(NEW YORK) — Wally Funk, a pioneering female pilot who dreamed of being an astronaut in the 1960s, will fly to space later this month with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the first crewed flight for his space-faring firm Blue Origin.
The flight will fulfill a lifelong dream for Funk, 82, and make her the oldest person ever to fly to space.
Funk’s dreams of becoming an astronaut date back to the original U.S.-Soviet Space Race era, when she was the youngest graduate of the privately-funded Woman in Space Program that later became known as the “Mercury 13” due to its 13 women participants. Female pilots went through the same physiological and psychological tests as the astronauts selected by NASA for Project Mercury. The women, however, never ended up flying to space.
In an Instagram video shared by Bezos revealing the news Thursday, Funk said she already knows the first thing she will say upon landing back on Earth: “Honey, that was the best thing that ever happened to me!”
“Back in the 60s, I was in the Mercury 13 program. They asked me, ‘Do you want to be an astronaut?’ I said, ‘Yes,'” Funk said in the video. “They told me that I had done better and completed the work faster than any of the guys. So, I got a hold of NASA — four times — I said, ‘I want to become an astronaut,’ but nobody would take me.”
“I didn’t think that I would ever get to go up,” she added. “They said, ‘Wally, you’re a girl, you can’t do that!’ I said, ‘Guess what, doesn’t matter what you are, you can still do it if you want to do it, and I like to do things that nobody has ever done.'”
Despite not becoming a NASA astronaut, Funk still blazed trails for women in flight. She was the first female Federal Aviation Administration inspector and later the first woman National Transportation Safety Board investigator. She has amassed some 19,600 flying hours and taught more than 3,000 people how to fly.
The crew for the New Shepard spacecraft’s first flight consists of Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos (Jeff’s brother), Funk, and one unnamed private citizen who paid $28 million in an auction for Blue Origin’s final seat. Blue Origin has perviously said the name of the auction winner will be released in the coming weeks.
The inaugural crewed flight for Blue Origin is scheduled for July 20. In total, the flight is only about 11 minutes and approximately four minutes will be spent above the so-called Karman line that is defined as the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.
(LONDON) — Princes William and Harry, who have reportedly been estranged for over a year, made a rare appearance together Thursday to honor their mother, the late Princess Diana.
William and Harry, the only children of Diana and Prince Charles, were both present as a much-anticipated statue of Princess Diana was installed in the Sunken Garden of Kensington Palace on July 1, which would have been Diana’s 60th birthday.
“Today, on what would have been our Mother’s 60th birthday, we remember her love, strength and character — qualities that made her a force for good around the world, changing countless lives for the better,” the brothers shared in a joint statement. “Every day, we wish she were still with us, and our hope is that this statue will be seen forever as a symbol of her life and her legacy.”
The princes also thanked the statue’s sculptor, Ian Rank-Broadley, and the garden designer, Pip Morrison, for their “outstanding work” as well as shouted out “all those around the world who keep our mother’s memory alive.”
Also in attendance at the event were Diana’s siblings: The Earl Spencer, The Lady Sarah McCorquodale and The Lady Jane Fellowes.
Not in attendance were the brothers’ wives as well as their father, Prince Charles, and their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth.
The statue itself, which is 1.25 times life size and bronze, aims to “reflect the warmth, elegance and energy” of the late Princess of Wales and shows her surrounded by three children meant to represent “the universality and generational impact” of her work, according to Kensington Palace.
“The portrait and style of dress was based on the final period of her life as she gained confidence in her role as an ambassador for humanitarian causes and aims to convey her character and compassion,” the palace continued.
The base of the statue features Diana’s name and the date of its unveiling. In front of it is a paving stone engraved with an extract from the poem “The Measure of a Man.”
The statue was commissioned by William, 39, and Harry, 36, in 2017 to mark the 20th anniversary of their mother’s death.
Diana died in August 1997 after a car crash in the Pont D’Alma Bridge in Paris. William and Harry were 15 and 12, respectively, at the time.
“It has been 20 years since our mother’s death and the time is right to recognize her positive impact in the UK and around the world with a permanent statue,” the brothers said in a joint statement in 2017. “Our mother touched so many lives. We hope the statue will help all those who visit Kensington Palace to reflect on her life and legacy.”
Just one year after the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death, in 2018, Prince Harry wed his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.
The couple, who now live in California, stepped down from their roles as senior, working members of the royal family last year amid family tensions that they went on to reveal in a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey in March.
In the interview, Harry described himself and William as being on “different paths.”
“The relationship is space at the moment, and, you know, time heals all things, hopefully,” Harry said. “I love William to bits. He’s my brother. We’ve been through hell together, and we have a shared experience, but we were on different paths.”
William and Harry grew up at Kensington Palace and Diana lived there until her death.
Harry and Meghan, who just welcomed their second child, a daughter named Lilibet Diana, at one point also lived in Kensington Palace near William and Kate, who still have their main residence there with their three children.
In 2019, Harry and Meghan moved from the palace to a new home in Windsor and also left the household they shared with William and Kate, a split that author Robert Lacey said was due to an “explosive argument” between the brothers.
Citing palace insiders, Lacey wrote in his new book, “Battle of Brothers,” that Harry reportedly hung up the phone on William, who then went to address him in-person about the way Meghan was reportedly treating palace staff.
After the argument, William reportedly instructed a royal aide to “start the process of dividing their two households immediately,” according to the book.
William and Harry’s first in-person reunion in over a year happened in April, when the royal family came together for the funeral of the brothers’ grandfather, Prince Philip.
Their wives, Kate and Meghan, have not seen each other in person in over a year.
Many see today’s event as a chance for the brothers to bridge the gap between them.
“I think there’s been a lot of hope that an event like this would bring the brothers back together, and it’s certainly true that their mother’s memory and honoring her memory is pretty much one of the only things that really unites them right now,” Victoria Murphy, ABC News royal contributor, said.
Robert Jobson, another ABC News royal contributor, said he hopes William and Harry will be able to reconnect, adding that the presence of Diana’s sisters and close members of the family might help.
“Just standing there and looking at that statue … in the Sunken Gardens where they used to play as kids with her looking over them, maybe that just might be the catalyst to start the end to this rift,” Jobson added.
While he said the relationship between the brothers is still “extremely complicated,” ABC News royal contributor Omid Scobie said he understands “it is still a case of distance” and “they’re simply not talking at the moment.”
“This is really going to be the first time where they have a proper opportunity to chat to each other,” Scobie said. “And maybe being here in the presence of the memory of their mother will be a reminder of the importance of love and family.”
After finding a size 30A bra she wore while modeling for the lingerie brand’s 2016 fashion show, she tried it on for a TikTok video. She also shared that she is now a size 34B, which she said is “healthy for me.”
Once Malcolm puts her past runway bra on, she shows how ill-fitted it is now and discusses how she was rejected from a 2017 show by Victoria’s Secret former Chief Marketing Officer Edward Razek.
“He said my body did not look good enough,” she captioned the clip. Malcolm also mentioned that at that point she wore a size 30B bra.
Later in the now-viral video that’s been viewed more than 2.5 million times, the model and mental health advocate included a photo of herself from the past show saying “the sadness behind my eyes from the 2016 show breaks my heart.”
Malcolm concluded the video calling Victoria’s Secret out for “performative allyship” and how she views the brand’s recent efforts for inclusive change as “too little, too late.”
The post has been liked more than 307,000 times, with many TikTok users sharing their thoughts. “I don’t get why models ‘have’ to be like this or like that,” said thetinglez.
“Models are supposed to show stuff for the human and every human is different,” she continued.
In response to Malcolm’s displeasing experience with Victoria’s Secret, a brand spokesperson told GMA, “There is a new leadership team at Victoria’s Secret who is fully committed to the continued transformation of the brand with a focus on creating an inclusive environment for our associates, customers and partners to celebrate, uplift and champion all women,” in a statement.
This statement also follows the company’s major brand revamp announced in June.
The retailer’s new direction includes a new diverse VS Collective with ambassadors such as actress and entrepreneur Priyanka Chopra Jonas, transgender Brazilian model Valentina Sampaio, LGBTQIA+ activist and professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe, and several others.
Through this new platform, the brand plans to create new associate programs, evolutionary product collections, compelling and inspiring content, and rally support for causes vital to women.
In addition to a more diverse collective of ambassadors, Victoria’s Secret told Good Morning America the company’s storefronts will take a new direction and mannequins will be displayed with diverse body types.
After 23 years, the lingerie retailer recently canceled its annual fashion show and has moved forward in a new direction without its infamous “Angels.”
(PARIS) — After a four-day search, a woman was arrested Wednesday as part of the investigation into a large crash at the Tour de France earlier last week, according to local prosecutors.
The 30-year-old suspect turned herself into police and expressed feelings “of shame, of fear, in the face of the consequences of her act,” public prosecutor Camille Miansoni said Thursday. She is “distressed by the media coverage of what she calls ‘her blunder,'” added Miansoni.
Prosecutors said police would take measures “proportionate to the seriousness of the facts and to the personality of the author.”
The woman is accused of causing a large crash by holding a sign in front of cyclists in the opening stage of the competition on Saturday. She had allegedly left the scene before authorities arrived. Her cardboard sign read “allez opi-omi,” meaning “go grandma-grandpa” in German.
After the crash, three riders withdrew from the race due to their injuries, according to the Tour’s organizers, including German cyclist Jasha Sütterlin of Team DSM.
“Following the crash, he was taken to hospital for examinations which revealed no broken bones, but a severe contusion to his right wrist that will require further examinations back at home,” Team DSM said in a statement about Sütterlin, who admitted he was “so disappointed.”
Tony Martin, a member of top Tour contender Primoz Roglic’s Jumbo Visma squad, hit the woman on the right side of the road, causing a domino effect for riders inside the peloton.
The first fall was followed by another, which injured four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome.
Riders briefly halted the race on Tuesday to protest against the danger caused by spectators who were too close to the road.
“Following the crashes during the third stage of the Tour de France, the riders have been discussing how they wish to proceed to show their dissatisfaction with safety measures in place and demand their concerns are taken seriously,” the riders’ union, the Cyclistes Professionnels Associés, said in a statement. “Their frustration about foreseeable and preventable action is enormous.”
The local chief of police Nicolas Duvinage on Thursday called for calm in a press conference, saying the suspect was trying to send a message on TV to her grandparents and that it is “wise not to carry out a media lynching.”
Fearing a backlash, Tour de France organizers decided to drop their suit against the fan in question and withdrew their complaint “for the sake of appeasement … in the face of the excitement on social media,” said Tour director Pierre-Yves Thouault. “We don’t want to look like we are flogging a dead horse. But we remind you of the safety rules.”
(JERUSALEM) — Israel may have a new prime minister but the departure of Benjamin Netanyahu does not appear to be changing the country’s tough stance against Iran.
Naftali Bennett has been in office less than three weeks and has already made clear that nothing has changed on the Jewish State’s right to defend itself.
The new prime minister on Wednesday vowed Israel will “always defend itself against any external threat” — a message widely seen as a warning to Iran.
Bennett also insisted Israel “will not have its hands tied” when it comes to security.
Like his predecessor Netanyahu, Bennett has indicated a revived U.S.-Iran nuclear deal will not stop Israel from acting to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
(NEW YORK) — As coronavirus concerns decimated the demand for travel and the aviation industry was faced with its biggest crisis in history, two former airline executives were about to do the unthinkable: start an airline.
Major U.S. airline CEOs were just trying to stop the bleeding and save their companies, while Andrew Levy, 51, and David Neeleman, 61, were just starting up — launching the first two new U.S. airlines in more than a decade — during a global pandemic.
They are both betting their low prices and smaller, no-hassle airport destinations will be enough to win over customers during the summer post-lockdown travel surge.
Levy described starting Avelo Airlines as an “itch” that he’s “wanted scratched for a really long time.” It started 27 years ago when he began working with the founders of now-defunct ValuJet.
“They built this phenomenal business that just grew like crazy and I had a front-row seat to watch it all,” he told ABC News. “I got to see capitalism at work in front of me, and see what happens when we take risks and we progress with hard work. I thought I want to be like those guys, I want to be the ones who start with the company.”
In January 2020, taking what he learned from Allegiant and United, Levy got the green light from the Department of Transportation to start Avelo.
Then, COVID-19 hit.
“It was a little bit of a shock for all of us,” Levy said about watching the number of fliers dwindle, but “I probably was less affected by that than many of my investors. I kind of was always optimistic that it would come roaring back.”
At its lowest point, less than 100,000 people were flying each day nationwide. Airlines scrambled to pull flights out of smaller airports, causing some, like Hollywood Burbank Airport, to lose service.
“We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go in there because of COVID,” he said. “So many airlines cutback service there, and as a result we can go in there at a level of service with airplanes that we couldn’t have done a couple of years ago.”
Avelo began service in April and plans to fly 11 routes between Burbank and vacation destinations this summer, mostly on the West Coast, for as little as $19.
David Neeleman’s Breeze Airways launched a month later and will carry leisure travelers in the eastern and southern parts of the country. Breeze’s fares start at $39.
“There’s a ton of pent-up demand,” Neeleman told ABC News, “and there’s a lot of money people didn’t spend during the pandemic.”
The JetBlue founder only had 55 people on the payroll at Breeze when demand plummeted.
“We had the foot on the gas and the brake at the same time,” he said. “And I said we just have to ease into this and there’s no reason to launch an airline at the heat of the pandemic. You have to have some kind of vision or foresight to look ahead, and try not to seize up in the moment when things are at their worst.”
His team worked with regulators virtually “spread out all over on Zoom.”
“Just getting an airline certified under normal circumstances is a feat that is very difficult,” he said, “and has rarely been done over the last 20 years.”
Neeleman’s vision for Breeze is getting travelers to their destination “twice as fast for half the price” choosing to establish non-stop routes between smaller airports like Hartford, Connecticut, and Charleston, South Carolina, that would have otherwise required a layover.
“When you don’t have to worry about your flight getting canceled or delayed or missing your connection and all the stress that goes with it, then people just travel more often,” Neeleman said.
Like other low-cost carriers, Breeze and Avelo will both charge for baggage fees and additional legroom.
“Our mission is to inspire travel,” Levy said. “We want to inspire travel by making it easy to do so, and that is really low fares, but also just a convenient, pleasant experience.”
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump’s long-serving chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, has surrendered to authorities in New York to face criminal charges, court officials told ABC News Thursday morning.
Weisselberg arrived at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office with his lawyer hours after a grand jury indicted him and the Trump Organization on charges that are expected to be unsealed Thursday afternoon.
A special grand jury in Manhattan voted Wednesday to indict Trump’s firm and its chief financial officer.
The charges are believed to involve fringe benefits given to employees, including Weisselberg, sources said. Investigators have been examining whether the company and Weisselberg properly accounted for those forms of compensation.
“Allen Weisselberg is a loving and devoted husband, father and grandfather who has worked at the Trump Organization for 48 years,” a spokesperson for the Trump Organization said in a statement Thursday after Weisselberg surrendered to authorities. “He is now being used by the Manhattan District Attorney as a pawn in a scorched earth attempt to harm the former President. The District Attorney is bringing a criminal prosecution involving employee benefits that neither the IRS nor any other District Attorney would ever think of bringing. This is not justice; this is politics.”
Attorneys for the former president’s company were told to expect charges last week by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s staff, sources said.
Trump has called the charges “completely outrageous” and dismissed the investigation as being a politically-motivated “witch hunt.”
(NEW YORK) — A new pill is bringing hope for mothers struggling with postpartum depression.
On Wednesday, scientists from The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research announced that results from phase 3 of a clinical trial for the drug, zuranolone, are showing promising results.
The findings, which were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Psychiatry, show that after two weeks of daily treatment using zuranolone, women treated with the medication had a “statistically significant reduction in their core symptoms of depression compared to women who received a placebo.”
The placebo-controlled clinical trial, which was led by Kristina Deligiannidis, MD., looked at 153 randomized patients from 33 centers across the U.S. It was given to female patients between the ages of 18 and 45 with perinatal major depressive episodes for 14 days.
The patient’s depressive symptoms were scored at various points in the study for 45 days. Of the 153 randomized patients, 76 people were given the placebo and 77 were given zuranolone orally, nightly for two weeks during the trial.
At day 45, 53% of women who received zuranolone were in full remission of clinical depression versus 30% who received the placebo.
“These encouraging results are an important step in efforts to develop a novel treatment option for patients who suffer from this prevalent condition,” said Dr. Deligiannidis in a statement.
If approved, zuranolone would be the first pill to treat postpartum depression. It would also be much handier than other treatments.
Currently, there’s only one drug on the market that’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat postpartum depression, which affects one out of eight women in the U.S., and it’s only available through infusion, which can be cumbersome for newborn mothers to receive.
(NEW YORK) — The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are out of step in their COVID-19 mask guidance, prompting confusion.
In light of sky-rocketing cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant around the globe, last week the WHO called for all vaccinated people to continue to wear masks.
The CDC, however, has not followed suit. The U.S. agency still sticks by its guidance — announced in May — for vaccinated people to relinquish their masks in indoor and outdoor settings, so long as it’s been two weeks after their last shot of the vaccine. Unvaccinated people are supposed to continue wearing their masks and social distancing.
Why is the WHO advising masks for vaccinated people?
At a press conference on Friday, the WHO said that the rise of new variants made it necessary to pull out all the stops against the virus, particularly in places that had let down their guard.
The WHO, which watches the pandemic with a global lens, was considering the large majority of the world that’s unvaccinated or has less-effective vaccines. The organization also pointed out the disparities in vaccination statuses. In comparison, the U.S. has only been able to lift restrictions on businesses, reopen cities and discontinue mask mandates because of its access to hundreds of millions of vaccines.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, said it was now “even more urgent that we use all the tools at our disposal” in the global fight against the coronavirus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, described the rest of the world as “fundamentally an unvaccinated planet” in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, when he was asked about the daylight between the two organization’s guidance.
“There are some countries that are doing well, but many, many countries have very little vaccination,” Fauci said.
That means that even vaccinated people are potentially surrounded by high levels of COVID-19, including the rapidly spreading variant, which could increase the chance of breakthrough cases, especially in countries where the vaccines are less effective.
But in the U.S., the two most common vaccines have shown to work fairly well against the variant.
Current studies have shown that the full dosage of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines — the Pfizer and Moderna shots — are effective against the Delta variant. According to a recent study out of the U.K., while a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine provided 33% protection against symptomatic disease from the Delta variant, two doses offered 88% protection. More studies are being done on the efficacy of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the Delta variant, though it has showed a strong response against past variants it was tested on.
The U.S. has pledged to share 80 million vaccines with the rest of the world by the end of June, though it’s currently behind on its timeline.
What has the CDC said in response?
Vaccinated people in the U.S. are still safe to the point that masks are not needed, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday on ABC’s Good Morning America.
“The vaccinated, we believe, still are safe,” Walensky said.
But Walensky hedged that her recommendation was broad — taking into account the entirety of the country, both where rates for fully vaccinated adults are above 70%, and where they’re below 40% — so she urged local public health departments to make their own decisions based on the variant spread in their own communities and the willingness of people to get the vaccine.
“We have always said that this virus is an opportunist and in areas where we still have rates of low vaccination, that is where the virus is likely to take hold,” Walensky said. “We are still seeing uptick in cases in areas of low vaccination.”
That’s exactly what Los Angeles did on Monday, when they announced a return to indoor masking for everyone, vaccinated or not, after discovering that cases of the Delta variant made up nearly half of all the cases sequenced in the county, or one in every five new infections.
About half of the county is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
The County of Los Angeles Public Health recommended masks for indoor shopping, movie theaters and workplaces — any public location where “you don’t know everyone’s vaccination status” — as an extra step to stop the spread, beyond vaccines.
“Until we better understand how and to who the Delta variant is spreading, everyone should focus on maximum protection with minimum interruption to routine as all businesses operate without other restrictions, like physical distancing and capacity limits,” the department wrote in a press release.
Fauci, like Walensky, encouraged the decision to be made locally “if they feel that the level of spread of the Delta variant is really profound in their particular region,” he said.
People can also think about their individual levels of comfort, particularly if they are elderly or immunocompromised, which can lessen the effectiveness of the vaccines and heighten the risk of COVID-19, he added.
If the data changes, the CDC will update its guidance, Fauci said.
“We know from good studies that the Delta variant is protected against by the vaccines that fundamentally are being used here. And that’s the reason why the CDC feels at this point they should not change their recommendation,” he said.
“But right now the recommendation remains the same. These are very, very effective vaccines. So if ever there was a clarion call of why one should get vaccinated, it’s the threat of the Delta variant, because if you are unvaccinated, you clearly are at risk from a problematic virus that’s spreading more rapidly,” he added.
The vaccination rate nationwide has fallen by 20% in the last week. Currently, about 66% of all adults in the U.S. over 18 have received one shot and that rises to 88% for seniors over 65.
The states with the lowest vaccination rates are Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming and Alabama, where 50% or less of adults have gotten one shot of the vaccine, about 15% less than the nation as a whole.
That said, Walensky was still supportive of a celebratory Independence Day weekend, which she said was well-deserved after 16 months of fear and pain.
“I think we have a lot to be grateful for come July Fourth,” she said.
“Vaccinated people can take off their masks and celebrate July 4th and feel safe in doing so, see each other and smile again. And then we will have to continue the hard work we’re doing to get people vaccinated,” she said.
Where exactly is the Delta variant spreading in the US?
Unfortunately, it’s everywhere. The Delta variant has been found in all 50 states, as of Wednesday. Some places have more cases than others — and it’s very clear why: Low vaccination rates.
As of June 19, the highly transmissible variant accounts for 26.1% of new cases, up from approximately 3% of new cases just over a month ago.
But in regions of the country making up most of the West and Midwest, the proportion of Delta variant cases is estimated to be twice that, at above 50% of cases, according to a CDC estimate. Those regions include Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.
All of these states have less than 50% of their total population fully vaccinated, with the exception of Colorado, which recently surpassed the halfway mark.
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, told the New York Times that he would be more careful if he were in some of those states that had low vaccination rates, despite being fully vaccinated.
“I would not be excited about going indoors without wearing a mask — even though I’m vaccinated,” he told the Times.
Jha, like many in public health, has used the impending threat of the Delta variant to push the fastest solution: vaccines for everyone who is eligible.
“Vaccines are a way out and I continue to be concerned at how many people are holding off on getting vaccinated when it is so much safer to be vaccinated now than not,” he said on CNN.
(WASHINGTON) — With pressure to change policing in America following the death of George Floyd while in police custody, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., sounded the alarm Wednesday, warning that “time is running out.”
“This Congress is moving very quickly,” he said. “There’s a crowded agenda on the Senate floor and if we don’t do something soon, we will lose a historic moment where we really should rise (to) the moment and make the reforms necessary.”
While the lead negotiators released a statement last week announcing they’ve “reached an agreement framework,” several sources have told ABC News that behind closed doors there are still major points of contention.
What’s putting the deal at risk?
The latest hurdle is an emerging divide within police unions, which are closely involved in the negotiations.
The discussions have dragged on for months, already blowing past two self-imposed deadlines. As talks progressed, lawmakers turned to outside groups for insight — holding a meeting with two police unions, the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police in late May.
At the time, Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina told Booker that if he could get the unions “on board with a proposal, he would not stand in the way,” a source familiar with the discussion told ABC News.
Booker floated a potential compromise to the unions, gaining their initial support, according to two sources familiar.
But when other unions caught wind of the floated proposal, they fired back.
The National Association of Police Organization encouraged the other negotiators to reject it. In a June newsletter, NAPO said, “Sen. Booker froze out NAPO and other police groups, despite the fact that NAPO represents just about all law enforcement officers in the senator’s state of New Jersey.”
According to sources familiar, Booker’s proposed measure tried to strike a balance of providing more resources to police departments but also giving the federal government more power to bring cases against officers who committed acts of misconduct in four areas: excessive force, sexual misconduct, theft and obstruction of justice. It did not touch qualified immunity, a sticking point for Republicans and a red line for many progressive Democrats.
Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., said that she fears the infighting could put the entire deal at risk.
“Absolutely I worry that it could prevent us from coming to a deal. And you know what? I think that it would be a really sad statement about the profession,” Bass said on Tuesday.
Booker said Wednesday that his meeting with the Fraternal Order of Police executive Jim Pasco made him more hopeful for police reform legislation to gain bipartisan support in the Senate.
“I told a great guy named Jim Pasco I viewed him as like an ogre before I got there, because these guys are tough, tough union and have not shown — in my opinion — the level of desire for reform. But Jim and I — along with other law enforcement agencies — had three weeks in negotiation, working up a lot of respect for him, as I’ve always had respect for his membership, we came to some accord,” Booker said. “And if we can — a Democrat from New Jersey and the administrative head of FOP — come to a lot of agreements, I’m sure hoping that Tim and I can work the final details out and get a bill done.”
“One of the reasons why a lot of law enforcement groups I’ve been negotiating with have leaned in is because they just know we are losing ground because of the erosion of trust amongst communities and law enforcement,” he added.
With slim margins on both sides of the aisle in Congress, Booker said there’s a “50-50 chance whether we get something done or not. If we don’t act, this is another shameful moment for Congress, and I know I’m at the center of that. And that’s why I’ve been bending and contorting myself in every way to try to make a bill that can attract people on both sides of the aisle.”
Tensions run high
As details of the negotiations trickled out, the backlash was swift.
The National Sheriffs’ Association said the group felt “blindsided” by Booker’s proposal and brought up their concerns in a previously scheduled face-to-face meeting with Booker and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in June, according to an official with the group. Sources said Graham came to the defense of the police unions — raising objections about the floated compromise.
Publicly, Graham slammed the proposal.
“There ain’t no way in hell that’s going anywhere,” Graham said. “The conversations we had about police reform were completely different than the document that was produced.”
Graham’s public comments caught Democrats off guard, according to two sources who believed Booker followed through on a request from Scott and did “the impossible” by getting the support of two large police unions. Republicans accused Booker of acting alone.
The NAACP, which has also been closely involved in negotiations, is growing increasingly frustrated and sounding the alarm about the role police unions are playing in the talks.
“Many in law enforcement agree that meaningful change is necessary, but unfortunately, a few are committed to standing in the way with a goal of obstructing the process. Police unions and partisan politicians should not control and dilute the terms of the police reform bill, nor delay any of its progress,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “This bill must be for the people.”
This week, eight civil rights organizations including the NAACP, The Urban League and the National Action Network, took a direct jab at police unions accusing them of obstructing the negotiations.
The National Sheriffs’ Association pushed back on any accusations that they are trying to sink the bill.
“That’s not true at all. We’re supportive of the process and we’ve been completely transparent with the things that we agree and disagree with — with the senators,” an official with the group told ABC News.
“To say that law enforcement is trying to delete the bill or they don’t want this, it’s just not a fair assessment,” the official said, emphasizing that their role is to advocate on behalf of sheriffs.
The Fraternal Order of Police, who backed Booker’s initial proposal came out with a statement on Wednesday underscoring that talks are on the brink.
“Given the politics of the moment, we seem to be poised to undo more than a year’s worth of work toward common sense criminal justice reform,” said Patrick Yoes, the group’s president, in a statement. “Demagoguery and scare tactics have jeopardized the future of these efforts and may well have derailed the negotiations.”
All sides ask: What now?
Lawmakers have been under increased pressure in recent weeks, having missed the first deadline to pass the bill into law by the first anniversary of Floyd’s death. One source told ABC News that members of the NBA have held multiple bipartisan meetings with lawmakers to push the bill, with several more meetings planned with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. In May, James Cadogan, the executive director of the National Basketball Social Justice Coalition, said in a statement that the league is “calling on our elected representatives of both parties to work together to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in the U.S. Senate now and present it to President Biden for him to sign into law this year.”
Two sources close to the talks also told ABC News that there is growing concern about how the upcoming midterm elections will affect the negotiations with some fearing Republicans may be less willing to strike a deal, as their party pushes a law-and-order message.
One source close to ongoing talks told ABC News, “a compromise isn’t me walking over to you, it’s us meeting halfway and that’s not what’s happening at this point.”
“The goal posts keep moving,” the source continued.
Scott’s office declined to comment.
“The process — finalizing the bill is difficult,” one source familiar with Scott’s thinking said. “Despite the challenges, we are going to continue to move forward with the negotiation process, ironing out specifics within the broader, agreed-upon framework.”
“(Sen. Scott) is committed to making sure any final bill honors the family of Walter Scott, George Floyd and any family that has been affected, while at the same time providing the resources officers need to keep our communities safe,” the source added.
Still, no one appears ready to walk away from the negotiations and White House press secretary Jen Psaki said recently that “the president remains eager to sign the police reform bill into law.”
