(NEW YORK) — Clea Shearer, co-founder of The Home Edit, a home organizing company, announced she has breast cancer and shared a message encouraging women to be their own advocates when it comes to their health.
Shearer, a Nashville, Tennessee-based mom of two, shared on Instagram Thursday that she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer after finding a lump in her breast in February.
She said that her OBGYN was not able to see her, so she had to seek out her primary care doctor to have a mammogram done.
“I had to request a mammogram from my general doctor, which led to an ultrasound, and then an emergency triple biopsy,” Shearer wrote in an Instagram post. “I have two tumors, 1 cm each, that are aggressive and fast moving – but I caught it early. Had I not taken this upon myself, I would be in a completely different situation right now.”
Shearer, 40, said in a later Instagram story that she has an invasive type of breast cancer, which means the cancer has spread into surrounding breast tissue, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS).
The star of Netflix’s Get Organized with The Home Edit, said she is undergoing a double mastectomy and shared a photo of herself Friday in the hospital awaiting surgery.
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On average, over 255,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed each year in the U.S., and over 40,000 people die each year from the disease, according to the CDC.
Screening for breast cancer — which includes mammograms, at-home breast self-exams and clinical breast exams done by a doctor or nurse — can help catch the disease early, when it is easier to treat, according to the CDC.
Shearer said she decided to share her cancer battle publicly to encourage other women to “to self-examine on a regular basis, self-advocate always, and to prioritize your health over your busy schedules.”
She noted that she was under the age of 40 when her tumors were found and has no family history of breast cancer.
“The most important thing for everyone to remember is that I found these tumors myself,” Shearer said in her Instagram stories. “I felt something and I said something.”
“I’m begging you all. I’m pleading with you. Please examine yourself on a regular basis. Please fight for your own testing and your own scans, even if your doctor is not being helpful, and please prioritize your health,” she added.
(NEW YORK) — Eating with the seasons is a great way to consume produce at peak freshness when it’s full of nutrients and flavor. Plus, it supports local and regional growers.
When it comes to spring, there’s a period of cold snaps in some areas that mean the burst buds will break a bit later in some areas. But everyone can expect an array of seasonal fruits and veggies soon.
Check out a list below of what’s in season from April through June.
Make sure to check your local farmers markets or seasonal growing calendar because produce availability can differ by location based on harvest and yield.
(MINNEAPOLIS) — Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s full ban on applying for and executing “no-knock” search warrants in the city goes into effect Friday.
The policy implementation comes just two days after the announcement that no criminal charges would be filed in the case of Amir Locke, who was fatally shot in February by Minneapolis police officers executing a no-knock search warrant on the apartment he was in.
No-knock warrants allow officers to enter a private home without knocking or making their presence known.
Frey said that exceptions could be granted for hostage situations or other extremely dangerous scenarios.
The department will also establish a classification system for warrants: low, medium and high risk. Medium and high-risk warrants will require additional approval.
The new policy also established wait times for officers before they can enter a residence while executing a knock-and-announce warrant.
During the day, officers will have to wait 20 seconds after making themselves known before entering a residence. At night, the wait time is 30 seconds.
The ban would also extend to warrants carried out by the Minneapolis Police Department on behalf of other agencies, as well as those that have been requested by Minneapolis police but executed by other departments.
Frey received backlash for the previous moratorium on no-knock warrants because officials could execute such a warrant if it is determined that there is an imminent threat of harm to an individual or the public.
“It’s important to implore upon everyone, that half measures have really gotten cities nowhere across the country,” said attorney Jeff Storms, who is co-representing Locke’s family members, at a February hearing on no-knock warrants.
“It’s important that city does not just put Band-Aids on the immediate problems but spends time thinking about how to preempt the next civil rights violation, not just related to no-knock warrants, but to other areas of policy practice and training,” he added.
No-knock warrants have come under scrutiny, most prominently in the 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor during a botched drug raid.
Karen Wells, Locke’s mother, spoke with ABC News Live’s Stephanie Ramos Wednesday, just hours after Minnesota prosecutors announced they wouldn’t charge the officer who shot Locke.
Wells said that such warrants should be banned in her son’s name.
“They’re not good for my son. They’re not good for anybody else. Because in the end, it doesn’t do anything. It brings harm, it brings death, which is what happened with my son,” Wells told ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — Most people have gone to open the fridge, pulled out an ingredient or moved around some jars just to realize that something that got moved or neglected has now gone bad.
Registered dietitian and mother of two Alyssa Miller offered her insight on what she considers a fool-proof way to help curb food waste.
“This is my need to use bin that lives right here all the time,” she shared in an Instagram post. “I put food in it, not necessarily leftovers, but food that I need to eat before it goes bad.”
To reorganize her fridge, Miller has labeled shelves and added a bin that she says has saved her up to $400 per month on groceries.
“I needed to figure out a way to make sure I was using all of the foods I was buying,” Miller told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “It’s more for those foods that need to be eaten in the next day or two because they’re kind of like on the clock.”
Each week, Miller said she does a sweep of everything in her fridge and looks for anything close to expiring.
“Maybe it’s a cucumber I had half cut up for a salad earlier that week and I know that it’s about to start to go slimy, so I’ll put it in that ‘need-to-use’ bin,” she said.
Another fridge suggestion that Miller abides by is dividing foods up by category and using clear bins to easily sort and access them, without leaving items to go bad in the way back.
Like other organization pros including the ladies of The Home Edit, Miller advises taking inventory of your fridge each week to make sure you don’t buy items you already have.
A great way, especially for families, to save on groceries is meal planning.
“Having some sort of plan really does save you money,” Miller said.
She also added that frozen and canned foods are another great way to stretch your dollar.
To make a need-to-use bin, start with a clear bin that fits in a prominent section of your fridge and then clearly label the bin with tape and a sharpie.
(NEW YORK) — Being infected with COVID-19 raises the risk of developing serious blood clots, a new study suggests.
An international team of researchers from Sweden, the United Kingdom and Finland compared more than 1 million people in Sweden with a confirmed case of the virus between February 2020 and May 2021 to 4 million control patients who tested negative.
They found three to six months after contracting COVID-19, patients were at increased risk of being diagnosed with blood clots in their legs or lungs, according to results published in the journal BMJ on Wednesday.
Specifically, patients had a significantly increased risk of deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot that forms deep in the thigh or the lower leg, up to three months after a COVID-19 infection.
Patients also had a heightened risk of developing a pulmonary embolism, a clot that develops in a blood vessel and travels to a lung artery, up to six months after having the virus.
The team said its results add to a growing body of evidence about the link between COVID-19 and serious blood clots, while adding new information about how long the risk might last.
“The present findings have major policy implications,” the authors wrote, adding that the report “strengthens the importance of vaccination against COVID-19.”
They also said the findings suggest that COVID-19 patients — “especially high-risk patients” — should take anticoagulation medicine, which are medications to help prevent these clots.
During the course of the study period, the team saw 401 cases of DVT among the COVID-19 patients, compared to 267 cases among the negative patients.
Meanwhile, there were 1,761 cases of PE among virus patients in comparison with 171 cases among the control patients.
COVID-19 patients were at higher risk of blood clots if they had underlying conditions, had a severe case of the virus or if they were infected during the first wave of the pandemic in early 2020.
However, there wasn’t just a risk of blood clots. The study also found an increased risk of any kind of bleeding up to two months after a COVID-19 infection.
The team noted there were limitations, including that the study was observational rather than a randomized controlled trial.
Additionally, the researchers recognized that clotting in COVID-19 patients may be underdiagnosed and information about patients’ vaccination status was not available.
Despite the risk of blood clots following COVID-19 infections being well-documented, it’s unknown what biological mechanisms are at play. However, there are theories.
One study from Michigan Medicine and the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute suggested “rogue” antibodies from a COVID-19 infection cause blood cells to lose their anti-clotting properties.
Another study from Yale School of Medicine suggested specific proteins are produced by endothelial cells — cells that line blood vessels — due to inflammation from the virus and lead to blood clots.
“It remains to be established whether SARS-CoV-2 infection increases the risk of venous thromboembolism or bleeding more than it does for respiratory infections, such as influenza, but also whether the period of [anticoagulation medicine] after COVID-19 should be extended,” the authors wrote.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Thursday confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, paving the way for her to become the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court.
Just before the 53-47 bipartisan vote, during a rare occasion when senators announce their votes standing at their desks, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called it “an even greater moment for America as we rise to a more perfect union.”
The White House said President Joe Biden would mark Jackson’s Senate confirmation with a South Lawn ceremony Friday. Vice President Kamala Harris, presided over the Senate and announced the vote.
Spectators in the Senate gallery cheered and almost every senator rose in an extended standing ovation.
Jackson watched the Senate vote at the White House with Biden and her family, a pool report said.
With the Senate barreling toward a two-week Easter recess, the Senate had first voted to cut off debate on Jackson’s confirmation, around ahead of the final roll call vote. It’s been 42 days since Biden nominated Jackson.
While Democrats have the votes to confirm Biden’s nominee on their own, three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney — will break ranks from the GOP to join them, marking a solid, bipartisan win for the Biden White House in a hyper-partisan Washington. Former President Donald Trump’s last nominee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, received no votes from Democrats.
Jackson is not expected to be fully sworn in for duty until summer, once retiring Justice Stephen Breyer steps down.
With Jackson’s ascension to the bench, for the first time, white men won’t be the majority on the Supreme Court.
In marathon hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Jackson was given the opportunity to tell the panel — and the American people — what it would mean to her to serve on the nation’s highest court.
“I stand on the shoulders of so many who have come before me, including Judge Constance Baker Motley, who was the first African American woman to be appointed to the federal bench and with whom I share a birthday,” Jackson said. “And, like Judge Motley, I have dedicated my career to ensuring that the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court building — ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ — are a reality and not just an ideal.”
Jackson endured nearly 24 hours of questioning from senators in the, at times, contentious and emotional, hearings.
“Not a single justice has been a Black woman. You, Judge Jackson, can be the first,” said chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill. “It’s not easy being the first. You have to be the best and in some ways the brightest. Your presence here today and your willingness to brave this process will give inspiration to millions of women who see themselves in you.”
Meanwhile, several Republicans assailed Jackson with accusations that she’s a liberal activist and “soft on crime”– taking issue with nine child pornography sentences she handed down, criticizing her legal work for Guantanamo Bay detainees, and questioning support she received from progressive groups.
“In your nomination, did you notice that people from the left were pretty much cheering you on?” asked Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
“A lot of people were cheering me on, senator,” she replied.
Notably, Graham voted to confirm Jackson to a lifetime judicial appointment last year but said he’ll vote no this time — and warned that if Republicans had control of the Senate, Jackson wouldn’t have received hearings to begin with.
Others in the GOP pressed Jackson to explain critical race theory, say whether babies are racist, and to define “woman” — questions Democrats repeatedly criticized as they took to defending her record and applauding her character.
“You did not get there because of some left wing agenda,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told her in a dramatic soliloquy, moving Jackson to tears. “You didn’t get here because of some dark money groups. You got here how every Black woman in America who has gotten anywhere has done. You are worthy. You are a great American.”
While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Jackson’s performance, at times, “evasive and unclear,” scrutinizing her judicial philosophy, Jackson insisted “there is not a label” for her judiciary philosophy — because she says she doesn’t have one. She told the committee, “I am acutely aware that, as a judge in our system, I have limited power, and I am trying in every case to stay in my lane.”
At age 51, Jackson currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to which she was named by Biden and confirmed by the Senate last year in a bipartisan vote. She has also been Senate-confirmed on two other occasions.
She will replace Justice Breyer, whom she once clerked for, when he retires at the end of the term. Jackson said last month, “It is extremely humbling to be considered for Justice Breyer’s seat, and I know that I could never fill his shoes. But if confirmed, I would hope to carry on his spirit.”
When Biden formally announced Jackson’s nomination at the White House, he fulfilled a promise made on the 2020 presidential campaign ahead of the South Carolina primary when he relied heavily on support from the state’s Black voters.
“For too long our government, our courts haven’t looked like America,” he said on Feb. 25. “And I believe it is time that we have a court that reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation with a nominee of extraordinary qualifications.”
Jackson’s parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown, Miami natives who grew up under segregation in the South, were on hand at the historic hearings to support their daughter — who they say was once told by a school guidance counselor to lower her sights.
Jackson, instead, soared.
Growing up, her mother was a public high school principal in Miami-Dade County, where Jackson attended public schools and was a “star student,” while her father was a teacher and, later on, county school board attorney. Jackson has fondly recalled memories of drawing in her coloring books next to her father studying his law school textbooks. Her younger brother, her only sibling, served in the U.S. military and did tours in combat. Two of her uncles have been law enforcement officers.
After graduating from Miami Palmetto Senior High School, Jackson went on to attend Harvard College and Harvard Law School. There she met her husband, Patrick, a general surgeon, at Harvard, and the couple share two daughters, Talia, 21, and Leila, 17.
Asked what her message to young Americans would be, Jackson recalled to the Senate Judiciary Committee that when she was feeling out of place at Harvard in her first semester — a stranger provided a remarkable lesson in resilience.
“I was really questioning: Do I belong here? Can I, can I make it in this environment?” she said. “And I was walking through the yard in the evening and a Black woman I did not know was passing me on the sidewalk, and she looked at me, and I guess she knew how I was feeling. And she leaned over as we crossed and said ‘persevere.'”
(BOSTON) — A Massachusetts toddler who weighed just over one pound when she was born at 25 weeks is home after spending the first 19 months of her life hospitalized.
Bradi Foster, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, was greeted with cheers and bubbles from her doctors and nurses when she left Franciscan Children’s, a hospital in Boston, this month with her parents, Darlene and James Foster.
The toddler was born on Aug. 9, 2020, in an emergency cesarean section after Darlene Foster suffered a placenta abruption, which is when the placenta separates from the wall of the uterus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
Bradi spent her first several months fighting for her life in the neonatal intensive care unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where she was born.
“I think they said it was around 40% chance of survival,” James Foster said of his daughter’s condition at birth. “Her lungs were not fully developed so she needed a lot of assistance just breathing and regulating her oxygen.”
The Fosters, also the parents to three older daughters, ages 6, 4 and 3, recalled having to wait nine days after she was born to even hold Bradi.
“It was scary,” Darlene Foster said. “She was smaller than our hands.”
In Bradi’s first months of life, she underwent heart surgery and battled a number of infections and lung and gastrointestinal issues, according to her parents.
Because Bradi was born early on in the coronavirus pandemic, the Fosters said they were typically allowed to have just one person with her at the hospital, an approximately 75-minute commute from their home.
“It was the toughest thing leaving our house to go to Boston to go see her and then have her sisters be like, ‘We want to go too. We want to see our sister,'” Darlene Foster said. “And some of the times I would just watch her in her little isolette and just look because she was sometimes too sick to hold.”
In January 2021, at just 5 months old, Bradi became so sick she had to be placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, machine, which removes carbon dioxide from the blood and sends back blood with oxygen to the body, giving the heart and lungs time to heal.
That same week, in a hospital across the street, Darlene Foster’s dad died after battling COVID-19.
“We had to say goodbye to him … and we were so sure that it was it for her,” she said, referring to Bradi’s critical condition.
Darlene Foster said that while she was at her dad’s funeral, she was notified by the hospital that Bradi had taken a turn for the better and would be taken off the ECMO machine.
From there, according to the Fosters, Bradi’s condition began to improve.
In July 2021, she was transferred to Franciscan Children’s, a post-acute rehabilitation hospital, where she continued her recovery.
After a tracheostomy was performed and Bradi no longer had to be on sedatives to keep her breathing tube in place, the Fosters said they saw their daughter come alive.
“We finally got to see her smile. Her eyes opened and she wanted to play,” Darlene Foster said. “We completely got our baby as soon as she got her trach.”
In the 19 months she spent hospitalized, Bradi underwent around 10 major surgeries and a dozen smaller ones, according to the Fosters.
Now that she is home, Bradi still has a tracheostomy tube and a gastrostomy tube (g-tube) for nutrition, but her parents said they expect both will be removed in the near future.
“We definitely have high hopes that she will be a normal kid, but it’s just going to take a little bit longer for us to get all those things out and progress her to where she should be for her age,” said James Foster. “But we definitely believe that she will be fully capable.”
Describing Bradi’s personality, he added, “We can’t believe how happy she is. After all of this experience that she’s had in life, she’s remained such a happy soul.”
When she arrived home for the first time, Bradi got to see her sisters for just the second time in her life.
“It is the best feeling in the world,” Darlene Foster said of having their family of six home together. “We just want to give hope to any other NICU parents, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”
(NEW YORK) — Valerie Bertinelli is opening up about mental health.
In a first-person essay published by New Beauty magazine on April 4, the actress and Food Network host revealed that her “mental health has improved immensely” since she ditched the scale.
“I stopped weighing myself when I finished writing my book, which was a big thing for me, and I haven’t gotten on a scale since,” Bertinelli wrote. “My clothes still fit; my jeans still zip up. I guess I was afraid that if I didn’t see what number I was and if I wasn’t able to keep an eye on it, that I would balloon up … but that hasn’t happened.”
“I feel like once that gets on its full journey, then maybe my body will follow. Maybe I’ll want to eat more fruits and vegetables, and drink less alcohol, and eat less sugar, and put things in my body that make both my body and my mind feel better,” she added. “It’s all a test and we’ll see how it works, but I do know that my mental health has improved immensely because I stopped looking at the scale every morning — and that’s the first big step for me.”
The One Day At A Time actress has been vocal about her struggles with her weight and body image. Last year, Bertinelli took a stand against body-shamers in an Instagram video after a follower told her that she needed to lose weight.
Bertinelli’s post resonated with many who then started sharing some of their own struggles. Celebrities also commended her for being open about her experience.
“For me, the big thing is my weight — it’s the thing that holds me back,” Bertinelli wrote in her essay for New Beauty. “But I want to start feeling the same about myself — no matter what weight I am. I don’t have to wait until I’ve lost weight to be kind to myself and to be kind to others.”
“It shouldn’t matter what I look like,” she added. “I’m trying to make that a reality in my life, and then, hopefully, my body will follow.”
(NEW YORK) — Television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, has a considerable financial stake in major pharmaceutical firms and Silicon Valley giants, newly released records show — despite railing against “Big Pharma” and “Big Tech” on the campaign trail.
The disclosures, released late Wednesday, indicate that the GOP candidate and celebrity television doctor has poured millions of dollars into companies like Amazon and CVS — a revelation seemingly at odds with a central tenet of his message to voters.
“I’ve taken on Big Pharma, I’ve gone to battle with Big Tech,” Oz said on Fox News in December. “I cannot be bought.”
A political newcomer, Oz is facing off against David McCormick, a longtime hedge fund executive, in a competitive Republican primary. Both men have immense wealth, and some observers say Oz’s investments could complicate his bid to connect with the Keystone State’s blue-collar voting base.
According to the disclosure report, Oz, together with his wife, owns between $6 million and $27 million in Amazon stocks, between $1.7 million and $6.6 million in Microsoft, and between $1.3 million and $5.7 million each in Apple and Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc.
Oz and his wife also have between $615,000 and $1.3 million in shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific, between $15,001 and $50,000 in Johnson & Johnson, and between $50,001 and $100,000 each in CVS and the pharmaceutical company AbbVie.
Notably, one of Oz’s campaign ads denouncing Big Tech includes Oz saying that he took on Facebook — and indeed his disclosures do not show him owning any stock in the popular social media company.
In all, Oz’s disclosure shows that he and his spouse together own between $104 and $422 million in various assets and holdings.
Among his other investments, Oz and his wife together own between $11 million and $51 million in shares of Asplundh Tree Trimming, a company co-founded by Oz’s wife’s family.
Other assets include between $6 million and $30 million in shares of the convenient store company Wawa, as well as between $5 million and $25 million in shares of the online health engagement platform Sharecare, where Oz sat on the board of directors until last year.
Oz and his spouse also own between $1.5 million and $6 million shares in the fertility clinic network Prelude Fertility, and between $500,000 and $1 million in shares of Pantheryx, a biotechnology company that specializes in bovine colostrum products. Oz has served as a director of both companies, the disclosure report shows.
According to the report, Oz and his spouse also own between $11 million and $47 million in commercial and residential real estate properties.
Over the past year and a half, Oz reported earning between $20 million and $50 million, including more than $2 million in salary as the host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” more than $7 million in profit from his company Oz Media, LLC, and millions of dollars in capital gains, dividends and interest from his various financial investments.
Yulii Zozulia/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
(MARIUPOL, Ukraine) — In one of the creepiest allegations to emerge from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin is being accused by Ukrainian officials of using “mobile crematoriums” to incinerate dead civilians in a deliberate effort to cover-up alleged war crimes in the hard-hit city of Mariupol.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko made the charge this week, saying he heard eyewitness accounts of Russian soldiers driving around Mariupol with crematoriums on lorries and collecting bodies of civilians while at the same time barring the International Committee of the Red Cross from entering the city with humanitarian aid.
“The world has not seen the scale of the tragedy in Mariupol since the existence of Nazis concentration camps,” Boychenko said on Tuesday. “The Russians have turned our entire city into a death camp. Unfortunately, the creepy analogy is getting more and more confirmation.”
In a statement released on its Facebook account, the Mariupol City Council said, “witnesses have seen evidence Russia is operating mobile crematoria in Mariupol, burning the bodies of dead civilians and covering up evidence of war crimes.”
The statement added “this is why Russia is not in a hurry” to let the ICRC and other human rights watch groups into Mariupol to rescue civilians still trapped there.
Boychenko and the city council said the portable human furnaces showed up in Mariupol after reports of alleged atrocities at the hands of Russian troops emerged in Bucha, a suburb of the capital city Kyiv. Ukrainian officials reported that at least 410 civilians were killed in Bucha, including many found with their hands tied behind their backs and shot in the head.
Boychenko said his once-thriving port city of 400,000 people has been completely decimated by bombing raids and estimated that around 5,000 people there have been killed.
U.S. defense officials told ABC News they have not confirmed the allegations that Russia is using mobile crematoriums to hide evidence of war crimes.
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Massachusetts, told ABC News on Thursday that he is not surprised by the reports.
Moulton, a former Marine and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that during a 2015 fact-finding mission in Ukraine that he went on with other House members, “credible sources” informed him that the Russian Army was using mobile crematoriums on its own soldiers in the Russian occupied Crimea, Ukraine. He said the sources told him Russia was using the devices to cover up the number of its soldiers killed in Crimea.
“We heard this from a variety of sources over there, enough that I was confident in the veracity of the information,” Moulton said. “None of that has changed. That is absolutely what was going on back then and I’m now hearing reports, unsurprisingly, that it’s happening again.”
Moulton said he has no reason to discounts reports from Ukrainian officials that Russia is using the incinerators to hide new war crimes.
“The bottom line is this is nothing new for the Russian Army and Vladimir Putin,” Moulton said.
In an interview with Turkish media this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged that Russian soldiers were “cleaning up” before allowing aid workers into the heavily bombed Mariupol.
Pressure has been mounting from the international community to bring war crimes against Putin and other Russian officials. The international criminal court in The Hague has launched an investigation into the atrocities allegedly committed against Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops since the invasion started on Feb. 24.
A report released Thursday by Amnesty International claims Russian forces have committed numerous war crimes throughout Ukraine. The organization said its crisis response investigators interviewed more than 20 people from villages and towns near Kyiv and many claimed to have witnessed civilian executions.
The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday voted to pass a resolution to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council in response to Russian forces’ alleged killings of civilians in Ukraine.
“I’m not sure who needs more proof that Russia is committing war crimes,” Moulton told ABC News. “They’re trying to cover their tracks.”
Russia has denied committing atrocities and targeting civilians.
