(LONDON) — Queen Elizabeth is being monitored for COVID-19 after her son, Prince Charles, tested positive for the virus on Thursday, according to Buckingham Palace.
A royal source told ABC News the 95-year-old queen and Prince Charles, 73, met recently. The queen is not displaying any symptoms of COVID-19 at this time, according to the source.
Prince Charles, who is now self-isolating, attended an event Tuesday at Windsor Castle, where the queen recently returned after spending time at Sandringham, her Norfolk estate.
This is the second time Prince Charles has tested positive for COVID-19, with his first diagnosis coming in March 2020, before he was vaccinated.
Buckingham Palace has not said if Queen Elizabeth has been tested for COVID-19.
“With the queen, they’re balancing the situation,” said ABC News royal contributor Victoria Murphy. “She is head of state and there is a sense that the public does need and want to know, but at the same time, she’s a very elderly lady who is entitled to a certain amount of medical privacy.”
Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, was last seen publicly on Saturday at an event in Sandringham to mark her 70 years on the throne.
The queen met with representatives from local community groups in the ballroom at Sandringham House to celebrate the start of the Platinum Jubilee.
It was the queen’s first public, in-person event since October, when she was hospitalized for one night for what the palace described as “preliminary investigations.”
After being advised by her doctors to rest, Queen Elizabeth took on a more modified schedule. In November, she missed the annual Remembrance Sunday Service for the first time in her reign due to a sprained back.
The queen had already modified her schedule throughout the coronavirus pandemic, holding virtual audiences and participating in video calls instead of public events.
When her husband, Prince Philip, died at age 99 last April, the queen sat alone during the funeral service in St. George’s Chapel, following pandemic restrictions.
Both Queen Elizabeth and her late husband received their first COVID-19 vaccination shots in January 2021, Buckingham Palace confirmed at the time.
Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, confirmed in December that they had both received their booster shoots of the vaccine, according to the BBC.
(NEW YORK) — The specter of a military confrontation on the Ukrainian border is stoking fears in Europe of an interruption in natural gas from Russia — and pumping fresh life into the debate over whether President Joe Biden’s climate agenda is brushing up against difficult geopolitical realities.
Critics of the Biden administration say its efforts to curb domestic oil and gas production have complicated its ability to negotiate with Russia, which provides more than a third of Europe’s natural gas.
To others, the standoff demonstrates the need for a swift transition to clean energy, “so that we’re not held hostage by Russia moving forward,” says Erin Sikorsky, director of the Center for Climate and Security and a former intelligence official.
Either way, experts say, the conflict in Eastern Europe is shining a spotlight on the challenges ahead as governments adapt to an evolving energy landscape.
“It is clear that climate change is a huge focus for the Biden White House,” said Ben Cahill, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But energy security realities are intervening, and they can’t be ignored.”
As Russian troops amass along Russia’s border with Ukraine, American officials are warning of a possible invasion in the coming days or weeks. In the event of an escalation, Western leaders fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin could halt gas supplies to Europe, potentially threatening Europe’s energy security.
The Biden administration has prepared contingency plans to backfill Europe’s energy needs in such an event. But oil interests and Republican lawmakers argue that a reduction in domestic fossil fuel extraction in recent years has hamstrung the United States’ ability to ensure Europe’s energy security.
Frank Macchiarola of the American Petroleum Institute told ABC News that “ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine serve as a reminder of the critical role of U.S. oil and natural gas in meeting our nation’s energy needs and ensuring our allies have access to a stable supply of affordable, reliable energy.”
On Capitol Hill, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, echoed that sentiment to Politico, characterizing the Biden administration’s scramble to shore up natural gas for Europe as “a crisis strategy that didn’t have to be.”
But many experts disagree with that critique. Because investments in domestic oil production today generally won’t impact the market for many years, Biden is limited in what he can do now to boost oil reserves. In the meantime, Cahill said, Biden should continue to advance his clean energy ambitions — but recognize the need for future U.S. oil production.
“The Biden administration should pursue its climate agenda, including tougher regulations on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry,” Cahill said. “But we’ll need fossil fuel investment for years to come, even as the energy transition picks up speed.”
Sikorsky warns critics not to conflate “the short-term crisis and the long-term strategy.”
“The administration has to do what it has to do to make sure energy supplies in Europe remain strong in the face of Russian aggression,” Sikorsky said. “But it has do that with an eye toward a more rapid transition to renewable energy.”
Because Russia’s economy relies so heavily on natural gas exports to Europe, Biden and European allies still have substantial energy-related leverage in negotiations with Moscow. The Russian government generated almost 30% of state revenue in 2020 from fossil fuel companies, including $40 billion in gas sales to Europe, according to one U.S. government report.
“The long-term threat to Russia’s market position is actually far greater” than the threat to Europe’s energy needs, said Matthew Schmidt, director of the International Affairs program at the University of New Haven. “Russia is a dinosaur. Their economy is weak. It’s a carbon-based economy, and if Putin were to use gas a weapon, he’s going to kill the market.”
Additionally, experts say renewable energy breakthroughs are closer than most leaders realize — a development that could render oil and gas obsolete in the coming decades.
Schmidt said he would encourage the Biden administration to forego any further investment in fossil foils and instead “go in on clean energy now, because that’s the long-term trend.”
This week, Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz pledged to halt production of Europe’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the event of an invasion. The U.S. and its allies could also directly sanction the Russian oil and gas industry as part of an effort to “reverse the direction of energy leverage,” according to a Brookings Institute policy paper.
But sanctions targeting Russia’s oil industry carry substantial risks for Europe’s energy needs. Enacting them would present the same outcome as Putin preemptively cutting off natural gas.
Cahill said that Biden’s quest for additional energy resources “does raise questions about whether we’ve under-invested in fossil fuels in the past five to seven years … which in turn raises questions about our ability to impose sanctions.”
For some industry experts, Europe’s dependence on Russian oil serves as a cautionary tale for the U.S. — and an impetus for the U.S. to expand investments in clean energy.
“Europe’s dependence on fossil fuels has made it vulnerable, the result of investment choices made over the course of decades,” said Trevor Higgins, vice president for climate policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.
“We should not repeat the same mistakes,” said Higgins. “A clean energy economy will be more secure and resilient than continued dependence on fossil fuels.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.7 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 915,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 64.3% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Feb 11, 6:56 am
New York City’s unvaccinated workers face termination
About 3,000 municipal workers in New York City — less than 1% of the city’s workforce — face termination Friday after refusing to abide by a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The requirement, established under former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, applies to municipal employees hired after Aug. 2, 2021, who were told to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment and to unvaccinated police officers, correction officers, firefighters and others who opted to forego city health benefits and are currently on leave because they are not vaccinated.
The mandate achieved a vaccination rate among municipal workers of more than 95%. A number of exceptions were approved in recent months.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday that some workers initially facing termination had submitted their proof of vaccination, so the final number wasn’t yet clear. He reiterated that the stragglers aren’t being fired but are “quitting.”
“The responsibility is clear,” Adams told reporters Thursday. “We said it. If you were hired, you get this job, you have to be vaccinated. If you are not following the rules, you are making that decision. You are making the decision that you are not going to follow the rules of getting vaccinated. And that is a decision they are making.”
“I want them to stay, I want them to be employees of the city,” he added. “But they have to follow the rules.”
-ABC News’ Mark Crudele and Aaron Katersky
Feb 10, 3:24 pm
1st vaccine shipments for kids under 5 could be as soon as Feb. 21, pending FDA authorization
The first vaccine shipments for children under 5 could arrive at pediatricians’ doors as soon as Feb. 21, according to a planning guide sent to states from federal health officials and obtained by ABC News.
Doses can ship once the FDA signs off.
The FDA’s independent advisory committee will meet on Tuesday and after that the FDA can issue an emergency use authorization.
The CDC’s independent advisory panel is expected to meet within days of the FDA’s authorization. Once the CDC signs off on its panel’s recommendations, vaccinations for kids under 5 can start.
-ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik
Feb 10, 2:18 pm
Walensky: Difficult to release guidance that works everywhere from NYC to rural Montana
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky acknowledged that it’s tough to make national guidelines to ease restrictions that will fit every different city and town.
“One of the challenging pieces has been how we make guidance that is general enough so that it can be applied to New York City and rural Montana and Indian country, which is our responsibility, and yet have it be specific enough so that people can get their questions answered,” Walensky said in a webinar in hosted by the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project.
Looking to the future, Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA’s vaccine chief, said “Obviously the hope is — and I think it’s probably the 90% scenario — is that we’re going to now move into a period where … the virus becomes endemic. And we will be living alongside it probably in a period where we will start to get yearly boosters for it.”
But Dr. Sara Oliver, an epidemic intelligence service officer for the CDC, noted that, although there’s a drop in cases, the same hasn’t happened yet in hospitals.
“It’s difficult to envision a time point where we can say COVID is over if we’re still in a time period where our hospitals and ICUs are feeling the strain,” Oliver said.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Feb 10, 1:51 pm
Nevada lifting indoor mask mandate, including for schools
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak on Thursday announced an immediate end to the state’s indoor mask mandate — including for schools — citing a rapid decline in cases and a drop in hospitalizations.
“Teachers & schools will no longer be required to wear masks but school districts will need to work with their local health authorities to have plans in place to deal with outbreaks,” the governor tweeted.
He added, “Employers and organizations, including school districts, may set their own policies, and I encourage them to work with their employees and communities to ensure that policies are in place.”
Masks in Nevada will only be required on public transit per federal law, or in special facilities like hospitals or long-term care facilities.
(DELPHI, Ind.) — In Delphi, Indiana, a close-knit town of nearly 3,000 residents, this weekend marks five years since its most haunting event — the slayings of two eighth-grade girls on a local hiking trail — a devastating crime that stripped families of their innocence and thrust the rural community into a murder mystery that remains unsolved.
Feb. 13, 2017 was an unusually warm day in Delphi, about 70 miles north of Indianapolis, and best friends Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, were enjoying a day off from school.
They headed to the trail — and never made it home.
There appears to be substantial evidence in the case — from audio and video footage of the suspect to a new lead from social media — but no arrest has been made. Police are also not willing to disclose key facts about the crime, such as the cause of death, which experts interviewed by ABC News say is unusual.
They also say that the benefit of continued secrecy and pursuing cryptic leads in the case may have passed.
Nonetheless, five years on, the families still say they have faith in the head of the Indiana State Police, Doug Carter, who said he urges them to continue to hold his feet to the fire.
“We know a lot about you … today could be the day — sleep well,” Carter said in a direct message to the killer.
Watch the full story on “Nightline” TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET on ABC.
‘Our own little bubble’
Libby was outgoing and competitive, excelling in softball, soccer, swimming and volleyball. But she also stood up for the underdog, her grandmother and guardian, Becky Patty, told ABC News.
“She made an impression on people with her kindness,” she said.
Abby was independent, artistic and musical, said her mother, Anna Williams.
“She was one of the most helpful kids I’ve ever had the pleasure of being with,” her mom said. “She loved helping other people … assisting her nieces, playing games.”
The inseparable friends spent their last night alive having a sleepover at Libby’s house, Becky Patty said. There was no school on Monday, Feb. 13, so the girls slept in and had pancakes.
“We were in our own little bubble,” Becky Patty said.
When Abby and Libby didn’t come home from their afternoon at the trail, Libby’s grandfather, Mike Patty, went to look for them.
By nightfall, the girls were still missing and he called the police. Officers and neighbors descended on the streets and trails with flashlights, he said.
Williams said, “We couldn’t find anything on any form of social media saying that they were planning on hanging out or anything with people … the only logical reasoning for them not to be here is that neither of them had a good sense of direction and they’re lost and somebody’s hurt.”
The next day — Valentine’s Day — the girls’ bodies were found near the trail.
Video, a recording and a sketch
The murders cast fear across Delphi, with parents keeping their kids inside and once-friendly neighbors looking at each other with suspicion.
In 2017, authorities released a grainy image of the suspect, who they say was on the trail the day the girls went missing. In 2019, police released a brief video clip — footage taken from Libby’s phone — showing a grainy image of the suspect walking on the bridge near where the girls were last seen.
Police also publicized the suspect’s voice — a recording of him saying, “guys … down the hill” — which was recovered from Libby’s phone.
Authorities in 2019 released a new suspect sketch that officials said was based on a witness’ recollection of what he or she saw.
Despite all that evidence, no arrest has been made.
Two Indiana State Police detectives work full-time on the case, investigating alongside local authorities and looking into all tips and leads that come in, state police spokesman Sgt. Jeremy Piers said.
Carter, the Indiana State Police superintendent, told ABC News this week, “My resolve to catch him is as strong now as it is Day One.”
“I get 25 to 30 tips a week personally,” he said. “I can assure you — it’s moving.”
A deepening mystery
So much remains a mystery. Most significantly, how Abby and Libby died has still not been released to the public. The state police spokesman would only say that’s because “there is some information about this case that we cannot release to protect the integrity of the investigation.”
“One day I’m gonna be able to explain it — we will be able to explain why we held certain things,” Carter said.
Speaking directly to the killer, he added, “We know a lot about you,” though he didn’t elaborate.
Though police routinely withhold details from the public when working to identify a suspect, ABC News contributor and former FBI agent Brad Garrett said that he thought the lack of disclosure of the particular aspects of the cause of death is strange.
“It’s odd to me that they have not released what caused Abigail and Libby’s death, because it’s fairly routine … for the public to at least generally know what happened,” he said.
Garrett said the cause of death having a unique aspect that only the killer would know is the only logical reason he can think of for law enforcement withholding the information.
Robert Ives, the chief prosecutor in Carroll County at the time of Abby and Libby’s murders who has since retired, thinks the time has passed to keep the cause of death a secret.
“I would like to hear an explanation from those leading the investigation what benefit is gained with secrecy,” Ives told ABC News.
Two months ago came a new lead — but that’s also shrouded in mystery.
State police announced in December that, while investigating Abby and Libby’s case, they “uncovered” a fake Snapchat and Instagram profile called “anthony_shots,” where the unknown user took photos of a known male model and communicated with underage girls “to solicit nude images, obtain their addresses, and attempt to meet them.”
The user of the “anthony_shots” profile, which was active in 2016 and 2017, “portrayed himself as being extremely wealthy and owning numerous sports cars,” police said.
The male model in the photos has been identified and isn’t a person of interest, according to police.
Authorities won’t say if Abby or Libby communicated with the fake profile.
Carter was tight-lipped on the “anthony_shots” investigation, saying the profile has “generated a tremendous number of leads for us — and that’s as far as I can go.”
In a statement this week state police said they’re urging anyone who communicated with, met or tried to meet the “anthony_shots” profile to contact law enforcement.
Mike Patty said he sometimes gets criticized for being so supportive of law enforcement. He admitted he gets frustrated, saying he “never thought we’d be here five years and not have resolution.”
But Mike Patty’s still supporting the police, because, he says, “Who else is gonna make the arrest for me?”
“What’s the most effective way to get this done? It’s to support them, right?” he said.
“Obviously I don’t know everything they [the police] have,” he said. “And they’re not gonna roll those cards out on the table at this point in time.”
“Our job is to get the information out there,” he continued. “‘Cause one day we’re gonna get ahold of the right person. Or they’re gonna hear our plea for their help enough that they’re finally gonna say something.”
Williams agreed.
“It did feel we do have more information than a lot of cases have,” she said. “I’m not saying that the cops are in error — law enforcement has done us well … the thousands and thousands and thousands of hours that they have put into our case is frustrating for everybody.”
Carter said, while having conversations with Mike Patty, “There’s things he wants to know that we haven’t told him. Can you imagine? I can’t. He’s looking at a man that knows the answer to a question he’s asking about the death of a grandchild. And I won’t tell him.”
“I want them to continue to hold us to the fire,” Carter said of the families.
‘We always have hope’
Those middle-schoolers enjoying a warm day in the fresh air would now be young adults finishing their freshman year of college. Williams said Abby “would’ve turned into a really good young lady.”
Becky Patty said she made a vow to Libby to never give up on finding her killer and to “live our life making her proud.”
“We live our life like she would want — she was way more giving and she was way more forgiving than the rest of us,” Becky Patty said.
“We include her every day in our life,” she continued. “She’s just not physically standing here, but she’s here. So we just don’t let her be gone.”
Mike Patty said he’s still hopeful for an arrest.
“We always have hope,” he said.
“So if you know and you’re not saying something, I encourage you to do so, ’cause … this guy could strike again,” he said. “I don’t want it to happen to anybody else.”
(WASHINGTON) — A bill that would eliminate forced arbitration agreements for sexual assault and harassment survivors in the workplace was approved in the Senate in a voice vote Thursday, and it now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
The legislation ushers in some of the most significant workplace reforms in decades.
New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has long championed the bill and is one if its lead authors, said the bill “will give survivors their day in court, allow them to discuss their cases publicly and end the days of institutional protection for harassers.”
“It will help us fix a broken system that protects perpetrators and corporations and end the days of silencing survivors,” Gillibrand said on the Senate floor Thursday.
An aide to the senator told ABC News that the bill will go into effect immediately after Biden signs it into law.
The bill’s passage comes a few years after the #MeToo movement launched cases of sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace into the public sphere, revealing just how often men in positions of power settle cases and silence victims by using secretive processes.
These practices have allowed some men to move on to new jobs without having to reveal to the public that claims had ever been filed against them.
This bill would for the first time ensure that survivors of sexual harassment and assault have the option of suing their abusers in state, tribal or federal court.
The House voted on the bill in a bipartisan 335-97 vote earlier in the week. All the votes against it came from Republicans.
“Today, the House took a key step toward ending the shameful practice of forced arbitration of sexual assault and harassment in the workplace. This landmark legislation will void agreements currently silencing more than 60 million workers as well as countless more consumers, who have been denied the freedom to pursue recourse for sexual assault and harassment by nursing home contracts, property leases and other legal agreements,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.
“With today’s strong, bipartisan vote, the House sent a clear signal to survivors across our nation that they deserve the freedom to seek justice and to make their voices heard,” she added.
According to a summary of the bill, H.R. 4445, the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act “would allow sexual harassment and sexual assault survivors to elect to file a case in a court of law rather than be subject to mandatory, forced arbitration provisions in cases involving sexual harassment or sexual assault disputes.”
By voiding forced arbitration clauses in the case of sexual assault and harassment, “survivors are provided the freedom to decide what legal path works best for them — that can include bringing a claim in court, discussing their case publicly, or seeking another kind of legal remedy. It will eliminate institutional protection for harassers and abusers and give survivors the chance to pursue justice,” according to the bill summary.
Proponents of the bill say the point of the legislation is to get cases of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace out in the open so that predators are punished and unable to repeat their offenses. Typically, in arbitration cases, the facts of a case don’t become public, and the accused can often move on to their next place of employment without any public recourse.
Just before the bill passed, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said it was “long overdue.”
“It is an outrage that women and men who are abused can not seek justice are forced to be quiet are forced to keep the agony inside themselves, it is outrageous,” Schumer said. “For decades, this forced arbitration has deprived millions of people form the basic right to justice.”
Republicans who have opposed the bill say it’s an overreach by the federal government in workplace matters.
One of the most prominent advocates for ending forced arbitration in sexual misconduct cases, however, is Gretchen Carlson, the former Fox News host who filed a lawsuit against the late Roger Ailes, the former head of the cable network.
“Yes we will make history and have all women’s voices lifted up!” Carlson tweeted ahead of Monday’s vote.
In a statement earlier this month, the White House’s budget backed the bill.
“This bipartisan, bicameral legislation empowers survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment by giving them a choice to go to court instead of being forced into arbitration,” the White House’s budget office, the Office of Management and Budget, said.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack has found sparse call records and gaps in the White House telephone logs from Jan. 6, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.
One source indicated to ABC News that the logs do not reflect all the calls they understand former President Donald Trump was making that day.
Investigators have not uncovered any evidence that records were deleted or changed.
It’s public knowledge that Trump used not only his personal cell phone to make calls but also the phones of his aides.
The apparent gaps in the calls records is the latest challenge for the committee as they try to paint a complete picture of what Trump was doing and who he was talking to that day.
The call logs obtained by the committee detail incoming and outgoing calls through the White House switchboard.
A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment.
(PIGEON FORGE, Tenn.) — Dolly Parton’s signature Tennessee theme park and resort, Dollywood, has announced a new program to help employees further their education.
Dollywood’s operating partner, Herschend Enterprises, is piloting a program that will pay for 100 percent of tuition, fees and books for employees who decide to pursue higher education, according to the Dollywood website.
The program, which is named GROW U and launches Feb. 24, will be open to all team members on the first day of their employment and applies to employees at all levels, including those who are part-time, full-time and seasonal.
It will be available to all 11,000 employees across Herschend’s 25 attractions, including The Harlem Globetrotters, Missouri’s Silver Dollar City, New Jersey’s Adventure Aquarium and Georgia’s Wild Adventures, according to a press release.
This is the latest education-focused enterprise Parton has embarked on over the course of her decades-long career. Notably, she previously launched the Imagination Library, which provides free books to children under the age of 5.
Most recently, Parton donated $1 million to research at Vanderbilt University which led to the creation of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Russia has officially kicked off the main phase of huge joint military exercises in Belarus, as Western countries continue to warn Russian forces massed near Ukraine could be used to launch a possible attack.
Russia has poured an unprecedented number of troops and equipment into Belarus over recent weeks ahead of the 10-day drills, moving units almost 6,000 miles from its far east and deploying tanks, long-range artillery and advanced fighter jets.
The United States and NATO countries have expressed worries that the exercises could be used as a cover for preparations for a possible on Ukraine, whose capital, Kyiv, is less than 200 miles south.
But Russia and Belarus have insisted the drills are just defensive war games. Russia’s defense ministry on Thursday said the exercises, called “Union Resolve 2022,” will “practice averting and repelling external aggression via a defensive operation, as well as combating terrorism and defending the interests” of Russia and Belarus.
The exercises are due to end on Feb. 20 and the Kremlin has said its troops will leave Belarus then.
Russia’s deployment of troops to Belarus is part of its broader military buildup massing over 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s eastern border and to the south in Crimea. Independent military analysts have sounded the alarm over the exercises, saying the scale of the Russian deployment is vastly larger than anything since the Cold War and includes units that would be used in a major invasion, such as advanced anti-air defences and Iskander-M long-range missile brigades. Satellite imagery has shown some of the Russian units are parked only a few dozen miles from Ukraine’s border, in areas not officially designated for the exercise.
The Belarus drills will coincide with what Western countries and some analysts have said is the window when Russia will reach the point of readiness to launch a major military operation against Ukraine.
NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday warned “the number of Russian forces is going up. The warning time for a possible attack is going down.”
“We must be prepared for the worst while remaining strongly committed to finding a political solution,” Stoltenberg added.
Ukrainian officials are much more skeptical and have denied the Russian forces in Belarus appear ready to launch an offensive. Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov this week said Ukraine did not see Russia forming any strike groups in Belarus and that it had insufficient forces, he estimated only several thousand.
Ukraine’s government has said it believes the Russian buildup right now is primarily aimed at putting psychological pressure on Ukraine with the threat of attack.
In the next 10 days Russia will make a vast display of military power to the north, east and south of Ukraine, holding exercises on an unprecedented scale also outside Belarus. The period seems likely to be a key moment in determining whether the crisis escalates or if the Russian buildup turns to a bluff.
The exercises in Belarus will also overlap with large-scale Russian naval drills in the Black Sea, that on Thursday prompted Ukraine to accuse Moscow of mounting an “unprecedented” naval blockade of Ukrainian ports. Six Russian warships, including amphibious landing ships, entered the Black Sea Wednesday night, to join a fleet already there. Ukraine said it “strongly protests” against the live-fire drills between Feb. 13 and Feb. 19 that are expected to close off access to much of its coast in the Black Sea and to the Sea of Azov.
If President Vladimir Putin is preparing to attack, the Russian build up appears to be approaching a point of maximum danger, according to some analysts, who say it has nearly completed its build up of heavy equipment and is now entering a phase where it will move up personnel to man it.
That does not mean that Russia will attack — U.S. officials say they believe Putin has not yet made a decision — just that it will have the forces in place to do so within the next two weeks.
“Once the second phase of the exercise begins on the 10th, I think they’re going to have everything they need in place and I think that week or the week after would make the most sense for an escalation if Russia is planning on doing an escalation,” Rob Lee, an analyst at Kings College London’s War Studies department, told ABC News.
An analysis by Janes, the defense think tank, estimated there are at least 14 Russian battalion tactical groups in Belarus with around 8,000 to 14,000 troops. The U.S. has said it assesses as many as 30,000 could take part.
“Best case scenario at the end of the exercise they start moving that equipment out,” Lee said. But as long as that equipment is still there then the risk is going to be very high of an escalation.”
Lee said he believed a military incursion was more likely than not.
The Kremlin has denied it has any invasion plans, dismissing it as Western “hysteria.” After meeting the U.K.’s foreign minister in Moscow on Thursday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mocked Western allegations Russia was preparing to attack, including claims it might be waiting for the ground to freeze to allow tank movements.
“It’s like when they say that Russia is waiting for the ground to freeze so that tanks can easily enter Ukraine,” he added. “It seems that our British colleagues were on similar ground today, off of which bounced all the facts we presented them.”
Key talks are taking place in Berlin Thursday aimed at continuing diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the crisis. Ukraine and Russia will meet at the so-called “Normandy Format,” the long-running negotiations, mediated by France and Germany, aimed at resolving the conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in its east.
No breakthrough is expected, but Western countries are hoping the talks can build on the small positive signs for diplomacy that emerged from French President Emmanuel Macron’s meeting with Putin in Moscow at the start of this week.
(WASHINGTON) — As a Supreme Court confirmation battle looms, Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered a sobering warning Wednesday about intensifying partisanship that she says puts the court’s independence at the brink of crisis.
“As norms of the nomination process are broken, as more senators, congressional representatives, governors, mayors, local politicians, and the media question the legitimacy of the court,” she said, “the threat is greater and unprecedented than any time in our history.”
Sotomayor, who is poised to become the court’s most senior liberal justice when Justice Stephen Breyer retires this summer, made the unusually pointed public remarks in a high-profile virtual appearance for New York University Law School.
“The more partisan the voting becomes, the less belief that the public is likely to have that Congress is making a merit-based or qualifications-based assessment of judicial nominees,” Sotomayor said of the Senate confirmation process.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll late last month found more Americans believe politics — rather than the basis of law — guide most of the court’s decisions. Public approval of the court has also slumped to near historic lows in Gallup polling, down double digits from just over a year ago when approval was near a two-decade high.
President Joe Biden is said to be pursuing a nominee who can draw bipartisan support in part as an effort to dial-down the partisanship around confirmations.
Sotomayor said the divisive and politically polarizing process has harmed perceptions of the court’s impartiality, and also suggested it may be directly affecting the court’s functioning on the inside.
“The emphasis to pick nominees with extensive writings and publicly expressed views on precedents of the court can be viewed as a way –and can be viewed by the public as ways — to control a judge from changing his or her mind,” Sotomayor said in what was widely seen as a veiled reference to groups like the conservative Federalist Society, which has sought ideological uniformity in nominees.
“We have an obligation to keep open minds,” she said, “that we are willing to change with time and experience. If we don’t show it, people will believe — perhaps wrongly — that we are just political creatures and not independent judges.”
“The history of the court has been filled with justices changing their doctrinal views over time,” she added.
Many of the court’s conservatives have adopted a different view, vowing adherence to originalism and textualism which resists evolution in interpretation based on changing circumstances in society and the law.
Sotomayor did not directly address recent public controversies involving her colleagues, but at one point she did appear to offer veiled critiques of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s closed-door speech to the Federalist Society last week and growing questions about Justice Clarence Thomas’ potential political conflicts.
“Most appointed judges have friends and people they know in the political arenas. Ending relationships is not required,” she said, “but care by judges and ensuring that contacts do not give the impression of undue influence or endorsement is necessary.
“We must also be sensitive to not prejudging cases in speeches,” she continued. “We have a wonderful vehicle — our opinions — to set forth our judicial views. Speeches on legal issues, if not done carefully, can give the appearance of undue influence by groups we choose to give speeches to.”
