(NEW YORK) — With Election Day around the corner, some national Jewish advocacy organizations are calling on the Republican Party to take a harder line on condemning antisemitism from several GOP candidates or their supporters.
Their calls come on the heels of several high-profile controversies over remarks made by celebrities and political candidates vying to win their midterm races.
Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, for example, has made headlines with his statements about his Jewish opponent, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
He accused Shapiro in September of having “disdain for people like us,” because Shapiro attended and sent his children to a “privileged, exclusive, elite” Jewish institution. His comments have been widely condemned as evoking common antisemitic tropes.
At a campaign event last month, Mastriano doubled down on his statements.
“Apparently now it’s some kind of racist thing if I talk about the school,” he said reiterating that “it’s a very expensive, elite school.”
Mastriano’s campaign did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Ohio GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance has also been accused of echoing antisemitic tropes after suggesting in January that if Ohio prohibited abortion, “then every day, George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California.”
“Hopefully we get to a point where Ohio bans abortion and California and the Soroses of the world respect it,” he continued.
The Anti-Defamation League has reported that references to Soros — a Hungarian Jewish billionaire, philanthropist and Holocaust survivor known for funding progressive causes — have become a right-wing dog whistle for conspiracy theories about wealthy Jewish people controlling and manipulating societies to further their own interests.
Vance’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
GOP party leaders have strongly condemned antisemitism in several cases.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke out against Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., who attended the America First Political Action Conference in March, run by Nick Fuentes, a prominent white nationalist, saying, “There’s no place in the Republican Party for white supremacists or antisemitism.”
Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel has also previously spoken out against antisemitism, stating that “white supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican Party.”
Politicians need to respond like businesses to antisemitism, some say
But some Jewish organization leaders say statements are not enough.
Jack Rosen, president of the American Jewish Congress, said candidates must also face material repercussions for their comments, arguing the party should go as far as cutting off their support and funding.
“They need to make sure that these [candidates] are not accepted and not given good assignments, are not supported financially,” Rosen told ABC News.
As a model, he cited the example of Adidas severing ties with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, after he made a slew of incendiary comments attacking Jewish people in recent weeks, including a tweet threatening he would go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”
“We’ve learned that when a powerful force like the business community comes out and stops doing business with you and boycotts your lines, that does have an impact,” Rosen said.
Jacob Isaacson, the American Jewish Committee’s chief policy and political affairs officer, said the party and its candidates also have a responsibility to repudiate supporters and associates who have expressed antisemitic sentiments.
Mastriano came under fire after paying $5,000 for campaign consulting to the far-right site Gab — where a man allegedly made antisemitic posts before killing 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
Gab chief executive Andrew Torba said both he and Mastriano have a policy of speaking only to Christian journalists, the Jerusalem Post reported.
After significant public pressure, Mastriano put out a statement saying Torba does not “speak for me or my campaign” and that “I reject antisemitism in any form.” But in July, Mastriano still accepted a $500 donation from Torba, according to a September campaign finance report.
In Georgia, Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker has also faced criticism for not publicly refusing a show of support from Ye on Instagram.
“What I would like to see is the rejection of endorsement from blatant antisemites and that needs to be kind of a universal principle,” Isaacson told ABC News.
Walker’s campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
Economic uncertainty, culture wars give rise to antisemitic conspiracies
With the issue of inflation driving many voters this midterm election, several Jewish organization leaders said Americans’ economic anxieties have also provided a platform for antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the scapegoating of Jewish people has historically peaked during periods of economic stress, such as the country’s current “recessionary environment.”
“When systems fail, when markets fail, when policy fails, people look for someone to blame,” he told ABC News.
For example, the ADL reported a spike in antisemitic internet activity during the Great Recession in 2008, including articles and posts blaming Jewish people for the financial crisis.
Some candidates have also used antisemitic tropes to appeal to voters’ concerns about ongoing culture wars over abortion, critical race theory and LGBTQ rights, for example.
Arizona GOP House candidate Eli Crane has said repeatedly that he would fight critical race theory, alleging its roots in “Cultural Marxism,” which has been described as a baseless conspiracy theory with antisemitic origins.
Crane’s campaign did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Antisemitism reaches all-time high in U.S.
Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said the alleged normalization and amplification of antisemitic rhetoric within the Republican Party has emboldened its supporters, including white supremacist and right-wing extremist groups, to perpetrate violence against Jewish people.
The ADL reported that antisemitic incidents in the U.S. reached an all-time high in the U.S. in 2021.
Soifer said the upsurge of white nationalism during the Trump administration remains a problem in the midterms.
“We saw this during Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2016, throughout his presidency, and in 2020, when he echoed antisemitic conspiracy theory and other hateful views shared by white supremacists and refused to condemn white supremacy,” Soifer told ABC News. “Now it has proliferated, and it is viewed as accepted among candidates, and some of them may even get elected in a week.”
As recently as last month, Trump shared a post on his Truth social media platform telling American Jews to “get their act together” by expressing more support for Israel.
Some Democratic candidates and lawmakers have also faced allegations of antisemitism, primarily for their comments criticizing Israel and promoting the boycott, divest, sanctions movement.
Responding to a request for comment, an RNC spokesperson referred ABC News to several of these statements — for example, Rep. Ilhan Omar’s 2012 tweet saying Israel “has hypnotized the world,” which was widely denounced as antisemitic.
Omar has since expressed regret for the comment but maintains it was directed at the country’s government and military action, not “people of a particular faith.”
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., have also been consistently criticized, often by Republicans, for their support of the BDS movement.
(NEW YORK) — More than six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion into neighboring Ukraine, the two countries are engaged in a struggle for control of areas throughout eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose forces began an offensive in August, has vowed to take back all Russian-occupied territory. But Putin in September announced a mobilization of reservists, which is expected to call up as many as 300,000 additional troops.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Nov 06, 1:57 PM EST
Biden, German chancellor call Russian nuclear threats ‘irresponsible’
President Joe Biden spoke to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday and both agreed Russia’s nuclear threats stemming the war in Ukraine are “irresponsible,” according to the White House.
Both leaders said they would continue to “provide Ukraine with the economic, humanitarian, and security support it needs to defend against Russia,” the White House said in a statement.
Biden and Scholz also spoke of the chancellor’s recent trip to the People’s Republic of China and, according to White House officials “affirmed their shared commitment to upholding the rules-based international order, human rights, and fair trade practices.”
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Nov 03, 12:02 PM EDT
Western officials believe Russia is planning ‘orderly, well-planned and deliberate’ military withdrawal from Kherson
Western officials are “confident” Russia’s military is “setting the conditions” for withdrawal from the Ukrainian city of Kherson, the only regional capital that has been occupied by Russian forces since the February.
The Russian military is preparing to make a “strategic” withdrawal and move its forces east across the Dnipro river, officials said.
“It looks like an orderly, well-planned and deliberate military process is taking place,” a Western official told ABC News.
The officials would not put a timeframe on when the withdrawal would happen and added that it is not guaranteed to take place. They downplayed, however, any speculation that the Russians are using the withdrawal to mask a more “nefarious” action in that area.
The officials said their assessment was that the Russians believe Kherson “is not worth fighting for.”
The advance of Ukrainian forces in Kherson has slowed over the past three weeks.
In mid-October, the newly appointed commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, General Surovikin, said “difficult decisions” may be necessary in Kherson.
Senior Ukrainian officials have suggested more recently that Russian forces are preparing to fight for Kherson and a source on the ground told ABC News that the Russian military is still moving in and out of the city.
-ABC News’ Tom Burridge
Nov 02, 12:14 PM EDT
North Korea covertly shipping ammunition to Russia for war in Ukraine, US says
North Korea was secreting sending ammunition to Russia to use in its invasion of Ukraine and is disguising the shipments as appearing to be destined to the Middle East or North Africa, the White House said Wednesday.
“Our information indicates that [North Korea] is covertly supplying Russia’s war in Ukraine with a significant number of artillery shells, while obfuscating the real destination of the arms shipments by trying to make it appear as though they’re being sent to countries in the Middle East or North Africa,” White House spokesman John Kirby said.
Kirby said North Korea was sending “a significant number of artillery shells.” He did not specify an exact number but said it was more than “dozens.”
“But we don’t believe that they are in such a quantity that they would tangibly change the direction of this war or tangibly change the momentum either in the east or in the south” of Ukraine, he said.
Kirby added, “We’re gonna continue to monitor whether these shipments are received.”
In September, the U.S. had said Russia is looking to purchase millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea, saying at the time that this indicated the Russian military continues to suffer from severe supply shortages in Ukraine.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Nov 02, 12:01 PM EDT
Russia waives veiled threat on use of nuclear weapons
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a warning to nations with nuclear capabilities, calling on them to abandon attempts to infringe on each other’s vital interests, warning that direct armed conflict and provocations with weapons of mass destruction can lead to catastrophic consequences.
Russia claimed it believes there can be no winners of nuclear war and said it refarrims its commitment to the prevention of nuclear warm.
“A reaction with the use of nuclear weapons is hypothetically allowed by Russia only in response to aggression using weapons of mass destruction or aggression using conventional weapons, when the existence of the state is threatened,” the ministry said in a statement.
The White House has said it will not confirm or deny New York Times reporting that senior Russian military officials had recently discussed when and how Russia might use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine. The intelligence about the conversations was reportedly circulated inside the U.S. government in mid-October.
But, Russian President Vladimir Putin was not a part of these alleged conversations, according to the New York Times.
The White House on Wednesday said it still sees “no indications that Russia is making preparations” to use nuclear weapons.
-ABC News’ Natalia Shumskaia and Ben Gittleson
Nov 02, 12:14 PM EDT
North Korea covertly shipping ammunition to Russia for war in Ukraine, US says
North Korea was secretly sending ammunition to Russia to use in its invasion of Ukraine and is disguising the shipments as appearing to be destined to the Middle East or North Africa, the White House said Wednesday.
“Our information indicates that [North Korea] is covertly supplying Russia’s war in Ukraine with a significant number of artillery shells, while obfuscating the real destination of the arms shipments by trying to make it appear as though they’re being sent to countries in the Middle East or North Africa,” White House spokesman John Kirby said.
Kirby said North Korea was sending “a significant number of artillery shells.” He did not specify an exact number but said it was more than “dozens.”
“But we don’t believe that they are in such a quantity that they would tangibly change the direction of this war or tangibly change the momentum either in the east or in the south” of Ukraine, he said.
Kirby added, “We’re gonna continue to monitor whether these shipments are received.”
In September, the U.S. had said Russia is looking to purchase millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea, saying at the time that this indicated the Russian military continues to suffer from severe supply shortages in Ukraine.
Nov 02, 12:01 PM EDT
Russia waives veiled threat on use of nuclear weapons
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a warning to nations with nuclear capabilities, calling on them to abandon attempts to infringe on each other’s vital interests, warning that direct armed conflict and provocations with weapons of mass destruction can lead to catastrophic consequences.
Russia claimed it believes there can be no winners of nuclear war and said it reaffirms its commitment to the prevention of nuclear warm.
“A reaction with the use of nuclear weapons is hypothetically allowed by Russia only in response to aggression using weapons of mass destruction or aggression using conventional weapons, when the existence of the state is threatened,” the ministry said in a statement.
The White House has said it will not confirm or deny New York Times reporting that senior Russian military officials had recently discussed when and how Russia might use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine. The intelligence about the conversations was reportedly circulated inside the U.S. government in mid-October.
But, Russian President Vladimir Putin was not a part of these alleged conversations, according to the New York Times.
The White House on Wednesday said it still sees “no indications that Russia is making preparations” to use nuclear weapons.
Nov 02, 8:40 AM EDT
Russia rejoins wartime deal on Ukrainian grain exports
Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Wednesday that Russia has agreed to resume its participation in a deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations to keep grain and other commodities shipping out of Ukraine’s ports amid the ongoing war.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed his Turkish counterpart, Hulusi Akar, that the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative would “continue in the same way as before” as of noon Wednesday, according to Erdogan.
The renewed agreement, first reached over the summer, will prioritize shipments to African countries, including drought-ravaged Somalia, after Russia expressed concerns that most of the grain was ending up in richer nations.
Moscow agreed to return to the deal after receiving written guarantees from Kyiv that Ukraine would not use the safe shipping corridors through the Black Sea for military actions against Russian forces, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Russia had suspended its role in the deal over the weekend, after accusing Ukrainian forces of carrying out a “massive” drone attack on its Black Sea fleet on Saturday.
Turkey and the U.N. brokered separate deals with Russia and Ukraine in July to allow Ukraine to resume its shipment of grain from the Black Sea to world markets and for Russia to export grain and fertilizers.
Since Russian forces invaded neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, the cost of grain, fertilizer and fuel has skyrocketed worldwide. Russia and Ukraine — often referred to collectively as Europe’s breadbasket — produce a third of the global supply of wheat and barley, but a Russian blockade in the Black Sea combined with Ukrainian naval mines have made exporting siloed grain and other foodstuffs virtually impossible. As a result, millions of people around the world — particularly in Africa and the Middle East — are now on the brink of famine.
Nov 01, 3:01 PM EDT
Ukraine does not have effective defenses against Iranian ballistic missiles, air force official claims
Iranian ballistic missiles, which Russia plans to purchase from Iran, will probably be placed on the northern border of Ukraine, the spokesman of the Ukrainian Airborne Forces Yuri Ignat said Tuesday.
Ignat claimed the ballistic missiles’ range was 300 km for one and 700 km for another.
“We have no effective defense against these missiles. It is theoretically possible to shoot them down, but in fact it is very difficult to do it with the means we have at our disposal. We have air defense, not missile defense,” he said.
-ABC News’ Yulia Drozd
Nov 01, 3:01 PM EDT
Russia announces wider evacuation of occupied southern Ukraine
As Ukrainian forces advance to capture the city of Kherson, Russian forces are ordering civilians out of parts of the now-occupied city. Some 70,000 people along a 15 kilometer (10 mile) stretch of the left bank of the Dnipro River will be evacuated deeper into the Kherson region or to Russia, according to the Russian-installed leader of the occupied Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo.
Russia had previously ordered civilians out of an area it controls on the west bank of the river.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Oct 31, 7:07 PM EDT
Russia’s withdrawal from grain deal ‘collective punishment’ for world: State Department
State Department spokesperson Ned Price on Monday lambasted Russia’s recent decision to withdraw from the U.N.-brokered deal that allowed for grain to be exported through the Black Sea — likely to be a chief focus of this week’s G-7 ministerial meeting and potentially the G-20 Leaders’ Summit next month.
“We deeply regret Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is having immediate, harmful impacts on global food security,” Price said during a press briefing. “Russia should return to full participation in the initiative, and we urge all parties to swiftly agree to sustain this crucial program through the months to come.”
“Any disruption to the initiative risks spiking food prices, lowering the confidence of insurers and commercial shippers who have returned to Black Sea routes, and further imposing hardships on low-income countries already reeling from dire humanitarian crises and global food insecurity,” he added.
Price said Russia’s reneging had already caused future contracts for foodstuff to rise, even though some ships appear to have been allowed to pass through the water routes with their cargo following Moscow’s announcement.
“We’ve seen Russia engage in what appears to be collective punishment for the people of Ukraine,” he said. “But Moscow’s suspension of the initiative would be tantamount to collective punishment for the rest of the world — but especially lower- and middle-income countries that so desperately needed this grain.”
ABC News’ Shannon Crawford
Oct 31, 3:32 PM EDT
Ukraine energy company warns about attacks on energy infrastructure
Following a series of coordinated strikes across Ukraine this Monday morning, Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK says it’s running out of equipment and spare parts needed for repairs of the damaged infrastructure facilities.
“Unfortunately, we have already used up the stock of equipment that we had in our warehouses after the first two waves of attacks that have been taking place since Oct. 10,” said DTEK Executive Director Dmytro Sakharuk. “We were able to purchase some equipment. But unfortunately, the cost of the equipment is now measured in hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Most parts have been already used for repairs following previous Russian strikes, he added.
Oct 31, 4:54 AM EDT
Russia launches waves of missiles at energy targets
Russia on Monday morning again launched a series of coordinated strikes across Ukraine, targeting energy infrastructure, including in the Kyiv region.
Ukraine’s military said it shot down 44 cruise missiles as the Russians launched “several waves of missile attacks on critical infrastructure facilities” across the country.
About five distant booms could be heard in central Kyiv at about 8 a.m. local time.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, confirmed that a power plant has been hit, meaning mid-morning around 350,000 homes in the capital were left without power. Kyiv’s water supply has also been compromised, according to a water company.
A local official said “critical infrastructure” had also been hit in the Chernivtsi region in southwestern Ukraine.
Critical infrastructure has also been hit and damaged in Zaporizhzhia in the south, according to another local official.
Other regions of Ukraine appear to have been targeted, including Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Poltava and Lviv.
There are currently no reports of significant casualties.
ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge
Oct 30, 10:02 AM EDT
Blinken accuses Russia of ‘weaponizing food’
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken slammed Russia’s decision to pull out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative as a statement from the Kremlin that “people and families around the world should pay more for food or go hungry.”
Russia announced it is withdrawing from the U.N.-brokered grain deal in response to a drone attack Saturday in the waters of the Sevastopol Bay, in the Black Sea near Crimea.
Russia’s decision, Blinken said, is jeopardizing grain shipments he described as “life-saving.”
“In suspending this arrangement, Russia is again weaponizing food in the war it started, directly impacting low- and middle-income countries and global food prices, and exacerbating already dire humanitarian crises and food insecurity,” Blinken said in a statement released Saturday night.
He said 9 million metric tons of food has been shipped under the agreement, which was signed and launched in July. He said the shipments have reduced food prices around the world.
“We urge the Government of Russia to resume its participation in the Initiative, fully comply with the arrangement, and work to ensure that people around the world continue to be able to receive the benefits facilitated by the Initiative,” Blinken said.
Blinken’s statement echoed what President Joe Biden said earlier Saturday, calling Russia’s withdrawal from the initiative, “purely outrageous.”
“It’s going to increase starvation. There’s no reason for them to do that, but they’re always looking for some rationale to be able to say the reason they’re doing something outrageous is because the West made them do it. And it’s just not,” Biden said. “There’s no merit to what they’re doing. The UN negotiated that deal and that should be the end of it.”
(NEW YORK) — The “fall back” from daylight saving is linked to an uptick in car accidents and poor mood, but doctors say careful attention to sleep hygiene and a gradual adjustment of your bedtime may help.
As clocks across America “fall back” an hour at 2 a.m. on Nov. 6, internal clocks may lag behind.
“Changes, even small ones, in your sleep can impact almost every area of your body from your skin to your cardiovascular system,” said Dr. Marri Horvat of the Cleveland Sleep Disorders Clinic.
Daylight saving time is less aligned with our natural circadian rhythm. The sun rises later and light lasts longer in the evening, but our bodies are more attuned to light in the mornings and darkness in the evenings. Each switch changes sleep patterns abruptly.
The good news, doctors say, is that the upcoming change from daylight saving to standard time is less harmful for your health than the spring switch, largely because you gain an hour of sleep. The bad news is that either switch can have negative impacts on your health.
Researchers estimate that the switch to and from daylight saving time contributes to thousands of car accidents and 300 deaths each year. Meanwhile, researchers who have studied the fall switch specifically say it’s linked with an 11% increase in depressive episodes. Interestingly, doctors report that while the spring switch was linked with a 24% increase in heart attacks the day after, the fall switch has been linked with a 21% decrease in heart attacks. The benefit may lie in the extra hour of sleep gained with the fall switch.
What can you do to get better sleep?
Sleep specialists say it’s a good idea to establish a nighttime routine leading up to and following the switch. Horvat recommends “making the shift slowly over several days” by “going to bed and waking up 10 to 15 minutes later each day.” Ideally, this routine would include a “winding down” period of at least an hour before bedtime when you stop screen time, turn down the thermostat (between 60-75 degrees), and do a relaxing activity. The greatest relaxation technique before bedtime is listening to soothing music.
Another tip is to exercise outdoors. Moderate intensity aerobic exercise during the day, as long as it’s at least two to four hours before bedtime, increases sleep quality and duration. Also, exercising outdoors is recommended since natural sunlight during the day can help with the switch.
According to doctors, avoiding caffeine and alcohol in the evenings can also help and it’s best to avoid snacks close to bedtime.
Although napping can’t replace a good night’s sleep, it can help supplement it. Even a five-minute nap shows improved attention and short-term memory.
“Healthy sleep begins with attitude and awareness,” said Dr. Emerson Wickwire, director of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “Set aside 7.5 or 8 hours for sleep and enjoy it!”
Alicia Zellmer, MD, and Joy Liu, MD, are resident physicians in Internal Medicine, and members of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — Dozens of people were injured in a fire at a residential building in New York City on Saturday morning, authorities said.
The three-alarm fire broke out on the 20th floor of a midtown Manhattan high-rise, with a “heavy fire condition,” according to the New York City Fire Department.
Thirty-eight people were hospitalized due to the fire, including two critically due to smoke inhalation, officials said. Five were in serious condition and the rest were minor injuries, according to FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh.
Five members of the FDNY are among the patients, officials said.
“There’s likely to be an increase in the number of patients as more and more families come down and are evaluated by EMS,” EMS Academy Chief Joseph Pataky told reporters.
The fire was reported around 10:30 a.m. and was under control within an hour, the FDNY said.
Bystander footage captured a dramatic rescue, as a firefighter rappelled with a woman down to a floor below and went safely inside the building while smoke billowed out of windows above.
“Fire EMS and dispatch did an extraordinary job rescuing a number of civilians,” Kavanagh said during a press briefing, referencing that rescue in particular. “I cannot emphasize enough the extraordinary work of our members this morning in unbelievably dangerous conditions.”
Two people were rescued from the apartment where the fire originated via life-saving rope, according to FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Frank Leeb.
The cause of the fire was determined to be a lithium-ion battery “connected to a micro-mobility device,” Kavanagh said.
“The lithium-ion battery adds a different degree when we talk about the fire dynamics of it,” Leeb said. “These rooms flash over in just a mere matter of seconds.”
There have been nearly 200 fires so far this year in NYC caused by lithium-ion batteries for a micro-mobility device, such as an electric bike or scooter, according to Chief Fire Marshal Dan Flynn.
Authorities believe an occupant was repairing electric bikes and the fire originated directly behind the front door, he said. FDNY has recovered at least five bikes from the apartment, he said.
Kavanagh emphasized the “rising cause of fires” from e-bikes and urged people to follow the “safest possible way to use these,” including not charging them overnight when they are asleep and making sure they are certified and the batteries are not damaged.
In August, a fire in a Harlem apartment sparked by a lithium-ion battery from an e-bike or scooter killed two people, including a 5-year-old girl.
(MCCURTAIN COUNTY, Okla.) — One person died in McCurtain County, Oklahoma, and several others were injured after tornadoes impacted the state Friday, an official confirmed to ABC News.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said he was “praying for Oklahomans impacted by today’s tornadoes,” in a tweet Friday night.
He added that search and rescue teams and generators were being sent to the area.
Praying for Oklahomans impacted by today’s tornadoes.
Storms hit in Bryan, Choctaw, and Le Flore counties, among others. Additional flash flooding in some areas.
Search & rescue teams and generators forwarded to the Idabel area.
In the Dallas/Fort Worth region, multiple tornado warnings had been in effect on Friday, with people advised to seek shelter immediately due to life-threatening conditions.
“Atmospheric conditions are favorable for severe storms,” the National Weather Service for Fort Worth, said.
At least 10 people were injured after a confirmed tornado swept through Lamar County, Texas, the sheriff’s office said. They were being treated at a local hospital. Two people were in critical condition as of Friday night.
At least 50 homes were damaged or destroyed in the county, according to the sheriff’s office. A disaster has been declared in the county.
“If you do not live in the storm affected areas of Lamar County, please stay away. If you don’t have to leave home, please stay home,” the Lamar County Sheriff’s Office advised residents on social media Friday night.
A tornado was also observed near Sulphur Springs in Hopkins County, Texas.
The Hopkins County Sheriff’s Office said four homes were damaged following reports of a tornado in the southwestern region of the county. No injuries have been reported at this time.
(PHILADELPHIA) — Pennsylvania’s staking its claim as center of the political universe this weekend as presidents past and present campaign for their candidates ahead of midterms Election Day.
President Joe Biden and Barack Obama are teaming up Saturday to stump for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro and Senate candidate John Fetterman in Philadelphia at 5 p.m. ET.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump will be in Latrobe, where he’s holding a 7 p.m. rally at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport for Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano and Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz.
“They don’t call it the Keystone State for nothing,” said David Dix, a Philadelphia-based political strategist who has worked on Republican and Democratic campaigns, about the 11th-hour attention from both sides. “Once again, Pennsylvania is the political epicenter of the country and the balance of the House and Senate weigh from here on Tuesday.”
“It’s just another indicator that we are a deep purple state that makes up our mind late and oftentimes does split the ticket among Democrats and Republicans,” Dix added.
Pennsylvania’s marquee Senate race could determine which party wins control of the chamber. Republicans need to gain just one seat to become the majority, as Democrats currently control the 50-50 Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris acting as the tie-breaker.
“That race has been on the razor’s edge for a long time,” said Christopher Nicholas, a longtime Republican strategist in Pennsylvania.
The margin between Fetterman and Oz is getting tighter by the day, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, with the two candidates separated by just 0.4 percentage points.
Fetterman spoke to the hosts of “The View” on Friday about the contest, first celebrating an 11th-hour endorsement from Oprah Winfrey — whose daytime show helped launch Oz as “America’s doctor” in the 2000s. “It’s unbelievable,” Fetterman said.
In a message to voters, Fetterman pitched himself as a lifelong public servant while accusing Oz “essentially using Pennsylvania” and attempted to buy the seat.
Oz, in a closing pitch at a rally in Elizabethtown on Wednesday, described himself as an agent of change and encouraged attendees to tell neighbors about his message on the economy, crime and the border.
“There are three topics that I have spent my campaign dwelling on,” he said. “They are the kitchen table issues that every family in Pennsylvania has talked about.”
The gubernatorial race between Shapiro and Mastriano is another contentious race, and one of the biggest tests of Trump’s election denialism on the ballot this cycle.
Mastriano, a Republican state legislator, attended Trump’s Jan. 6 rally just before the Capitol attack and has continued to spread the former president’s lies about the 2020 election results.
FiveThirtyEight’s polling average shows Mastriano behind in the race by roughly 10 percentage points.
Biden has campaigned heavily in Pennsylvania this year, and in this final stop in Philadelphia he and Obama will look to boost Democratic enthusiasm in a key area of the state.
“Democrats view it as crucial to get as high a turnout as possible in the city, especially among the Black community” said Nicholas. “That’s always the target for them.”
Biden’s success in the Democratic strongholds Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and their neighboring suburbs, ultimately led to his win there in 2020 over Trump.
Trump last visited Pennsylvania in September, when he held a rally for Oz and Mastriano in Wilkes-Barre. The stakes are high for the former president, who is laying the groundwork for a 2024 campaign and could make an announcement as soon as the week of Nov. 14, according to sources.
“Latrobe is essentially the epicenter of Republican turnout,” Dix said, noting nearby Allegheny County probably has more registered Republicans “than anywhere else in the state.”
“I certainly understand the strategy and why the former president decided to rally there,” Dix said.
– ABC News’ Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(PHILADELPHIA) — Last weekend, John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, spent the penultimate Saturday before Election Day traversing Philadelphia, dedicating the entire day to campaigning in the city with a vote share he should have little problem winning. Rich with Democrats, the City of Brotherly Love went to President Joe Biden by more than 60 points in 2020.
The investment in Pennsylvania’s largest city, where more than four in 10 residents identify as Black, reflects an urgency to energize urban Black voters in the final days of a campaign that could decide control of Congress’ upper chamber.
Black voters in the United States overwhelmingly vote for Democratic candidates, including Biden, who received more than 90% of their vote in 2020, according to a Pew post-election analysis.
But some Black leaders in Pennsylvania fear that Democrats are taking the community for granted, a concern expressed in past cycles across the country.
Over the course of seven stops, Fetterman appeared with local and national Black leaders, including New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, state representative Malcolm Kenyatta, and Philadelphia City Council President Darrell Clarke. He visited Black faith leaders, spoke outside a West Philadelphia grocery store, and rallied in front of a few hundred students at Temple University.
“I think this is where the election is going to be won,” Kenyatta, who represents the majority-Black North Philadelphia district that includes Temple, said in an interview after joining Fetterman at the rally, which drew mostly white attendees.
Kadida Kenner, CEO of the New Pennsylvania Project, a voting rights organization that has registered 20,000 people across the state this year, stressed the importance of Fetterman turning out Black voters.
“No Democrat is going to win a statewide election in Pennsylvania without the Black vote,” Kenner told ABC News. “And the margin has to be run up in Philadelphia, it has to be run up in the [Philadelphia suburbs], and it has to be run up in Pittsburgh.”
For more from ABC News’ team of reporters embedded in battleground states, watch “Power Trip: Those Seeking Power and Those Who Chase Them” on Hulu, with new episodes on Sunday.
Fetterman holds a sizable lead over his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, with Black voters: a New York Times/Siena poll earlier this month showed that 86% of registered Black voters in Pennsylvania plan to vote for Fetterman versus just 6% for Oz.
But that number lags behind Biden’s 2020 vote share, and the same poll found that just 63% of Black voters hold a very or somewhat favorable view of the lieutenant governor.
Those numbers may partly reflect the fact that Fetterman did not hold a public campaign event in Philadelphia until September, an absence some voters noticed.
“No,” Olivia Jarrett, a 31-year-old veteran who is Black, said when asked by ABC News if she thought Fetterman had spent enough time in the city.
“I don’t know what Fetterman does,” she said, while filling up her car at a North Philadelphia gas station.
But Jarrett, a Democrat, declared she would not vote for Oz because of his position on restricting abortion rights.
Kenner insisted it is imperative for Fetterman to spend more time in Philadelphia before Election Day.
“He needs to spend 40% of his time here in Philadelphia and make sure that Philadelphia voters are coming out and that they’re not apathetic about this entire election and that they’re feeling as though their needs are going to be met by a candidate coming to them and saying, ‘This is what I’m going to do for Philadelphia,'” she said, when ABC News spoke with her on Monday.
Fetterman has not held a public event in Philadelphia this week but will campaign there on Saturday with Biden and former President Barack Obama. He has held multiple events this week in the surrounding suburbs and will attend a rally in Pittsburgh Saturday with Obama.
In a press release recapping last weekend’s Philadelphia swing, the Fetterman campaign noted multiple other stops — which were not advised to the media — that the candidate has made in the city in recent weeks.
Democrats in the state believe that no matter his footprint in Philadelphia, Fetterman’s economic messaging should resonate with voters there.
“I think Fetterman, to his credit, from really the early stages of the campaign, has been focused on having a core economic message and plan,” said J.J. Abbott, a party strategist, who said the lieutenant governor’s policy positions — such as raising the minimum wage and fighting price gouging — are “really powerful” in Philadelphia.
Oz, meanwhile, has tried to woo Black voters by pledging to reduce the level of crime and drug use in Philadelphia, holding multiple “Safer Streets” discussions and walking through a neighborhood rampant with drug use and homelessness, where he helped several self-declared addicts register for detox admission.
That visit resonated with James, a retired health care worker in Philadelphia, who is Black and declined to give his last name.
“He showed a lot of compassion that I hadn’t seen,” said James, a Democrat who said he is still deciding which Senate candidate to vote for.
“They made him out to be an outsider, which he is, you know. But that struck me, going down there and showing compassion to the people on drugs and people struggling. That kind of struck me with Oz,” he added.
Oz’s attempts at courting Black voters have not come without controversy, however. In a September “Safer Streets” forum, he comforted an attendee, Sheila Armstrong, whom the campaign did not disclose at the time was a paid staffer. The lack of transparency drew a rebuke from the Fetterman campaign.
The Oz campaign shot back.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the racist attacks on Sheila Armstrong by John Fetterman’s campaign manager Brendan McPhillips. For a white man to attempt to diminish the experience of an African-American woman – who lost her brother and nephew to gun violence – because of her support for Doctor Oz plays into tired tropes about Black women not being able to think for themselves,” said Barney Keller, a senior adviser to the Oz campaign.
As for Fetterman’s efforts in Philadelphia, James said a recent appearance with Rep. Dwight Evans seemed like a “photo op.” He added that the lieutenant governor’s visits to Philadelphia in the campaign’s final days “might be too little, too late.”
But for Lotus Hines, a 42-year-old Black hospital worker and a Democrat, how Fetterman has divided his time on the trail means little.
“It really doesn’t make a difference to me where he hasn’t been,” she told ABC News, adding that Fetterman has her vote.
Will McDuffie is one of seven ABC News campaign reporters embedded in battleground states across the country. Watch all the twists and turns of covering the midterm elections every Sunday on Hulu’s “Power Trip: Those Seeking Power and Those Who Chase Them” with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
(NEW YORK) — Election security is on the minds of many Americans in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections. The aftermath of the 2020 elections coupled with an increased threat of foreign interference through election tampering, fraud, and intimidation have forced the federal government to create an election security umbrella that never existed before.
That umbrella is, in large measure, coordinated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with support from the Department of Homeland Security’s Critical Security and Infrastructure Agency as well as the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. military Cyber Command.
For the FBI, the threats can be in person, in writing, via phone, or made online. They can include:
– Voter suppression, where bad actors spread disinformation about voting using various methods such as social media platforms, texting, or peer-to-peer messaging applications on smartphones. They may provide misleading information about the time, manner, or place of voting. This can include inaccurate election dates or false claims about voting qualifications or methods, such as false information suggesting that one may vote by text, which is not allowed in any U.S. jurisdiction.
– Threats against election workers, which includes any threat to an election worker or volunteer that causes fear, danger or intimidation.
– Voter fraud, by giving false information when registering to vote (such as false citizenship claims), by voting when ineligible to vote, and by voting more than once or using someone else’s name to vote.
– Election fraud, which includes changing a ballot tally or engaging in other corrupt behavior as an elections official; providing a voter with money or something of value in exchange for voting for a specific candidate or party in a federal election; threatening a voter with physical or financial harm if they don’t vote or don’t vote a certain way; and trying to prevent qualified voters from voting by lying about the time, date, or place of an election, i.e., voter suppression.
– Campaign fraud, which includes excessive campaign contributions above the legal limit, conduit contributions or straw donor schemes, contributions from prohibited sources, cording between Super PACs and independent expenditure organizations and a candidate’s campaign, and using campaign funds for personal or unauthorized use.
The threats can emanate from domestic and foreign sources, including state and non-state actors and radical U.S.-based groups. In every case, these attempts are meant to sway voters and the election process in one direction or another.
In August of 2020, then-Counterintelligence and Security Center Director William Evanna warned that China, Russia and Iran were attempting to sway American voters and influence the election. The same holds true today as these same state actors, once again, are trying to usurp the U.S. election process.
To combat this, in addition to its broad partnerships, the FBI has created a robust and expansive election intelligence effort aimed at identifying and mitigating any threat to the election process. This includes the creation of the Foreign Influence Task Forces, which brought the FBI’s national security and traditional criminal investigative expertise under one umbrella to prevent foreign influence in our elections.
Additionally, as has been done in the past, on Election Day the FBI will spin up command posts across the nation that will monitor and respond to investigative tips as well as real time election issues.
These command posts are staffed by investigators and analysts from the FBI and its partners, including local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, that coordinate and work together to thwart any evidence of election tampering, fraud or abuse.
Since all alleged Election Day offenses get referred to the FBI for investigation and potential prosecution by the Department of Justice, the Justice Department will run a nationwide Election Day Program, where an assistant U.S. attorney is appointed by the United States attorney in that district as the election coordinator.
All of this is in an effort to ensure that the election is safe and that any nefarious actors are identified and stopped, in order to protect the voting process.
Donald J. Mihalek is an ABC News contributor, retired senior Secret Service agent and regional field training instructor who served during two presidential transitions and multiple campaigns. He was also a police officer and served in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserves.
Richard Frankel is an ABC News contributor and retired FBI special agent who was the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Newark Division and prior to that, the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force. He was also the Associate Director of a National Intelligence / Senior FBI Detailee to the Office of the Director National intelligence.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Nearly six months after a gunman armed with an AR-15 killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the community remains divided on the topic of gun control.
Many of Uvalde’s families have grown up hunting, so guns have been built into the county’s culture and economic lifeblood for generations.
But the May 24 school shooting has left some longtime residents and gun owners rethinking their views. Jesse Rizo, a Uvalde rancher who lost his 9-year-old niece Jackie Cazares in the shooting, told ABC News that the shooting showed residents that they need to take a head-on approach to address the problem.
“It’s something that was dormant. It’s something that nobody wanted to touch. But now it’s inevitable,” he told ABC News.
Some residents, however, contend the shooting may prompt gun control actions that they say go too far.
“I really, I really don’t feel like banning any gun is going to solve any problem,” Jason Molitor, who owns Ox Ranch, an exotic-game hunting property outside of Uvalde, told ABC News.
Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.
Rizo and other gun control advocates contend that the solutions they’re pushing for won’t be a burden for those businesses and will save lives.
Rizo, who has been vocal in town meetings and rallies over the past six months, said that the difference in opinions on gun control is part of the pain that the Uvalde community is facing since the massacre.
“I don’t know one person here who didn’t grow up without a weapon at a young age. All of us. All my friends,” he said.
Molitor said he held his first firearm when he was 5 and shot his first deer three years later. The rancher said he uses his AR-15s to hunt hogs, contending that the assault rifle is the best way to shoot the passel.
“We consider the pigs as an invasive species, a nuisance, and they multiply,” he said. “You want the larger capacity magazines so we can try to get more of them.”
Molitor, who noted that one of his ranch employees lost his son in the Robb Elementary shooting, said he supported some gun control policies such as raising the age to purchase a firearm and more background checks, but he opposed proposals to ban assault rifles.
He said such a move could affect his business and other hunting ranches in the area, which he estimated drives $10 million to $12 million into the Uvalde economy.
“We’d like to see something done to stop [mass shootings] from happening, but as far as starting to take guns and guns rights away from people? That’s just a slippery slope that I think really concerns a lot of gun owners,” Molitor said.
Gun control activists and some of the families impacted by the shooting have called for policies such as banning assault rifles like the one used in the shooting, increasing the legal age for purchasing a firearm and stricter background checks.
Rizo said arguments about taking a person’s gun away are scare tactics spread by the opponents of control policies.
He added that the shooting and the death of his niece made him and his family see the issue in a different spectrum, and he urged other residents to hear the families out.
“The main focus should be on the children and on the teachers that lost their lives that day. If you can keep that as your compass and as your guiding light, then that’s what’s important,” Rizo said.
Rizo acknowledged that it will take a lot of time and a lot of work before residents can find that common ground on gun control, but he said, “with patience, people begin to understand each other.”
In the meantime, Rizo said he is considering donating his hunting ranch and turning it into a memorial for the Robb Elementary victims.
“I want to give the community,” he said. “I want to give them hope and inspiration.”
(NEW YORK) — Tom Barrack, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump and his one-time inaugural committee chairman, was found not guilty on Friday of illegal foreign lobbying charges, a defeat for federal prosecutors in Brooklyn who accused the billionaire businessman of improperly acting as a foreign agent on behalf of the United Arab Emirates.
After a trial that stretched nearly two months and saw testimony from two former Trump administration officials, a jury of five men and seven women reached the verdict after deliberating over three days.
Barrack was acquitted on all charges, which included conspiracy, obstruction, and lying to the FBI.
“God bless America. The system works,” Barrack said outside the courthouse following his acquittal. “I am humbled. The system is amazing, the people are amazing, I have no hostility.”
Asked by ABC News about his criticism of Trump during the trial, in which he said that his support of the former president was ultimately “disastrous” for his work, Barrack replied, “I root for all of them — it’s the toughest job in the world to be president of the United States.”
“I’m just done with politics,” he said.
Matthew Grimes, Barrack’s aide at his real estate firm who was charged alongside Barrack, was also acquitted.
“The word is clichéd, but I just feel grateful,” Grimes said outside the courthouse.
The Justice Department accused Barrack, 75, of illegally lobbying the Trump campaign and the early days of the administration while acting as a foreign agent for the UAE from 2016 to 2018 and failing to register with Justice Department as required by law.
Prosecutors also accused Barrack of lying to federal investigators when they questioned him about his ties to the UAE in 2019.
The high-profile case offered a glimpse into the workings of Trump’s inner circle during the 2016 campaign and the early days of his administration, and featured a star-studded cast of witnesses. Two former Trump administration cabinet officials, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, testified during the trial.
Several former Trump administration and Trump campaign officials, including Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and Rick Gates, were also mentioned at various points.
Ryan Harris, a federal prosecutor, argued during closing statements that Barrack had attempted to “leverage his access” to Trump with his UAE contacts as part of an effort to enrich himself and his real-estate investment firm, which attracted large sums of money from the Emirati sovereign wealth fund around the time of Trump’s arrival in the White House.
In his closing arguments, Randall Jackson, a lawyer for Barrack, urged jurors to see through the government’s case, citing what he described as a “total lack of evidence.”
Barrack himself took the stand in his own defense for six days to defend himself against each of the charges against him. He spent hours explaining to the jury his longstanding business ties to UAE and how he sought to broker a relationship with the Trump campaign and the Middle East.
“I thought that was actually a great thing,” Barrack said of his efforts. “The idea of having somebody that had knowledge in both confused arenas that could create some web of understanding and tolerance is what I know we all needed.”
He laughed when asked by his attorney about the government’s allegation that he was working to “manipulate the public” and “spread UAE propaganda.”
“Not at all,” Barrack said.
Barrack also testified that he briefed then-candidate Trump on his interactions with United Arab Emirates officials as he tried to help Trump better understand Middle East issues.
“I talked to President Trump about it, and he said, ‘You do the right thing,'” Barrack testified.
