(WASHINGTON) — With Tuesday’s primary, a contentious race to succeed Maryland’s term-limited Gov. Larry Hogan is about to enter its next phase as Republicans seek to hold the seat of a popular incumbent while Democrats work to retake the governorship — in part by trying to influence the contest to get the GOP nod.
The front-runners in the Republican gubernatorial primary are state Del. Dan Cox, an attorney endorsed by former President Donald Trump, and former state Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz, who was endorsed by Hogan.
The contest is something of a proxy battle between Trump and Hogan (a possible 2024 presidential contender and a major voice in the GOP’s anti-Trump minority) and their contrasting visions for their party’s success in Maryland.
Schulz could become the state’s first female governor. She has focused her campaign on issues such as the economy, education and creating a safer community, and she has leaned on her endorsement from Hogan — who is widely popular in the state — and her work in his Cabinet.
After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Schulz said that she would not change Maryland law, which allows for abortion, but reaffirmed that she was personally opposed.
Her current stance on abortion is much different than the one she held in 2011, when she sponsored the “Maryland Personhood Amendment,” which would have allowed voters to decide to amend the state’s constitution to give rights to people “from the beginning of their biological development.” That amendment failed in the state’s Democratic legislature.
Cox says he is “running to restore freedom” and has focused in part on education, saying he supports parental rights in schools, opposes critical race theory (though that academic framework is not widely taught outside of universities) and has supported legislation against teaching gender identity in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.
Cox opposes abortion without exception and he tried to sue Hogan over the state’s COVID-19 restrictions.
His record has been spotlighted by Democratic advertising during the primary — a tactic that Hogan criticized, arguing it was an attempt to boost Cox in the eyes of conservatives even though he may be weaker in the general election.
Cox called then-Vice President Mike Pence a “traitor” in a since-removed tweet after Pence certified the 2020 election results. In another deleted tweet, Cox also said he was arranging two buses to drive constituents to Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, appearance near the White House shortly before a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol. (Cox said he wasn’t at the Capitol.)
In the Democratic gubernatorial primary, three leading candidates have emerged: former Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez, state Comptroller Peter Franchot and Wes Moore, an author and former nonprofit CEO who held a virtual fundraiser with Oprah Winfrey.
Another race drawing notice is the Republican primary for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District. Currently held by Democrat David Trone, several GOP contenders are fighting for the chance to go against him in November.
State Rep. Neil Parrot, who lost to Trone in 2020, is hoping for a rematch in November. However, the race could be shaken up by 25-year-old Matthew Foldi, a newcomer who has received a string of notable endorsements including from Hogan as well as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the No. 3 House Republican, Elise Stefanik, Donald Trump Jr. and others.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — Thousands of beer bottles cascading off a five-ton container truck seems like a disaster. But average citizens who came to the rescue are earning praise across South Korea for making the best of a bad situation.
The accident, which took place in June but is now gaining traction on social media as people try to track down the good Samaritans, came as a truck driver made a sharp turn in Chuncheon city, flooding the street with a torrent of beer and broken glass and engulfing the road in white foam in seconds.
The spill, which took place about 46 miles north of Seoul, the capital, could have easily precipitated a chain of additional accidents and an hourslong traffic jam — but 18 good Samaritans saved the day.
Immediately after the 2,000 bottles shattered on the road, the driver pulled over, then trudged toward the heap and began to gather the remains together.
Moments later, a passerby approached the driver and started to pile the crates up on one side. The owner of a local convenience store then brought brooms and dustpans and joined the effort.
The rain — along with their lack of umbrellas and raincoats — didn’t stop 16 more passersby from coming together and sweeping the road clean in less than a half-hour. When the work was done, they nonchalantly returned to their own affairs — as though it was just a matter of course.
Six days after the incident, Oriental Brewery Company revealed the footage of the beer spill cleanup captured by surveillance cameras. The company published notices and ads with footage of the incident to track down the good Samaritans and thank them. They used the slogan, “We are looking for the real heroes of Chuncheon city.”
“We wanted to find the citizens and express our gratitude to each of them in person,” Joo-hwan Baek, associate public relations director of Oriental Brewery Company, told ABC News. “We also hoped to spread the word of the good they did. It was very inspiring for us as well.”
The footage of the cleanup has been trending on South Korea’s social media and news ever since.
Viewers said the thoughtful gesture by passersby has warmed their hearts and restored their faith in humanity amid calamitous times.
“No one asked the citizens to jump in the rain and pitch in; it was a collective, voluntary effort with a selfless motive,” 20-year-old Se-yeon Hwang told ABC News. “The video was a powerful reminder of the good a supportive community with an altruistic heart can do.”
Seoul may now be seeing a butterfly effect.
A similar accident occurred less than a week after Oriental Brewery Company revealed the video. Another truck spilled hundreds of bottles of Korean vodka in the middle of a busy street in Incheon Metropolitan City.
Given the long tail of cars and buses following the truck, collateral damage appeared inevitable, but dozens of citizens who witnessed the accident came together and helped clear the highway in about a half-hour.
“It’s heartwarming to see pure goodwill like this, especially in an era of war, violence and widespread hate,” 52-year-old Mei Lee told ABC News. “I hope to see more acts of kindness in this world.”
(NEW YORK) — BrandStorm Inc. has announced a voluntary recall of two lots of its organic freeze-dried blueberry pouches due to “the presence or potential presence of lead above the FDA’s recommended limits; per the serving size specified on the nutritional facts panel.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration shared the company’s recall announcement on Thursday, stating that the two affected products were sold under the brand Natierra.
The recalled items include Natierra Organic Freeze-Dried Blueberries in 1.2-ounce packages and the issue was isolated to products with “best by” dates 12/2024 and 01/2025. According to BrandStorm Inc., the products used the following codes:
Lot 2021363-1, Best By Date: 12/2024; 1 serving, 1.2oz (34g), UPC 812907011160
Lot 2022026-1, Best By Date: 01/2025; 1 serving, 1.2oz (34g), UPC 812907011160
Both batches were distributed in the U.S. through retail and online stores services, according to the company.
Click here for more information on how to identify the label, lot codes and UPC numbers from the FDA recall notice.
“The concern was identified upon testing conducted by a lab in Maryland,” BrandStorm Inc. stated Thursday. “An investigation was conducted by the packing site. The original heavy metal reports received for the crop year showed no presence of lead and-or cause for batch testing. After further investigation it was found that the products’ [country] of Origin is Lithuania and aggressive monitoring of heavy metals may be deemed necessary.”
The company added that “as an immediate action, the packing site is actively working to enhance food safety system by implementing mandatory batch testing for heavy metal.”
According to the Food and Drug Administration, lead in the environment may be “naturally occurring,” but is often present due to “past industrial uses that contributed to environmental contamination.”
“Most intentional uses of lead in products and processes are banned in the United States, including the use of lead solder to seal the external seams of metal cans,” the FDA states on its website. “However, lead does not disappear from the environment over time and therefore these past uses can combine with natural levels to contaminate our food supply.”
Exposure to larger amounts may cause lead poisoning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Lead exposure is particularly harmful to children, the CDC states on its website.
“No safe blood lead level in children has been identified,” it says. “Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to negatively affect a child’s intelligence, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement.”
To date, BrandStorm Inc. said it “has not received any reports of adverse events related to use of the product as part of this proactive recall.”
The company has urged consumers who purchased the two impacted Natierra Organic Freeze-Dried Blueberries to discard and not consume the product.
Refunds will be available to customers at the location of purchase, provided at the point of sale through validation of lot codes on the affected pouches.
For online purchases, BrandStorm Inc. stated that customers may email salesadmin@BrandStormInc.com to request a refund. Those with additional questions may call 310-559-0259 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. PT and email salesadmin@BrandStormInc.com or send a direct message through the product website.
Consumers who experience any symptoms listed on the FDA recall should seek immediate medical advice from a physician.
“First and foremost, we remain focused on the health and welfare of our employees, customers, and partners,” BrandStorm said in Thursday’s recall announcement. “We are committed to taking the appropriate steps to ensure our network and services continue to operate seamlessly for our customers.”
(WASHINGTON) — Two more aides in Donald Trump’s White House are expected to testify before the House Jan. 6 committee during its public hearings, sources say — this time an ex-spokeswoman for the former president as well as one of his previous security advisers.
Former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger, a member of the National Security Council during the Trump administration, are slated to speak at the committee’s hearing on Thursday, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News.
Their planned appearances were previously reported by CNN.
Both Matthews and Pottinger resigned from their positions in the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, in the wake of the Capitol rioting by a pro-Trump mob.
Neither a committee spokesperson nor representatives for Matthews or Pottinger responded to ABC News.
Numerous other Trump advisers and aides have already spoken with the committee either in recorded closed-door depositions or the public sessions. Those include his daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner; his White House counsel Pat Cipollone; his former Attorney General Bill Barr and more.
Committee members have said Thursday’s hearing — the eighth of the latest sessions held by the panel since June, following a year-long investigation — will focus on the Trump White House’s reaction to the insurrection as it unfolded.
“You will hear that Trump never picked up the phone that day to order his administration to help,” Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said last week. “This is not ambiguous. He did not call the military. The secretary of defense received no order. He did not call his attorney general. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security. [Vice President] Mike Pence did all of those things.”
Rep. Elaine Luria, a member of the committee who will be co-leading Thursday’s hearing, told “GMA 3” last week that the plan was to “go through that 187 minutes” — the gap, as the committee describes it, between when Trump incensed his supporters at a speech near the White House on Jan. 6 and later sent public statements trying to tamp down the rioting.
Luria, a Virginia Democrat and Navy veteran who will be leading the hearing with Rep. Adam Kinzinger R-Ill., told “GMA 3” that Americans can expect the most detailed timeline of the riot.
“Mr. Kinzinger and I plan to go through that 187 minutes. What happened between the time that [former President Trump] left the stage, gave these inflammatory remarks and gave people the impression … that he was going to himself march with this crowd to the Capitol,” Luria said.
This week’s hearing is expected to be “the last one at this point,” the committee chair, Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, said last week. He said Monday that more hearings will be held once the committee is prepared to present its report later in the year.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and has repeatedly assailed the committee as one-sided and politically motivated.
ABC News’ Mariam Khan and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Among the priorities for congressional Democrats after the demise of Roe v. Wade are bills to protect someone’s digital health data from being subpoenaed for civil and criminal court cases as a dozen states — and counting — impose widespread restrictions and even bans on abortion.
Under consideration, according to a “Dear Colleague” letter sent on June 27 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is a proposal that would shield “women’s most intimate and personal data stored in reproductive health apps,” which may contain information that “could be used against women by a sinister prosecutor in a state that criminalizes abortion.”
Privacy experts told ABC News that the concern — as seen, for example, in viral social media warnings to delete your period-tracking apps – isn’t unfounded in a post-Roe digital age, where states have discretion to regulate or restrict abortion and to consider prosecuting violators.
“A user can log a lot of information in health apps, not just the day you start your period,” said Korica Simon, an associate at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law. “It tracks when you last had sex, what your mood was, what symptoms you felt and your alcohol consumption levels. This is all information that law enforcement could be interested in when building a case against someone charged with a crime related to abortion.”
“It’s important to note, though, that as of yet we haven’t seen a case where law enforcement has been using these apps to go after people,” Simon said. “What authorities are mostly relying on is Google searches, internet history, online communication, text messages, online transactions and location data. All of this information can be found in people’s phones. Research shows that Big Tech usually handed over this information without a fight.”
Both leading advocates for overturning Roe and, conversely, local prosecutors who support abortion access — such as South Dakota’s Republican Gov. Kristi Noem and DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston in Georgia, where a reinstated law bans abortions after the detection of embryonic cardiac activity — have said they do not want to prosecute women who seek abortions.
Still, some women have been prosecuted in recent years — including what a Washington Post report described as a “a handful [of cases] in which American prosecutors have used text messages and online research as evidence.”
Among these is the case of Mississippi resident Latice Fisher.
According to news reports and court documents reviewed by ABC, Fisher was initially indicted for second-degree murder after her husband called 911 in April 2017 to say she had given birth at their home. Prosecutors said in court papers that Fisher told an EMT she didn’t know she was pregnant — but soon reversed herself, telling a nurse at the hospital she had known she was pregnant for weeks.
However, according to prosecutors, Fisher also told the nurse she didn’t realize she was about to give birth.
Prosecutors told the court she had searched online for “abortion pills” and the medical examiner ruled that the baby was alive when it was born, rather than a stillbirth, and died of asphyxiation, likely “positional asphyxia and mechanical asphyxia” related to the manner of birth.
However, there was reportedly no evidence Fisher took any medication, and the “float test” the medical examiner used to determine it wasn’t a stillbirth can also produce false positives. Prosecutors decided to dismiss Fisher’s charge — saying the first grand jury “did not have access to complete information about the medical evidence in this case.”
They re-presented her case to a second grand jury, which did not indict her.
Beyond criminal charges, there are potential civil liabilities when a pregnancy ends.
Texas passed a novel law in 2021 that empowers residents to sue anyone they suspect of being connected to an illegal abortion to seek monetary — rather than criminal — penalties. Plaintiffs are entitled to at least $10,000 in a successful suit. Notably, the Texas law prohibits the plaintiff from bringing suit against the person undergoing the abortion.
In May, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a law that criminalizes abortion after fertilization — one of the strictest bans in the country. Like Texas’ law, the statute relies on civilian enforcement and rewards at least $10,000 in damages to residents who successfully sue people involved in illegal abortions.
Such complaints would also enable plaintiffs to try and subpoena digital health care information about the defendants.
Big Tech, hardly a passive observer in data collection, constructed privacy barriers in response to Supreme Court’s decision reversing Roe. Jen Fitzpatrick, the senior vice president for Google Core Systems & Experiences, recently announced that Google would delete entries involving visits to medical clinics, including abortion clinics and domestic violence shelters, from their location history systems “soon after” a Google user visits.
However, not all major companies behave similarly.
The Markup and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting found that Facebook was collecting personal data from people who visited “crisis pregnancy centers,” which abortion access advocates describe as thinly veiled anti-abortion rights clinics that work to dissuade visitors from receiving abortion services. The data on visits to the clinics could potentially be used to support anti-abortion rights campaigns — or, after Roe, used against abortion seekers in states where the procedure is now illegal.
Meta — Facebook’s parent company — declined to comment on the record about its data filtration system. But its privacy policy prohibits businesses from using their tools for certain types of sensitive information, including sensitive health information, which includes sexual and reproductive health and medical procedures, treatments and testing.
According to their website, if Meta’s filtering mechanism detects information that could be sensitive, health-related data, the filtering mechanism is “designed to prevent that data from being ingested into our ads ranking and optimization systems.”
Reproductive health care apps have had their share of legal troubles related to data privacy. In 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled with popular fertility app Flo after allegations that the company had shared user data with third-party data brokers, including Google and Meta. Flo denied any wrongdoing and said at the time it does not share users’ health information without their consent.
Democratic lawmakers detail plans for data post-Roe
Skeptical of the changes made to shield intimate user data from law enforcement, three members of Congress up for reelection in November have asked technology companies about what health and location data can be accessed by data brokers — and how to prevent intimate information from being shared to prosecute people who seek to end their pregnancies.
Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., who is running to represent the state’s 51st Congressional District, warned that app users may not have their data searched solely by law enforcement. Even if Google clears location history data, Jacobs said she suspects that seemingly-menial “search data” could be used in lawsuits “to suggest whether someone has had or is seeking to have an abortion.”
“This risk is most elevated in the thirteen states with ‘trigger laws’ … as well as other states that are likely to ban and criminalize abortions very soon,” Jacobs said in a statement to ABC News.
Referring to Texas’ example, enabling private lawsuits as punishment for abortions, Jacobs said: “If some states enact bounty laws that provide financial rewards for bringing suits against people that have abortions, like the one already enacted in Texas, this will further elevate the risk–and put those accessing reproductive health care in significant danger.”
In Jacobs’ home state, voters will have the opportunity to amend their constitution to add the right to abortion access. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed an executive order to protect people who seek abortions from other states. Jacobs plans to continue introducing similar measures, featuring reproductive health care as a centerpiece issue in her election campaign.
Most recently, she introduced to the House the My Body, My Data Act, which would limit how much sexual health data a company could disclose or collect without the express consent of the user in question. The bill has since been relayed to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. An identical bill was introduced to the Senate by Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, but shows unlikely prospects of passage due to GOP opposition.
Similar measures have been cosponsored in the Senate by Democrats Patty Murray of Washington and Ron Wyden of Oregon. Supporting Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the two helped introduce the Health and Location Data Protection Act, which would ban brokers from selling health- and location-related information collected from app data. If passed into law, the FTC would receive $1 billion to “ensure robust enforcement of the bill’s provisions.”
Warren and Wyden, along with Jacobs in the House and Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, of New Jersey, also signed a letter to the FTC on June 24 asking the commission to investigate how Apple and Google have collected and used mobile phone users’ digital information. The letter accused data brokers of “already selling, licensing and sharing the location information of people that visit abortion providers to anyone with a credit card.”
“Selling people’s most sensitive data to turn a profit isn’t just wrong—it’s dangerous, and risks Americans’ safety as they seek the care they need,” Murray, the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat, said in a statement.
Murray last week also chaired a Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing “to make crystal clear how [the Roe reversal] will harm patients, providers, and communities across the country—and what is at stake in November.” At the hearing, she pushed back against a call for a nationwide abortion ban, which is supported by some conservatives, and the possible surveillance of people traveling to other states for abortion services: “Health care providers aren’t sure when or even if they will be able to treat ectopic patients without being sent to prison.”
Separately, Murray called for a vote urging passage on the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act, which would protect a person’s ability to travel across state lines to receive an abortion, as well as protect the medical providers who offer the procedure. That bill was blocked by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who urged colleagues to consider the life of what he described as unborn babies.
“This move shows that [the Senate GOP] stand with extreme politicians trying to hold women captive in their own states rather than defending the right to travel within our country,” Murray said.
Siavosh Hosseini/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — In a dramatic midterm split-screen, former President Donald Trump and his former Vice President Mike Pence will hold dueling campaign events this weekend in Arizona as Trump seeks revenge in the battleground he narrowly lost to President Joe Biden, a state that served as ground zero to perpetuate his “big lie.”
Pence’s endorsement Monday of Karrin Taylor Robson, a wealthy GOP donor and former member of the Arizona Board of Regents, over Kari Lake, a former Fox 10 Phoenix anchor whom Trump endorsed last fall, marks the latest break between the two leaders, both with 2024 aspirations, who were close the entirety of their administration — until Pence wouldn’t submit to Trump’s pressure campaign to intervene to overturn the 2020 election.
In his statement, Pence called Robson “the best choice for Arizona’s future” and candidate to “promote conservative values,” mirroring language from Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, term-limited to run again, supporting Robson one day after early voting started. Ducey has called Robson “the real conservative” in the race.
While it’s unclear if Ducey will join him, Pence is expected to hold at least one event for Robson on Friday, while Trump rallies for his candidates in Prescott. The details of Pence’s plans are still being worked out, a source familiar told ABC News.
A slate of Trump endorsees who espouse his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, without evidence, are running for statewide offices in charge of overseeing and certifying elections in the state, raising concerns about election integrity within the Republican Party — the very issue those Trump-backed candidates claim to be running on. The former president’s rally with them, rescheduled from last Saturday due to the death of his ex-wife, Ivana Trump, now comes one day after the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack will hold a prime-time hearing to lay out the timeline of Trump’s actions on Jan. 6.
“This is a battle for the soul of the Republican Party in Arizona,” Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona, told ABC News on Monday.
But he offered a caveat to Trump and Pence coming to town just 10 days before the primary election on Aug. 2.
“The thing to really note in Arizona is that we are early voters, and so the impact of both the Trump and Pence endorsements are a bit muted,” he said.
As of last Friday, 253,000 ballots have been returned early in the state with about 26,500 more votes in the Democratic primary than the Republican, according to Uplift Data, which pulls reporting from the Arizona Democratic Party Voter File and Arizona County recorders.
What has made a difference in Arizona’s gubernatorial race is State Rep. Matt Salmon dropping out of the race in June, a week before early voting began in an apparent effort to consolidate votes around Robson. Salmon has criticized Lake for a handful of hypocrisy scandals, such as having donated in the past to Democratic candidates in the past. Since he left the race, Robson has seen a boost in polling, though Lake still holds a narrow lead.
Back in May, in their first major collision of the 2022 midterm cycle, the former vice president last held a rally counter to Trump ahead of Georgia’s gubernatorial primary, breaking from Trump to stump for incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Kemp beat David Perdue, the former senator Trump recruited, and soared to victory without a runoff — dealing a blow to Trump’s endorsement power which will be tested again in Arizona in two weeks.
The ongoing endorsements highlight the midterm divide between Trump and the Republican Party.
Pence’s endorsement of Robson on Monday follows endorsements from former Republican Gov. Chris Christie of Arizona, an ABC News Contributor, as well as Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who, with presidential aspirations of his own, has said he does not think Trump should be the Republican nominee in 2024.
Ducey, also under Trump’s ire since certifying Biden’s victory (and infamously sending Trump to voicemail while doing it), has come out swinging against Lake, casting her campaign as “all an act” and using the nickname “Fake Lake.”
“She’s been putting on a show for some time now, and we’ll see if the voters of Arizona by it,” Ducey said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “Kari Lake’s misleading voters with no evidence.”
As chair of the Republican Governors Association, Ducey refused to say whether the RGA would support Lake in the general election if she wins the primary on Aug. 2, though the organization historically does not get involved in open primary races.
“We’re on offense, but we don’t support lost causes,” he said, adding that he doesn’t classify any Republican candidates in the “lost cause” category yet.
Nicole DeMont, campaign manager to current Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the likely Democratic nominee for governor, in a statement to ABC News on Monday reacting to Pence’s endorsement, referred to their potential opponents as “Lobbyist Karrin Taylor Robson” and “MAGA Kari Lake,” who she said “are focused on their primary race to the bottom,” while Hobbs “is working to bring Arizonans together to solve our biggest challenges,” such as inflation, securing abortion access and public education.
The apparent schism in the GOP is not limited to races for governor.
In Arizona’s secretary of state race, Ducey, again, broke from Trump last week with his endorsement of advertising executive Beau Lane against Trump’s pick, State Rep. Mark Finchem, calling Lane someone who “can’t be bullied.”
As opposed to other GOP candidates, including Finchem, State Sen. Michelle Ugenti Rita and State Rep. Shawnna Bolick, Lane does not subscribe to the belief that the 2020 election was stolen and has said he’s pleased to have Ducey’s support.
Finchem, on the other hand, was in Washington on Jan. 6, though he says he did not enter the Capitol, and was among 30 GOP lawmakers in Arizona who signed a joint resolution calling on Congress to accept an “alternate” slate of electoral votes for Trump.The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack issued Finchem a subpoena earlier this year for “information about efforts to send false slates of electors to Washington and change the outcome of the 2020 election.”
The far-right lawmaker has repeatedly touted Trump’s endorsement since last year and recently boasted on Twitter that he’s the candidate “NOT” endorsed by Ducey, as Trump-backed candidates seek to distance themselves from those not in Trump’s good graces. He and Lake have laid the groundwork to call their primary races “rigged” if they do not win.
Marson, who lives in Phoenix and is voting for Robson, warned that if Lake does win the primary, Republicans will have a harder time in the general election against Hobbs.
“Kari Lake embodies the Trump experience. Famous on TV, a former liberal who became a conservative overnight and energized the far-right base of the Republican Party. She has taken the Trump playbook and tried to replicate what Trump did nationally in Arizona — but Trump lost 2020 in Arizona,” he said. “Lake trying to replicate that isn’t a winning strategy. Maybe it is for the primary — we’ll find that out in two weeks — but it is definitely not a winning strategy for the general election.”
ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Members of a special committee of the Texas state legislature met with family members of the victims on Sunday to present their findings.
A scathing 77-page report by a joint committee of the Texas Legislature contained new details of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and slammed the police response to the incident and the school district’s lack of preparation for such an attack.
The report, which was made public Sunday after the committee reviewed it with many of the loved ones of the 19 students and two teachers killed in the May 24 shooting, detailed a number of major lapses in measures to fortify the school from intruders and the slow manner in which multiple law enforcement agencies mobilized to confront the heavily armed gunman.
While the committee said it found no “villains” other than the gunman to blame for the deadly attack, it found “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making” that prevented a speedy response to the rampage.
Here are five key takeaways from the committee’s investigation of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
School was unprepared
In the report’s opening pages, the committee cited the lack of preparation by the school district and the Robb Elementary staff to prevent an active shooter from getting onto the campus and into the school building.
“With hindsight, we can say Robb Elementary did not adequately prepare for the risk of an armed intruder on campus,” the committee wrote.
The panel said the school’s 5-foot-tall exterior fence, which surveillance video showed the gunman easily climbing to get onto the campus, was “in adequate to meaningfully impede an intruder.”
More importantly, the committee found that while the school had adopted security policies to ensure exterior doors and internal classroom door were locked while school was in session, those protocols were mostly ignored.
“There was a regrettable culture of noncompliance by school personnel who frequently propped doors open and deliberately circumvented locks,” the committee said.
Such behavior, according to the committee, was “tacitly condoned” by the school administrators.
“In fact, the school actually suggested circumventing the locks as a solution for the convenience of substitute teachers and others who lacked their own key,” the committee wrote.
School staff knew doors were unlocked
The gunman entered the school through a door on the west side of the campus that didn’t latch properly after a teacher had propped it open with a rock to bring in food from her car, investigators said.
“In violation of school policy, no one had locked any of the three exterior doors to the west building of Robb Elementary. As a result, the attacker had unimpeded access to enter,” the committee reported.
The committee also faulted the school district for failing to treat the maintenance of doors with known faulty locks with “appropriate urgency.”
“In particular, staff and students widely knew the door to one of the victimized classrooms, Room 111, was ordinarily unsecured and accessible,” according to the committee’s report. “Room 111 could be locked, but an extra effort was required to make sure the latch engaged,” the report said.
No incident commander at the scene
The committee found numerous “shortcomings and failures of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and of various agencies and officers of law enforcement” in the response to the shooting. Chief of among them was that there was no designated incident commander at the scene as the massacre was unfolding.
“At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving lives of innocent victims over their own safety,” the committee reported.
UCISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo and the commander of the Uvalde Police Department’s SWAT team were among the first wave of law enforcement officers to arrive at the school. However, neither of them assumed the role of incident commander to coordinate the 376 law enforcement officers from local, state and federal agencies who quickly responded to the shooting, the committee said.
“The Uvalde CISD’s written active shooter plan directed its police chief to assume command and control the response to an active shooter,” according to the report.
But as the massacre unfolded, Arredondo allegedly failed to take on the role of incident commander or transfer the responsibility to another officer on scene, despite it being an “essential duty” he had assigned himself in the active shooter plan he helped write, the committee said.
“Yet it was not effectively performed by anyone,” the committee wrote. “The void of leadership could have contributed to the loss of life as injured victims waited for over an hour for help, and the attacker continued to sporadically fire his weapon.”
It took 73 minutes between the time the suspect entered the school to when officers breached the door of the classroom and killed him, according to the report.
Lack of communication
The committee found that by simply setting up a command post, which was not done, the chaos of the moment could have been transformed into order by the incident commander assigning tasks and aiding in the flow of information that could have been used to “inform critical decisions,” according to the report.
“Notably, nobody ensured that responders making key decisions inside the building received information that students and teachers had survived the initial burst of gunfire, were trapped in Rooms 111 and 112, and had called out for help,” the committee wrote. “Some responders outside and inside the building knew that information through radio communications. But nobody in command analyzed this information to recognize that the attacker was preventing critically injured victims from obtaining medical care.”
Arredondo, however, erroneously believed the shooter was barricaded and that responding officers had time on their side to deal with the situation.
“Instead of continuing to act as if they were addressing a barricaded subject scenario in which responders had time on their side, they should have reassessed the scenario as one involving an active shooter,” the committee wrote. “Correcting this error should have sparked greater urgency to immediately breach the classroom by any possible means, to subdue the attacker, and to deliver immediate aid to surviving victims.”
The report also said of the hundreds of first responders who quickly arrived on the scene, many were better trained and better equipped than the school district police, “yet in this crisis, no responder seized the initiative to establish an incident command post.”
“Despite an obvious atmosphere of chaos, the ranking officers of other responding agencies, did not approach the Uvalde CISD chief of police or anyone else perceived to be in command to point out the lack of and need for a command post, or offer that specific assistance,” the report states.
“The entirety of law enforcement and its training, preparation, and response shares systemic responsibility for many missed opportunities on that tragic day,” the report said.
The attacker’s motive
For the first time since the massacre occurred, information on a possible motive was included in the report.
“One motive that drove the man behind the massacre at Robb Elementary School was a desire for notoriety and fame,” the committee stated in its report, refusing to use his name.
The committee delved into the suspect’s background, finding he had been a good student up to the eighth grade. He then quickly took a dark path and became a serial truant that eventually got him kicked out of school in the ninth grade, according to the report.
The suspect attended school at Robb Elementary up to the fourth grade.
“The shooting took place in his former fourth grade classroom, and he discussed bad memories of fourth grade with an acquaintance just weeks beforehand,” the committee reported.
The suspect’s fourth grade teacher testified before the committee, acknowledging she knew he needed extra help in her class because “he claimed to be a victim of bullying.”
The suspect’s ex-girlfriend told the committee they broke up in mid-2021 and she described him as “lonely and depressed, constantly teased by friends who called him a ‘school shooter.'” She said he also claimed that he was sexually assaulted as a child.
“She said that he told her repeatedly that he wouldn’t live past eighteen, either because he would commit suicide or simply because he ‘wouldn’t live long,'” the report states.
On social media platforms, he expressed an interest in gore and violence, sharing videos online of beheadings and horrific accidents, and sending explicit messages to other online users, the report said.
“Finally, the attacker developed a fascination with school shootings, of which he made no secret,” according to the report.
The committee also heard testimony that the suspect told acquaintances he was hoarding money for “something big” and that they would all see him on the news one day, according to the report.
None of his statements were ever reported to authorities, the committee found.
The committee wrote that the suspect began to formulate his plan to attack the school in early 2022 after he got into a “blowout argument” with his mother that he livestreamed on Instagram.
Investigators believe the suspect began stockpiling firearm accessories, including 60- and 30-round magazines, holographic weapon sights and snap-on trigger systems in February 2020. He legally purchased ammunition and guns, including two AR-15 rifles, when he turned 18 in May, according to the report.
The committee included in the report an incident that occurred at Robb Elementary School on March 23, in which a suspicious person dressed in black and with a backpack was seen canvassing the school. The person was never identified, according to the committee.
(SALT LAKE CITY) — The Great Salt Lake has lost two-thirds of its size due to rising temperatures and scientists say this is already causing a dangerous ecological ripple effect throughout Utah.
The water body, which is approximately 75 miles long and 30 miles wide, is known to be the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and feeds into nearby rivers, but it’s now one-third its usual size and still shrinking.
Ecologists who have been watching this climate change-induced trend told ABC News that the dry-up is already affecting Utah’s fauna, flora and human populations, and the problem is only going to get worse without outside help.
“I don’t know how much time we have,” Joel Ferry, the director of Utah’s Department of Natural Resources, told ABC News.
More than 800 square miles of the river have been exposed due to the dry-up, according to experts. Ferry, a fifth-generation rancher and state representative, said he has personally been affected by the drought.
Ferry’s land is on the Bear River, which is the largest tributary to the Great Salt Lake, and normally the river flows enough water to rise lake levels up to 3 feet during the peak of the season.
This year the water only went up 1 foot, which is problematic because the water levels usually drop 2 feet during the end of the season, according to Ferry.
“The problem is a shallow lake. There are not many more feet to go,” he said.
Kyle Stone, a wildlife biologist for the state of Utah, told ABC News that animals and plants near the lake are already bearing the burden of the dry-up.
As the water goes down, its salinity goes up which kills algae, a food source for brine shrimp, he said. The shrimp is food to more than 10 million birds that depend on the lake during migrations, according to Stone.
“They’ve got to get from central Canada to central Argentina or southern Mexico without a stopover point,” Stone told ABC News. “You just can’t do it. You’ve gotta refuel somewhere.”
Birds that do stop in the area are now prone to attacks from coyotes or other predators who have more land to traverse, according to Stone.
Robert Gillies, a climatologist from Utah State University, told ABC News that the dry-up also affects people, even those who don’t live near the water.
When the lake dries up harmful particulates that are at the bottom of the lake, both ones that occur naturally and ones that formed from decades of mining in the area, are exposed and kicked up in the wind, according to the state’s Department of Natural Resources.
Gillies said arsenic is the most troubling particulate that gets airborne, particularly in the wintertime. During colder weather, particles are trapped in an inversion and, during winter storms, they are released into the air, he said.
Gillies warned that this can be harmful to people’s cardiovascular and respiratory systems.
“If you have been compromised on any of those fronts, it’s just going to be worse,” he said.
Some Utah residents are taking some efforts to mitigate the damage.
Ferry has guided farmers to install drip irrigation systems into their soil. The system pushes water in a small row directly to the plants, he said.
“So it’s a really good practice for things like lettuce and tomatoes, pumpkins, those kinds of plants,” he said.
The Utah state legislature also passed a $40 million plan earlier this year to create a water trust to maintain and improve waterflow to the lake and U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-UT, introduced the Great Salt Lake Recovery Act, which would “study historic drought conditions and protect the long-term health.”
Ferry said more work needs to be done and said the federal and state governments need to make more years of investments to prevent the problem from getting worse.
“Without managing our water appropriately, life in the West doesn’t exist,” he said.
(GREENWOOD, Ind.) — Police identified and applauded the 22-year-old who shot and killed a gunman who opened fire on a Greenwood, Indiana, shopping mall.
The gunman, who killed three people before being killed, was identified Monday as 20-year-old Jonathan Sapirman.
Elisjsha Dicken shot and killed Sapirman two minutes after the rampage started, Greenwood Police Chief James Ison said at Monday’s news conference.
“Our city, our community and our state is grateful for his heroism in this situation,” Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers said. “He’s a young man processing a lot. I ask that you give him space and time to be able to process what he’s gone through last night.”
The Johnson County coroner also identified the three people who were killed in the shooting: 30-year-old Victor Gomez and married couple Pedro Pineda, 56, and Rosa Rivera de Pineda, 37.
“I am 100% certain many, many more people would’ve died last night if it was not for his heroism,” Ison told ABC News. “The young man had his wits about him, acted very quickly.”
The suspect had over 100 rounds of ammunition on him, but fired just 24 bullets before being shot by Dicken, police said.
The suspect brought three guns with him to the mall, but only used a Sig Sauer M400 rifle, which he purchased legally in March. Sapirman allegedly left behind another semi-automatic rifle in the mall bathroom, where he was seen on surveillance footage for an hour before the shooting. He purchased that weapon legally in March 2021. A pistol was also found on his body, police said.
Gomez was shot outside the restroom, while the Pinedas were shot while eating dinner in the food court, according to police.
In addition to those who were killed, a 22-year-old woman was shot in the leg and a 12-year-old girl suffered a minor wound after a bullet fragment ricocheted off the wall and hit her in the back.
ABC News’ Alex Perez and Darren Reynolds contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — With Joe Manchin’s stamp of approval in the closely divided Senate, President Joe Biden and Democratic Party leaders are ready for the chamber to move forward before the next recess on a slimmed-down spending bill that focuses on health care. But not all Senate Democrats feel the same.
One day after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., castigated West Virginia’s Sen. Manchin for rejecting the Democratic package on climate and taxes — saying he was sabotaging “future generations” — Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden said he wants to keep a path open for adding climate policies into the upcoming reconciliation package, including those put on ice by Manchin.
“Conversations on clean energy must continue to preserve our options to move forward,” Wyden, of Oregon, said in a statement on Monday. “While I strongly support additional executive action by President Biden, we know a flood of Republican lawsuits will follow. Legislation continues to be the best option here. The climate crisis is the issue of our time and we should keep our options open.”
Wyden stopped short of threatening to revoke support for a health care-only bill and no other Senate Democrat appears to have drawn such a red line. But progress requires consensus in the 50-50 chamber, given GOP opposition: Democrats intend to pass their reconciliation bill using a fast-track budget tool that needs only a simple majority.
Manchin has agreed to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, potentially saving the federal government $288 billion and bringing down costs for seniors, in addition to a two-year extension of pandemic-era premium subsidies for lower-income Americans enrolled in the Affordable Care Act.
But, citing concerns about historically high inflation, Manchin last week pumped the breaks on climate proposals in the Democratic legislation. He said then that he needed to see July’s inflation data before he could determine how to proceed on the climate component.
As for Sanders’ criticism that he was “intentionally sabotaging the president’s agenda,” Manchin was asked Monday to respond and said: “I’ve been at this a long time. People say things some times they might not mean, and I don’t take it personally.”
Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, of Illinois, said Monday that he can “live with” moving forward on a bill focused only on health care if that’s the best that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, of New York, can achieve in discussions with Manchin.
“My major frustration is I think Joe should have made his position clear a hell of a long time ago,” Durbin said, echoing Sanders’ criticism Sunday that “the problem was that we continue to talk to Manchin like he was serious. He was not.”
“If they do prescription drugs, give them credit, that’s a good issue,” Durbin said Monday. “But we’ve spent a lot of time wasted in negotiation.”
Other Democrats also signaled Monday that they’re prepared to swallow a package that excludes climate and spending.
“We have a 50-50 Senate. It is what it is,” Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii said. “Any improvement to me is something to be considered.”
It’s unlikely Republicans would pick up the slack for Democratic defectors. In floor remarks Monday, Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the health care-focused plan “reckless.”
“Washington Democrats are working right now to find a way to put more bureaucracy between American patients and the treatments they rely on. They want to put socialist price controls between American innovators and new cures for debilitating diseases,” McConnell said Monday. “With one-party Democratic control of government they just might get away with it, but our colleagues need to think again.”
Manchin: ‘I haven’t walked away’
Manchin, in conversation with reporters on Monday, insisted he was continuing to negotiate on climate and other provisions. He was firm on waiting for the July inflation numbers before proceeding.
“I haven’t walked away from anything, and inflation is my greatest concern,” he said. “I don’t know what tomorrow brings.”
But Democrats are running out of time and know that after the monthlong August recess they must return with a focus on funding the government by Oct. 1, nearly always a fraught process. November’s midterm elections come soon after that.
And with both health care premiums in many states set in August and pandemic-era ACA subsidies set to expire by year’s end, Democrats could be facing angry voters if costs skyrocket — amid the pain of inflation — ahead of the midterms where control of Congress is at stake.
On Friday, Biden backed moving forward with a health care bill while promising executive action on climate.
“After decades of fierce opposition from powerful special interests, Democrats have come together, beaten back the pharmaceutical industry and are prepared to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices and to prevent an increase in health insurance premiums for millions of families with coverage under the Affordable Care Act,” the president said. “Families all over the nation will sleep easier if Congress takes this action.”
