(SEOUL, South Korea) — After a heated debate in South Korea on whether to change laws to exempt members of K-pop band BTS from serving their mandatory military duty, their management company, BigHit Music, made a surprise announcement that BTS will enlist after all.
“The members of BTS are currently moving forward with plans to fulfill their military service,” starting with the eldest member, Jin, who is turning 30 this year, BigHit Music told ABC News Monday.
Almost all South Korean men are required to enlist for up to two years when they’re between the ages of 18 to 28.
Jin was able to request delayed conscription until the end of this year, thanks to a revised law passed in 2020 in favor of BTS. That law allowed pop culture artists to postpone the draft if the president of South Korea awarded them an Order of Cultural Merits. BTS members were the only male K-pop artists to receive that honor.
Monday’s surprise announcement came during a heated debate about whether to change the current conscription exemption laws to include pop artists like BTS. All South Korean men are required to serve in the military for at least 18 months, with an exception for global award-winning athletes and classical musicians recommended by the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism to replace the military duty with alternative services.
Military service duties have been one of the biggest hurdles for South Korean male idol groups because each member is of different age and they do not have a choice as to exactly when they will serve. For example, popular K-pop groups like Super Junior had to halt their music performances at the height of their popularity to serve military duty and recently came back as a complete group after 10 years.
“The conscription requirements naturally lead to uncertainty of the members to come back in one complete team [for boy band groups], but BTS seems to have evolved beyond that concern,” columnist Kim Hern-sik told ABC News.
Lawmakers have been discussing a bill revision for over a year, prompting the National Assembly’s Defense Committee to conduct a survey on how South Korean people feel about conscripting BTS. A majority of 60.9% said they are in favor of exempting the group members from military service while 34.3% opposed the idea. But there has been strong opposition, especially from young men.
BigHit Music made it clear on Monday that all seven BTS members will take responsibility for their military service regardless of the results of future bureaucratic decisions.
“For now, this is the last concert scheduled for us. I am not sure when I would be able to be in a concert again, so I’m thinking I should cherish this moment,” BTS leader Jin told a crowd of 50,000 during a concert last Saturday, hinting at the possibility of their decision to enroll as required.
BigHit Music’s announcement on Monday explained that Jin will follow the enlistment procedure as soon as he finished his solo release at the end of October. Other members of the group will carry out their military service according to their individual plans.
“Both the company and the members of BTS are looking forward to reconvening as a group again around 2025 following their service commitment,” Bighit Music added in their announcement via their official social platforms.
(LONDON) — The world could be only a few years away from a cancer vaccine, according to the couple behind the Pfizer/BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine.
“We feel that a cure for cancer or to changing cancer patients’ lives is in our grasp,” professor Ozlem Tureci told BBC News in an interview over the weekend.
Her husband, professor Ugur Sahin, with whom she cofounded the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech, said he thought cancer vaccines could be widely available “before 2030.”
The husband-and-wife duo founded BioNTech in 2008 originally to develop and produce treatments for individualized cancer immunotherapy, using mRNA technology. But when the pandemic hit, they adapted this technology to create one of the first and most effective COVID-19 vaccines.
Scientists have been working on a cancer vaccine for decades. One approach is to teach the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells — ideally preventing cancer from growing in the first place. Further along are other types of vaccines designed to treat people who already have cancer, including one Food and Drug Administration-approved cancer vaccine for people with advanced prostate cancer.
“From the very beginning, our focus has always been on exploiting the full potential of the body’s immune system to successfully help address cancer and infectious diseases,” the company’s website says.
In this recent interview, the two professors explained that their experience of developing the COVID vaccine could help accelerate their work on a cancer vaccine as it launched the mRNA technology into the mainstream.
“What we have developed over decades for cancer vaccine development has been the tailwind for developing the COVID-19 vaccine, and now the Covid-19 vaccine and our experience in developing it gives back to our cancer work,” Tureci said, explaining that “mRNA acts as a blueprint and allows you to tell the body to produce the drug or the vaccine … and when you use mRNA as a vaccine, the mRNA is a blueprint for the ‘wanted poster’ of the enemy — in this case, cancer antigens which distinguish cancer cells from normal cells.”
“The development of several COVID vaccines in record time showed the possibilities of mRNA vaccine technology, which could one day become an effective treatment to help beat cancer,” Dr. Sam Godfrey, research information lead at Cancer Research U.K., said.
“Just as science was our route out of the pandemic, science is our route to beating cancer. We’re optimistic that, in the future, we will see mRNA technology and other exciting vaccine approaches giving doctors more treatment options to help beat cancer,” Godfrey added.
Many other pharmaceutical companies, including vaccine maker Moderna, are also working on mRNA vaccines to target specific cancers.
“Using vaccines to treat cancer is an exciting emerging field,” Godfrey said. “We’ve already partnered with Vaccitech to trial one of the world’s first therapeutic vaccines for lung cancer, and we are funding cutting-edge research learning how virus and vaccine technology might activate the immune system against cancer.”
This approach is not without roadblocks. For example, the BioNTech vaccine needs to be custom-designed for each person. However, a preliminary study in pancreatic cancer suggested the vaccine might help delay cancer reoccurrence, though more research is needed.
“Every step, every patient we treat in our cancer trials helps us to find out more about what we are against and how to address that,” Tureci said, before adding a note of caution: “We are always hesitant to say we will have a cure for cancer. We have a number of breakthroughs and we will continue to work on them.”
(NEW YORK) — A wave of kamikaze drones struck Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities on Monday morning, killing at least four and wounding several others, after one blew apart a residential building in the capital and other drones targeted thermal power stations across the country.
The attacks appeared to be the largest drone assault unleashed by Russia on civilian targets since the start of the war. Russia launched 43 drones and Ukraine successfully shot down all but six, Ukraine’s Air Force said.
The attack highlighted how Russia is increasingly turning to using attack drones built and supplied by Iran to bolster its failing war effort in Ukraine. Russia has ordered hundreds of military drones from Iran’s government, according to western and Ukrainian officials, as it seeks to fill gaps in its own drone arsenal and as it runs short of long-range missiles.
Ukraine’s government said the drones used in the attacks were mostly Iran’s Shahed-136s, large so-called loitering munitions, which Russia is employing like slow, small cruise missiles.
Iran’s government has denied it is supplying drones to Russia to use in Ukraine but their deployment has already been widely documented since September. Ukrainian troops regularly post images of their wreckage and the drones’ distinctive wing shape makes them easily identifiable.
The 11-foot-long, propeller-powered drones are relatively unsophisticated, according to defense analysts, but still pose a serious threat, particularly if Russia receives them in large numbers.
The Shahed-136 relies on a small civilian motor and commercially available GPS systems, making it vulnerable to jamming and relatively easy to bring down, Samuel Bendett, an expert on Russian unmanned aerial systems, told ABC News. Russian troops have taken to nicknaming these drones “mopeds” because of their loud whine, he said.
While vastly slower than Russia’s advanced cruise missiles, they are still able to fly hundreds of miles, capable of reaching almost anywhere in Ukraine. Slow and low-flying, they can also be difficult for some air defenses to detect and intercept. Their 50-kilogram payload is also relatively limited, but as Monday’s attacks show, the missiles can still sometimes cause significant damage.
The drones’ greatest advantage, experts said, is that they are cheap compared to conventional missiles.
“The whole point of using these Shaheds is to send them in waves. To stress Ukrainian air defenses, to have them expend ammunition, to keep people on edge,” Bendett said. “It’s not about all of them making it through, it’s about just some of them making it through.”
Russia appears to be using the Iranian drones to maintain a campaign of aerial terror aimed at sapping Ukrainians’ will to fight, some experts said. In particular, Russia is targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, hoping to damage it as winter closes in. Monday’s attack again struck critical energy facilities, cutting hundreds of settlements off from the electricity grid, Ukraine’s prime minister said.
The supply of Iranian drones is significant because Russia increasingly has insufficient missiles to keep up a daily campaign against civilian targets, according to Ukrainian and western officials. Most independent experts agree that Russia is unable to manufacture large enough numbers to replenish its stocks. But Iran’s drones may allow Russia to fill that gap, letting it continue its terror campaign and to degrade Ukrainian infrastructure.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week said Russia is seeking to acquire 2,400 drones from Iran.
The Washington Post reported over the weekend that Iran has agreed to increase its supply of attack drones to Russia, citing officials.
Iran’s weapons supplies to Moscow are also fueling tensions with Israel. Following The Washington Post report, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai publicly said it should start sending military aid to Ukraine.
Israel has so far resisted calls from Ukraine to provide its vaunted “Iron Dome” anti-missile defense system and Israel’s government on Monday did not confirm it would send weapons.
But Russia reacted furiously to the possibility, with former President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday warning that it would “destroy all interstate relations” between Russia and Israel.
A senior adviser to Zelenskyy, Mykhailo Podolyak, blamed Iran for Monday’s attacks, writing on Twitter it was “responsible for the murders of Ukrainians.”
Most experts said they did not believe the Iranian drones would be capable of fundamentally altering the military direction of the war, but that they could inflict daily death and destruction on civilians.
Perhaps the biggest threat the drones pose currently is to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
“Even if it’s a 50 kilogram warhead flying in at a very high speed and it hits an electric power station, it can cause very significant damage. So I wouldn’t downplay that at all,” said Bendett.
But even such strikes seemed unlikely to break Ukrainian’s determination to fight, he added.
“The cost could be substantial but it’s probably not going to change Ukrainian resolve,” Bendett said.
(NEW YORK) — Two Wyoming college wrestlers have been seriously injured when they were ambushed in a gruesome attack by a grizzly bear while hunting over the weekend.
The incident occurred on Saturday in Cody, Wyoming, when the two men encountered the bear at close range while they were in heavy cover antler hunting west of the Bobcat Houlihan trailhead on the Shoshone National Forest, the Wyoming Game & Fish Department said in a press release detailing the incident.
One of the men said he jumped on the grizzly to try and get him off his friend, Brady Lowry.
“I grabbed and yanked him hard by the ear,” Kendall Cummings told Cowboy State Daily.
“I could hear when his teeth would hit my skull, I could feel when he’d bite down on my bones and they’d kind of crunch,” Cummings continued.
The two men were somehow able to break free from the attack and call 911 which elicited an immediate response from both Park County Search and Rescue and personnel from the Wyoming Game & Fish Department.
“With the assistance of a hunter in the area, a local resident and other members of their party, the two men were able to reach the trailhead where they met search and rescue and were transported from the area,” said the Wyoming Game & Fish Department.
One of the victims was flown by helicopter to a local hospital while the other was taken by an ambulance, authorities said.
Both men, wrestling teammates at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming, reportedly underwent multiple surgeries after sustaining major lacerations to the body and face. Lowry has a broken arm, reports said.
“Special thanks to Park County Search and Rescue and the Park County Sheriff’s office for their quick response and coordination of the rescue,” said Dan Smith, Cody Region wildlife supervisor.
An investigation into the attack is ongoing but authorities say this just appears to be a “sudden, surprise encounter with a grizzly bear.”
Officials added that there has been “an abundance of bear activity at low elevations” throughout the region in the last few weeks and urged people to use a lot of caution in the area where the attack took place.
“In the vicinity where the attack occurred, reports from landowners and hunters indicate there may be six to 10 different bears moving between agricultural fields and low elevation slopes,” Smith said. “Game and Fish will continue to monitor bear activity in the area and work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to make management decisions in the best interest of public safety.”
“This is a sad and unfortunate situation, we wish both victims a full and speedy recovery,” Smith added.
For now, however, both Lowry and Cummings are counting their blessings and consider themselves lucky to have survived the attack at all.
“I don’t know what I’m going to pay him back, I don’t. I owe him everything, Brady Lowry told the Cowboy Daily Press regarding Cummings’ quick actions that potentially saved his life. “We’ll be best friends for the rest of our lives.”
(NEW YORK) — Monkeypox cases are continuing to decline in the United States as the outbreak keeps showing signs of receding.
As of Oct. 12, the U.S. recorded a seven-day average of 60 cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This is the lowest average recorded since June 29, which is right around the time that infections began climbing. It’s also down from the seven-day average of 443 cases recorded in early August, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows.
Trends seen in cities across the country mirror those nationwide.
In New York City — the epicenter of the outbreak — the seven-day average has fallen to 2 as of Oct. 11, according to the city’s Department of Health & Mental Hygiene. This is a sharp decline from the peak of 73 recorded in late July and early August.
Similarly, in Los Angeles, the seven-day average sits at 5 as of most recent data from Oct. 3, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which is the lowest since early July. It’s also a marked drop from the peak of 41 in late August.
Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, told ABC News the outbreak has fallen for a few reasons, one being behavioral changes.
The outbreak has primarily been concentrated in men who have sex with men, a group that includes people who identify as gay, bisexual, transgender and nonbinary, although health officials have said anyone — regardless of sexual orientation — is at risk if they have direct contact with an infected person.
Surveys have shown that high-risk groups listened to public health advice and made changes such as reducing the number of sexual partners and anonymous sexual encounters.
“There were really substantial changes among men who have sex men,” Doron said. “High proportions said that they had made significant changes in their behavior.”
Another reason, she said, is vaccines. As of Oct. 11, more than 906,000 doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine — the only vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent smallpox and monkeypox disease — have been administered across the U.S., according to the CDC.
To increase the number of JYNNEOS doses available, the FDA authorized a new strategy in August to inject the vaccine intradermally, just below the first layer of skin, rather than subcutaneously, or under all the layers of skin, allowing one vial of vaccine to be given out as five separate doses rather than a single dose.
Doron, however, said it’s too soon to claim victory over the outbreak and added that it’s important for those who are at high-risk to keep taking precautions.
“As we have learned and seen with COVID, case numbers have a certain shape and what goes down can come up again,” she said. “So, we can’t rest on our laurels and think that’s it over.”
“The public can relax to a much greater extent than public health officials and hospital officials,” she added.
(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:
Oct 18, 5:09 AM EDT
Russia targets Ukraine’s energy infrastructure
Air raid sirens went off in Kyiv for more than three hours on Tuesday, as Russia launched a wave of strikes targeting energy infrastructure across Ukraine.
At least three incoming strikes were confirmed by the authorities in Kyiv. A power plant on the city’s left bank was hit, knocking out power for some residents in that area. Some locals said they didn’t have running water.
Kyiv officials did not say whether there were casualties. It was also unclear whether the plant was hit by a missile or a drone — both types of weapons were reportedly heading towards Kyiv, but some were shot down.
Russian missiles and drones struck other targets across Ukraine on Tuesday, officials said.
Russia struck energy infrastructure in both Zhytomyr and Dnipro, knocking out power and running water for some residents, officials said. There was “serious damage,” Dnipro’s governor said.
Russian forces launched eight missiles on Kharkiv from Belgorod, Russia, this morning, according to the governor. They hit several districts of the city, the official said.
Zaporizhzhia was attacked by Russian drones last night, the governor said. One infrastructure object was damaged, along with a warehouse. No casualties were reported.
Oct 18, 3:42 AM EDT
Russian missile strikes apartments, killing one
Russian missiles struck targets in Mykolaiv that included a residential building, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday.
“A person died,” Zelenskyy said on Twitter. “There was also a strike at the flower market, the chestnut park. I wonder what the Russians were fighting against at these peaceful facilities?”
Oct 17, 5:55 AM EDT
Zaporizhzhia plant disconnected from power grid
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was disconnected from the power grid after Russian shelling on Monday, Energoatom said.
The plant’s diesel generators were started after a “short-term voltage drop,” the energy company said.
“We once again appeal to the international community to urgently take measures for the demilitarization of the ZNPP as soon as possible,” Energoatom said in a statement.
Oct 17, 3:50 AM EDT
Two trapped under rubble after drone strikes, Kyiv mayor says
Eighteen people were rescued and two were trapped under rubble after a Russian drone struck central Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Air raid sirens started blaring in the capital at about 6:30 a.m. on Monday, accompanied by at least three explosions from drone strikes.
A non-residential building in the Shevchenkinskyi district of the city was on fire, Klitschko said. At least one residential building had also been struck, Kira Rudik, a member of Ukrainian Parliament, said on Twitter.
“Critical infrastructure severely damaged. Ruined buildings,” Rudik said. “We have no time for statements about support. We need air defense asap.”
Oct 17, 3:38 AM EDT
Ukraine shoots down 37 drones, military says
Ukrainian forces shot down 37 Russian drones and three cruise missiles overnight, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.
Oct 17, 1:39 AM EDT
Drones strike Kyiv, mayor says
Multiple blasts struck Kyiv on Monday morning, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Air raid sirens were sounding in the capital, he said. He asked people to shelter in place.
Klitschko shared a photo on Twitter of what he said was the wreckage of a Kamikaze drone.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Monday officially launched the application for student loan relief, after the test version of the site went live this weekend — a long-awaited first step to fulfilling one of his campaign promises just weeks before the midterm elections.
“Today marks a big step among others that my administration is taking to make education a ticket to the middle class,” Biden said.
“A new student loan application is now open. If you have federal student debt please visit student aid.gov. It’s easy, simple and fast. And it’s a new day for millions of Americans all across our nation,” he said.
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said after the Monday briefing that over 8 million borrowers have already applied for loan forgiveness through the “beta” — or test — version of the application, launched on Friday.
The rollout is a much-anticipated move to accomplish Biden’s August announcement that individuals with student loans making less that $125,00 can apply for up to $10,000 of debt relief, or as much as $20,000 for eligible borrowers who were also Pell Grant recipients.
Borrowers who submitted their applications for the student debt relief program during the beta test period won’t need to reapply now that the application is officially launched, according to a department spokesperson.
“As millions of people fill out the application. We’re going to make sure the system continues to work as smoothly as possible so that we can deliver student loan relief for millions of Americans as quickly and as efficiently as possible,” Biden said on Monday.
“My commitment was, if elected president, I was going to make government work to deliver for the people. This rollout keeps that commitment, just as I’m keeping my commitment to relieve student debt as borrowers recover from this economic crisis caused by the once in a lifetime pandemic.”
Biden also acknowledged the Republicans who are seeking to block the new relief.
“The Biden bailout is not only unfairly punishing Americans, but it is a political loser for Democrats this November. While Biden gives the wealthy a handout, his agenda has slammed families with rising gas prices, sky-high grocery bills, and tax hikes,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Nathan Brand said in a statement after Biden’s Monday announcement.
The policy has been challenged multiple times in court, largely by conservative organizations and states that argue that the Biden administration doesn’t have the authority to cancel student loan debt — that it’s up to Congress.
“Republican members of Congress, Republican governors are trying to do everything they can to deny this feat, even to their own constituents. As soon as I announced my administration’s student debt plan, they started attacking it, saying all kinds of things. Their outrage is wrong, and it’s hypocritical,” he said.
So far, none of the lawsuits has halted the program, which the Biden administration argues is on firm legal footing under the HEROES Act — an act that provides broader-than-usual authority to the Education Secretary during emergency periods, such as COVID. Biden said it’s his administration’s legal judgment that the relief program will not be blocked.
Biden noted that many of the GOP members who have opposed the policy have benefited from other COVID-related relief programs, like the Paycheck Protection Program or American Rescue Plan loans.
“As soon as I announced my administration’s student debt plan, they started attacking it, saying all kinds of things. Their outrage is wrong, and it’s hypocritical. I will never apologize for helping working Americans and middle class people as they recover from the pandemic,” he continued.
“I don’t want to hear from Republican officials again, who heard who had hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions of dollars in pandemic relief loans, PPP loans, but who now attack the work the middle class Americans are getting relief,” Biden said.
The federal student loan forgiveness plan will cost $400 billion over 10 years, according to a revised estimate in late September from the Congressional Budget Office, which is a lower number than from one leading outside estimate.
“In total, more than 40 million Americans can stand to benefit from this relief, and about 90 percent — 90 percent of that relief is going to go people making less than $75,000 a year,” Biden said. “Let me be clear: Not a dime will go to those in the top 5 percent of the income bracket. Period.”
Biden said on Monday that the country is “on track” to reducing the federal deficit by $1 trillion this fiscal year, along with reducing it by another $300 billion over the next ten years because of a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that allows Medicaid to now negotiate drug prices with corporations.
“We’re able to afford this student loan relief,” Biden claimed. “It’s because of our historic deficit reduction that Republicans voted against.”
He also said there would be federal income from the borrowers who do not qualify for the loan forgiveness program who will need to begin paying their loans when the payment pause discontinues this January. “That means billions of dollars a year will start coming into the U.S. Treasury,” Biden said.
“My administration’s plan is economically responsible.”
(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Monday blasted former President Donald Trump for a weekend post on his social media platform telling American Jews to “get their act together.”
“Donald Trump’s comments were antisemitic, as you all know, and insulting, both to Jews and to our Israeli allies. But let’s be clear for years, for years now, Donald Trump has aligned with extremist and antisemitic figures,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday. “It should be called out … just like we called out our Democratic friends and colleagues last week and we will condemn and call this out as well.”
“We need to root out antisemitism everywhere it rears its ugly head. We need to call this out,” she said. “With respect to Israel, our relationship is ironclad. And it’s rooted in shared values and interests. Donald Trump clearly doesn’t understand that either.”
The rebuke comes after Trump knocked Jews on Truth Social over a perceived lack of loyalty to Israel, hitting on an antisemitic trope of dual loyalty that has plagued Jews across the world for centuries.
“No President has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S.,” Trump wrote.
“Those living in Israel, though, are a different story – Highest approval rating in the World, could easily be P.M.! U.S. Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel – Before it is too late!” Trump added.
The comment led to other criticism, including from the Jewish Democratic Council of America, which called the post “more unabashed antisemitism from GOP leader Donald Trump.”
“His threat to Jewish Americans and his continued use of the antisemitic dual loyalty trope fuels hatred against Jews. We will not be threatened by Donald Trump and Jewish Americans will reject GOP bigotry this November,” the council tweeted.
“We don’t need the former president, who curries favor with extremists and antisemites, to lecture us about the U.S.-Israel relationship. It is not about a quid pro quo; it rests on shared values and security interests. This ‘Jewsplaining’ is insulting and disgusting,” Anti-Defamation League’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt also said Sunday.
“When the president says, ‘before it’s too late,’ it sounds like a threat in an environment where Jews already feel threatened,” Greenblatt added on CNN Monday. “It is bewildering that President Trump, who has Jewish children and Jewish grandchildren, continues to evoke age-old antisemitic tropes.”
Monday was not the first time Trump faced criticism over his comments on Jews.
He sounded a similar note in 2019 when he said Jewish people who back Democrats are disloyal.
“I think Jewish people that vote for a Democrat — I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in response to policies from some Democrats to curtail aid to Israel.
“There’s people in this country that are Jewish — no longer love Israel. I’ll tell you, the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country,” he added in an interview released in December.
“It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress. And today, I think it’s the exact opposite,” Trump said. “And I think Obama and Biden did that. And yet in the election, they still get a lot of votes from Jewish people, which tells you that the Jewish people, and I’ve said this for a long time, the Jewish people in the United States either don’t like Israel or don’t care about Israel.”
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Monday’s White House rebuke.
(WASHINGTON) — More than 2 million people have already voted in the 2022 general election, according to data analyzed by the University of Florida’s U.S. Elections Project.
The project, which compiles public data on early voting at ElectProject.org, had counted 2,030,730 early votes, of which 1,842,115 mail-in ballots have been returned and 188,615 ballots have been cast in person thus far, as of Oct. 17. There have been 14,892,186 total mail ballots requested.
University of Florida professor Michael McDonald, who oversees the Elections Project, said that early turnout so far in 2022 was higher than usual for a midterm election.
“It’s clear that we are above the 2018 midterm at the same point in time in states where we have comparable data to look at,” McDonald told ABC News.
With 21 days and millions more ballots left before Nov. 8, McDonald noted that 2022 turnout is likely to be on par with 2018 midterm turnout, which broke records previously set more than a century earlier. Midterm elections typically turn out fewer voters than during years when a presidential election is held, but the recent numbers indicate a growing trend of participation over the past few years.
“We do know that interest is running high for the election. We can see the sorts of indicators that would suggest that we’re in for a high-turnout election, much like we had in 2018. And 2018, was the highest midterm turnout rate since 1914,” he said.
“So, it was a fairly exceptional election, I mean 2020 was also exceptional in that it had the highest turnout for presidential elections since 1900.”
Early voting is underway in more than a dozen states, with more to start early voting sometime this week. Early voting periods range in length from four days to 45 days before Election Day, with an average length of 19 days, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Between 2006 and 2018, the percentage of national voters who cast their vote at a polling site on Election Day dropped from roughly 80% to roughly 60%, according to voter data. During that same period, the percentage of voters who chose early in-person voting grew from 5.8% to 16.7%, and the percentage of voters who mailed in their ballot increased from 13.8% to 22.3%.
But a rise in the use of early voting began to really spike during the 2020 presidential election, when the COVID-19 pandemic dampened in-person voting and triggered many state legislatures to expand mail-in options. The 2020 election saw record breaking turnout and also was the first time more people voted before Election Day than on it.
McDonald noted that the current midterm early voting trends may be indicative of a more permanent, stronger pattern of early voting.
“What we’re observing here is that some people have changed their behavior. They’re either voting early, where they may not have done so in a past midterm election, or they’re voting sooner than they would have,” he said. “Those are both things that we saw in 2020, where people were not only voting by mail, and in person early at greater frequencies then they had past elections, but they were also voting earlier than they had in prior presidential elections.”
Of the states that record party registration, the U.S. Elections Project shows more Democrats have voted early this cycle — 52.3% compared to only 31.1 % of Republicans.
The share of Republicans who are recorded saying voters should be allowed to vote early or absentee without a documented reason fell drastically in the past few years, according to a 2021 Pew Research survey– down 19% from 2018.
The use of absentee and mail-in ballots have been subject to conspiracy and skepticism after former President Donald Trump said that mail-in ballots lead to voter fraud in 2020.
McDonald noted on Twitter that the early vote count numbers crested 2 million as their project now has included totals from Arizona, one of the latest states to open ballot casting options ahead of election day. The Copper State began mailing ballots out to constituents on Oct. 12.
Arizona was ground zero for election fraud claims, with Trump alleging mass fraud in the state — joined later by now-gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, and the courts have refuted these baseless allegations, saying there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud or irregularities associated with the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous.
Sunday on CNN, Lake again refused to commit to conceding if she loses and laid the groundwork for sowing mistrust in mail-in voting options: “We don’t want to be counting for 10 days,” Lake said.
Florida leads in early voting participation
According to the U.S. Elections Project data, nearly a third of all of the early votes that have been cast so far, were done so in Florida– it’s the only state where early vote totals exceed 600,000. The rest of the 21 states that the project has recorded as imposing some sort of early vote method spans from 100,000 to 500,000 votes cast thus far this cycle.
“Quite remarkable, right. Considering that early voting is going on in many other states,” McDonald. “Florida has been piling on another 100,000 every day, at this point. Florida’s really why the numbers have moved so quickly.”
McDonald said that because of Florida’s larger size, broader voter turnout activity is expected, along with the fact that Floridians tend to use mail ballots more frequently than some of the other states has so far been casting votes early.
Large states like California, which sent their mail-in ballots out later than the Sunshine state, will quickly catch up, he said.
“California will catch up really quick and pass Florida within the next week or so. But in this period of time, right now, we’re Florida is the state that sent out well over a million mail ballots.”
Florida leads the pack as GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday signed an executive order which allows voters in areas devastated by recent Hurricane Ian — coastal counties Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota — more flexibility to request and cast their ballots.
The expanded voting order adds three days to early voting, and waives the requirement for voters to supply a signature when requesting a vote by mail ballot at a new address– a new voting law passed in 2021– and authorizes election supervisors to designate additional early voting locations, among other measures.
DeSantis said he signed the order at the request of the Supervisors of Elections in Charlotte, Lee, and Sarasota counties, and at the recommendation of Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd, following the storm which destroyed polling places and displaced thousands of people.
DeSantis encouraged Republicans to vote by mail at a campaign event on Saturday, saying he has “confidence” in Florida’s elections. The governor polled the crowd at the event, asking how they’d vote: attendees erupted into cheers when he asked who might cast ballots on Election Day, followed by silence when he asked if they might vote by mail.
“What I would say is whatever you like is fine. We’ve got good returns on absentee, and I have confidence in early voting, in person [voting], and of course Election day [voting],” DeSantis said.
(ST. LOUIS, Mo.) — A considerable amount of radioactive waste was found at a Missouri elementary school near St. Louis, according to a new report.
In August, Boston Chemical Data Corp. studied soil, dust and plant samples at Jana Elementary School in Florissant, Missouri, according to the company’s report.
Boston Chemical Data’s finding coincides with findings from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which first detected radioactive contaminants near the school in 2018 and again in 2019, 2020 and 2021, the report said.
“The results show the presence of low-level radioactive contamination on this property located in the banks of Coldwater Creek within the property boundary,” the Army Corps told the superintendent of the Hazelwood School District earlier this year, according to the report.
The company said that it tested soil samples from as much as six feet below the ground surface, but it’s unclear how deep the radioactive contamination goes.
The school is in the flood plain of Coldwater Creek, which was contaminated with uranium and other radioactive waste during World War II.
According to the reports, engineers studied samples from homes in the same neighborhood of the school facing the creek. They found the same type of radioactive material discovered at Jana Elementary, both outside and inside the homes in the neighborhood.
In 2019, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found that the waste would enter homes from the creek because of flooding, Boston Chemical Data Corp. said.
The Hazelwood School District, where Jana Elementary School is located, said in a statement that it’s aware of the report concerning the radioactive waste.
“Safety is always our top priority, and we are actively discussing the implications of the findings,” the district said. “The Board of Education will be consulting with attorneys and experts in the area of testing to determine next steps.”
