday said he was “proud to announce our biggest tranche of security assistance to date” to Ukraine: “approximately $2.98 billion of weapons and equipment.”
“This will allow Ukraine to acquire air defense systems, artillery systems and munitions, counter-unmanned aerial systems, and radars to ensure it can continue to defend itself over the long term,” Biden said.
Biden confirmed the money would come through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. The USAI money can be spent on contracts with the defense industry to produce new equipment for Ukraine.
Biden in his statement also marked Ukrainian Independence Day, saying, “Ukrainians have inspired the world with their extraordinary courage and dedication to freedom.”
“Today is not only a celebration of the past but a resounding affirmation that Ukraine proudly remains — and will remain — a sovereign and independent nation,” he said.
He continued, “I know this Independence Day is bittersweet for many Ukrainians as thousands have been killed or wounded, millions have been displaced from their homes, and so many others have fallen victim to Russian atrocities and attacks.”
“Today and every day, we stand with the Ukrainian people to proclaim that the darkness that drives autocracy is no match for the flame of liberty that lights the souls of free people everywhere,” Biden said.
Aug 23, 4:39 PM EDT
2 Zaporizhzhya power plant employees killed in shelling in city of Enerhodar
Two Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant employees were killed on their day off when Russian forces shelled the city of Enerhodar, officials said.
-ABC News’ Yuriy Zaliznyak and Dada Jovanovic
Aug 23, 2:35 PM EDT
US to announce its largest single aid package for Ukraine
The U.S. will announce its largest single aid package for Ukraine on Wednesday, according to two U.S. officials. The package is expected to be valued at roughly $3 billion — though one official told ABC News some changes could be made overnight, and $3 billion is on the higher end of the estimates.
A senior U.S. official told ABC News the package will come from Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds. Unlike presidential drawdown packages, which pull from existing U.S. equipment stocks, the USAI money can be spent on contracts with the defense industry to produce new equipment for Ukraine.
The U.S. has committed about $10.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration.
-ABC News’ Matt Seyler and Shannon Crawford
Aug 23, 1:54 PM EDT
Americans urged to leave Ukraine over Russian strikes on civilians
The United States is once again urging its citizens to leave Ukraine amid concerns Russia is ramping up attacks on civilians in the war-torn country.
In a security alert posted Tuesday on its website, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv urged Americans “to depart Ukraine now using privately available ground transportation options if it is safe to do so.”
“The Department of State has information that Russia is stepping up efforts to launch strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days,” the embassy said in the alert. “Russian strikes in Ukraine pose a continued threat to civilians and civilian infrastructure.”
Sources within the State Department said the heightened risk of a Russian strike on highly populated centers is most directly tied to Ukraine’s Independence Day on Wednesday.
“The risks are really high,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told ABC News. “We are receiving information that there may be a provocation by the Russian Federation, by the occupiers. Therefore, we do not want large gatherings on such days. The days are beautiful, but … our neighbors are not.”
Aug 23, 9:10 AM EDT
Americans urged to leave Ukraine over Russian strikes on civilians
The United States is once again urging its citizens to leave Ukraine amid concerns Russia is ramping up attacks on civilians in the war-torn country.
In a security alert posted Tuesday on its website, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv urged Americans “to depart Ukraine now using privately available ground transportation options if it is safe to do so.”
“The Department of State has information that Russia is stepping up efforts to launch strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days,” the embassy said in the alert. “Russian strikes in Ukraine pose a continued threat to civilians and civilian infrastructure.”
Aug 22, 10:59 AM EDT
FSB accuses Ukrainian special services of assassinating Darya Dugina
Russia’s FSB is accusing Ukrainian special services of assassinating Darya Dugina, the daughter of Putin ally Alexander Dugina, who was killed by an explosive this weekend.
The FSB said a Ukrainian national arrived in Russia on July 23 with her 12-year-old daughter and rented an apartment in the same Moscow building where Dugina lived, Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti reported. The woman allegedly trailed Dugina for nearly a month and then immediately left for Estonia with her daughter just after this weekend’s bombing.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement that Darya Dugina was “a bright, talented person with a real Russian heart – kind, loving, sympathetic and open.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Ukraine is working under the assumption that Russian secret services are behind the killing, saying “Ru-propaganda lives in a fictional world.”
-ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva and Oleksii Shemyskyo
Aug 22, 9:13 AM EDT
Air raid sirens sound across Ukraine
Air raid sirens are sounding across Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Russia could launch a “particularly ugly” provocation this week as Ukraine approaches its Independence Day on Wednesday.
In Kyiv, all public events are canceled and government employees have been told to work from home through the week.
In Kramatorsk, public events have been canceled for Tuesday through Thursday and public transportation has been stopped.
Aug 22, 6:16 AM EDT
Explosive under Putin ally’s car was remotely triggered, investigators say
An explosive device planted on the underside of Putin ally Alexander Dugin’s vehicle was remotely triggered, Russian investigators said.
Dugin’s daughter, Daria Dugina, was killed in a blast near Moscow on Saturday.
“A presumed explosive device planted on a Toyota Land Cruiser went off when the car was moving at full speed past Bolshiye Vyazemy in the Odintsovo urban district at about 9 p.m. on August 20, and the car caught fire,” the Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement posted to Telegram. “The woman driving the car died instantly. The victim was identified as journalist, political analyst Daria Dugina.”
Alexander and Daria attended a traditional patriotic festival on Saturday afternoon, according to the Odinstovo administration. They’d planned to leave together in the same vehicle, but Daria instead drove alone.
The Russian Investigative Committee’s press service told Interfax that Daria was assassinated.
Detectives established that the bomb was planted on the underside of the driver’s side of the vehicle, the committee said. Russian media outlets had reported that the SUV belonged to Dugin.
“Detectives and specialists from the Main Forensic Department of the Russian Investigative Committee are continuing to examine the incident scene. In particular, a forensic technician examined the charred vehicle before it was taken to a special parking lot,” the Committee said.
Biological, genetic, physical, chemical and explosive examinations have been scheduled, the committee said.
-ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva
Aug 21, 3:12 PM EDT
Daughter of Putin ally killed in car bomb; Schiff hopes it wasn’t ‘from Ukraine’
U.S. officials do not know who to blame for the car bomb that killed the daughter of political theorist Alexander Dugin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said during an interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Daria Dugina, a 29-year-old TV commentator, was killed on the Mozhaisk Highway in the outskirts of Moscow on Saturday night by an explosive that had been planted in the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving, Russia’s state-run news agency TASS reported.
Alexander Dugin, often referred to as “Putin’s brain,” had just attended “Tradition” cultural festival with his daughter, according to TASS. Russian media outlets reported that the SUV belonged to Dugin.
The Russian Investigative Committee press office told TASS Dugina’s killing was planned and contracted.
Schiff said Sunday that he had not yet been briefed on the killing and that he “couldn’t say” who is behind it, adding that he hoped it was an “internal Russian affair” rather than something “emanating from Ukraine.”
“There are so many factions and internecine warfare within Russian society, within the Russian government,” Schiff said. “Anything is possible.”
Adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office Mikhail Podolyak denied Kyiv was involved in the explosion that killed Dugina during a televised interview on Sunday.
“I emphasize that Ukraine certainly has nothing to do with this, because we are not a criminal state like the Russian Federation, and even less a terrorist state,” Podolyak said.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson and Patrick Reevell
Aug 20, 2:10 PM EDT
Videos circulating online show smoke over Sevastopol
Videos circulating online show smoke rising over Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea.
The city’s Russian-appointed governor said a drone was struck down and fell through the roof of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Headquarters. Ukraine has not commented on the strike.
-ABC News’ Layla Ferris
Aug 19, 3:31 PM EDT
US to offer new $775M aid package to Ukraine
The U.S. has authorized a new $775 million military aid package for Ukraine, the Department of Defense announced on Friday.
The package will include more High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) ammunition and howitzers, as well as some firsts, including ScanEagle reconnaissance drones and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles.
The 15 ScanEagle drones are intended to help Ukraine identify targets and put the HIMARS and howitzers to better use, according to a senior U.S. defense official.
The 40 MRAP vehicles and other mine-clearing equipment will help Ukrainian troops cross dangerous terrain, according to the official.
“We know that Russia has heavily mined areas in parts of southern and eastern Ukraine. We know there’s a significant amount of unexploded ordinance,” the official said.
The new aid package follows a $1 billion package announced on Aug. 8.
Photography by Keith Getter (all rights reserved)/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — More rain is pounding the soaked South. Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are expecting 3 to 5 inches of rain over the next 48 hours, sparking flash flooding and river flooding.
The rain will continue to spread, reaching the Gulf by the weekend. Over the next five days, the Gulf Coast from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Fort Myers, Florida, will likely get 3 to 5 inches as well.
Louisiana and Mississippi were already hit by downpours this week, with several spots in Mississippi breaking daily rainfall records on Monday. Over the last 48 hours, rain totals climbed above 7 inches in Louisiana and reached 6 inches in Mississippi.
Meanwhile, areas along the California/Arizona/Nevada border, including Las Vegas, are bracing for downpours and possible flash flooding on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox declared a state of emergency in the wake of devastating flooding in Moab and other southern towns. The flooding killed a woman who was hiking in Zion National Park.
“We also urge everyone to take flash flood warnings very seriously. We mourn the loss of Jetal Agnihotri of Tucson and pray for her loved ones,” the governor said in a statement.
“I’m shocked by the size and scope of the flooding that swept through Moab causing damage to homes, businesses, and local infrastructure,” Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson added. “Fortunately, I’m hopeful for a full recovery.”
(NEW YORK) — After officials in Nye County, Nevada, accepted a pitch from a Republican nominee for secretary of state to stop using voting machines for the general election and move to hand counting instead, long-time county clerk Sam Merlino decided to walk away from the job she loved.
For Merlino, a Republican, the move was the last straw as her county continued to be consumed by unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
“It was just so disheartening after everyone had put in so much hard work, and then to have everybody question what we’ve been doing for years,” Merlino, who resigned two weeks ago, told ABC News. “I loved working with the voters, I was always at a polling place on Election Day. I loved the process.”
Since the 2020 election, states across the country have seen a slow exodus of election officials prompted by an unprecedented level of misinformation, harassment and threats, according to election experts and officials.
And now, with only three months until Election Day, election offices in at least nine states including Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Texas and New Jersey have seen a new wave of departures and early retirements, ABC News has learned.
Elizabeth Howard, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank that tracks election rules, told ABC News that the loss of so many local election officials is a “significant concern” because “there’s a huge amount of institutional knowledge that we are losing across the country.”
“Election administration has grown increasingly complex over the past few decades, and election officials are perpetually trying to balance technology with accuracy and reliability, and have an accurate voter registration list and make it as easy as possible for eligible voters to cast a ballot that’s accurately counted,” Howard said.
‘We can’t get our real work done’
In Gillespie County, Texas, the county’s entire three-person election department resigned last week due to threats and misinformation, a staffer told the Fredericksburg Standard.
“It is concerning that it’s happening this close to an election and that now the county officials are scrambling to put together a team that is going to be qualified and trained to run the election in November,” said Sam Taylor, spokesperson for Texas Secretary of State John Scott.
Taylor told ABC News that Texas has seen a 30% turnover rate among county officials over the past two years, with several officials across the state resigning due to threats of violence.
In a report released this month by the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee, election administrators expressed concerns about staffing ahead of the midterms.
“[T]he job of an Election Official has changed dramatically over the years and it’s not a position that just anyone can learn in a few short months,” Arizona election officials said in the report. “It takes years to become an industry expert. The fact so many of us are leaving the field should concern every person across the country.”
The report detailed how false claims of election fraud in the 2020 election have led election administrators to face a combination of threats, lawsuits and misinformation that one election official said were “distracting us to the point where we can’t get our real work done.”
‘Disrespect and disdain’
Efforts to discredit and overturn election results have been fueled and supported on a national scale by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who pushed false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election after Donald Trump lost his reelection bid. This past weekend, Lindell hosted the “Moment of Truth Summit,” where hundreds of people gathered in Springfield, Missouri, to hear him and other election deniers rail against voting machines and discuss their ongoing efforts to contest the 2020 vote by, among other things, petitioning election officials for voting machine information and election data.
Among those who appeared at the event virtually was Colorado county clerk Tina Peters, who became a leading figure in the election denier movement last year when she was accused of and then indicted on election tampering charges after authorities say the election software she used for her county wound up in the hands of a consultant, and screenshots of the software appeared on right-wing websites. Peters pleaded not guilty in early August.
Peters, who in June lost the Republican primary in her bid to become Colorado secretary of state, detailed for summit attendees how she had paid for a recount in that race, and urged them to be “courageous” in confronting election results.
“Tina Peters lost, started talking about fraud and how election officials are in on it,” Matt Crane, the director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, told ABC News. “She lost by 15 points and yet she still requested a recount that’s taken time away from clerks who would have otherwise been working to prepare for the general election. All of that continues to put pressure on clerks.”
Like many other states, Crane said that Colorado has seen election officials resign or retire early, ahead of the November election.
In Florida, Supervisor of Elections Mark Early told ABC News that election officials in the state have “felt the hate” from 2020 election deniers.
“It’s the disrespect and the disdain that your neighbor might have for you nowadays,” Early said. “Now the threats are out there and people are looking at you out of the corner of their eye and just kind of shaking their head or just very blatantly coming up to you and saying negative things, even if it’s not a death threat.”
“All of this is taking a toll on our ability to conduct elections,” explained Early, who said there have been numerous resignations and early retirements. “We’re losing staff members.”
A former Georgia election worker testified at the House Jan. 6 hearings in late June that after former President Trump and his lawyers spread lies about her actions counting Georgia 2020 ballots, violent threats toward her and her family forced her out of her job.
“It’s turned my life upside down. I no longer give out my business card … I don’t want anyone knowing my name,” Wandrea Moss testified.
As more and more election administration posts are left empty, Howard said a recent Brennan Center survey showed that officials are concerned about who’s going to take the place of those leaving.
“Some of the election officials are concerned that the people that are going to replace the outgoing election officials believe the lies that have been told about how our elections run and are not going to understand how the system actually works,” Howard said. “Certainly, if you have somebody that is an election denier that’s responsible for running the election, that’s a concern.”
Even more concerning, Howard said, is that she expects another exodus of election workers after the 2022 election cycle — potentially leaving even more vacancies ahead of the 2024 presidential cycle.
‘It’s just too much’
Nevada, too, has seen a wave of resignations in at least half a dozen counties over the last few months as election deniers continue to challenge the 2020 results.
While numerous departing officials cite non-work-related issues as the reason for their departure, many point to how difficult their jobs have become over the last two years as they’ve faced increased scrutiny and mounting hostility from skeptics.
Last month, Washoe County Registrar of Voters Deanna Spikula resigned after 15 years with the registrar’s office. She told the Nevada Independent in January that she had received death threats and was concerned for the safety of her front-line election workers who face voters in person.
At the time, Spikula said she had already lost one staff member to another county department, but that she loved her job and was remaining in her position. But six months later — two weeks after Nevada held its state primary — she submitted her resignation.
“It’s just too much,” Washoe County Communications Manager Bethany Drysdale said of the harassment that local election workers have faced over the past few months, including being followed to their cars and being called “traitors.”
“It’s really difficult to pull the really long hours and face the animosity from the public,” Drysdale said. “Our interim registrar of voters is really focused on keeping hours down and making sure that nobody is too overwhelmed or too overworked leading up to the election, so they can really be here and give it their all during the election.”
In Pennsylvania, Berks County Elections Director Paige Riegner submitted her resignation this month following May’s state primary, after the Pennsylvania Department of State sued Berks and two other counties for excluding mail-in ballots that didn’t have the date handwritten on the security envelope.
And in Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County, election director Michael Susek resigned last month after only eight months on the job, to go work for an organization “committed to advancing election integrity and the profession as a whole on a national level,” according to local reports. His departure made him the state’s fourth county election director to step down since 2019.
‘Just overwhelming’
Robin Major, the Board of Elections administrator in Monmouth County, New Jersey, said that for small local election offices, losing just one or two staffers can put a significant strain on the department.
Major told ABC News that in recent months her office has lost two out of its eight staff members, with one of them retiring and another going to work in a different department.
“I think we’re seeing it across the state,” Major said. “We have seen a number of colleagues in our professional association who have decided to retire because the amount of work is just overwhelming and we’re not properly compensated” — a situation Major said has been exacerbated by a new statewide mandate requiring counties to conduct an election audit after every general election.
Major also said that “people questioning things” has put an extra burden on her office.
We’re getting an increased number of requests on a daily basis that are just impossible to fulfill,” she said. “So that puts on a lot of pressure, also, while you’re trying to run an election.”
Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at the liberal watchdog group Common Cause, said that the increased retirements and resignations mean that the country must invest in “the infrastructure to train the next generation of election workers.”
“We’re going to run an election and we’re going to make sure people can vote — we’re just going to have to use all hands on deck,” she said of the upcoming midterms. “But we should be looking towards a long-term solution of proper investment in the election system.”
