(NEW YORK) — As many of us continue to spring into a new season, retailers such as Bloomingdale’s have continued to give us more reasons to refresh our wardrobes.
The department store has kicked off its Friends & Family sale, allowing shoppers to save up to 25% on marked items.
Whether you are in the market for a new dress or you’re looking to add some new denim to your wardrobe, now is the time to do it — at a fraction of the cost.
Any item labeled “FRIENDS & FAMILY: 25% OFF DISCOUNT APPLIED IN BAG” is eligible for the store’s sales event, which runs through April 3.
(NEW YORK) — Hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families over a span of 150 years, made to live in boarding schools across the U.S. that were run by the federal government and churches in an effort to force assimilation.
“It was a national policy to take Indian children, to beat their native language out of them, to remove them from their families so they wouldn’t have that cultural teaching,” U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland told ABC News’ Nightline.
“Native kids are born into not just their mother’s arms, but into the arms of their entire communities … when you are born into that nurturing community and all of a sudden [you’re] ripped away from that – imagine how much trauma that would have on a child,” she continued.
According to Denise Lajimodiere, a Native American scholar and the author of Stringing Rosaries, the purpose of these residential schools was “total assimilation into white European culture.” Native American children were forced to cut their hair and wear uniforms to conform.
“I think they just saw these kids that they weren’t even human. They saw them as savages,” she told Nightline.
Once they were at the schools, the children were forced to work without getting paid and some children never made it home.
Scholars estimate that tens of thousands of children died at the schools from abuse or disease and, in some instances, their remains were buried in unmarked graves in school cemeteries. Some children died while working on what was called an “outing,” where children from the boarding schools were hired out to work for families.
“The corporal punishment was pretty horrendous. Boarding school survivors tell of kids being taken away and disappearing and never being seen again,” Lajimodiere said.
A legacy of generational trauma
For more than a century, Native Americans have urged the government to acknowledge and address the generational trauma and lasting impact from the boarding school era, which spanned from 1869 through the 1960s.
After nearly 1,000 unmarked graves of Indigenous children were unearthed in June 2021 at Indigenous boarding schools in Canada, Haaland, who is the first Native American to hold a Cabinet position, launched a federal boarding school initiative to investigate the United States’ role in implementing these policies.
“Families deserve to know what happened. And so we are working to compile decades and decades of information so that we can hopefully give them some answers,” she said.
Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo Tribe, oversees the government agency that historically played a major role in the forced relocation and oppression of Indigenous people. Haaland’s great grandfather was taken to the United States Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which was open from 1879 to 1918.
Lajimodiere, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa or Ojibwe, said that the painful legacy of these boarding schools has impacted every Native American family.
Her father attended the Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon, from 1925 to 1929 when he was 9 years old.
“He was stolen,” she said.
At Chemawa, Marsha F. Small is on a mission to locate human remains of Indigenous children who were buried on school grounds.
“People don’t like to learn the ugly America. They want the America the beautiful,” Small, a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe and a doctoral student at Montana State University-Bozeman, told Nightline.
“Without this healing, I don’t think that America itself can heal,” she added.
Small and her team use ground penetrating radar technology to look for graves. So far, she says they have found about 222 graves, with some dating back to 1885.
“When I go into cemeteries …I talk to the children and I, and I tell them, you know, that those that want to go home may have a possibility of going home. You’re not forgotten,” she said.
A journey of healing
The boarding school era lasted for more than 150 years. By the late 1970s, many schools had closed, but others like Chemawa remained open.
Today, Chemawa’s mission is to honor “unique tribal cultures.”
The number of boarding schools that were run by the U.S. government is unknown, so Lajimodiere launched her own efforts to locate as many boarding schools as she could.
Rita Means, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, attended St. Francis Indian Mission School — a school operated by Jesuits from 1886 until 1972 — from the sixth grade until the 12th grade.
“In my time, I don’t think anybody was forcibly taken, but I know that feeling of separation from your family,” she said.
“Any place that you can’t leave is a prison. We were definitely locked in until we, you know, had to go to church at six in the morning,” she added.
Her daughter, Shelley Means, said that two generations of her family were disconnected from their children, who attended Indigenous boarding schools.
“[They] didn’t learn parenting skills the way traditionally we would have taken care of each other,” she told Nightline, adding that she had to work hard at learning how to emotionally support her own daughter, Shylee Brave.
For Brave, her grandmother is a “survivor” and she is doing her own part to bring healing to her community.
As part of the Sicangu Youth Council in Rosebud, South Dakota, Brave traveled in July 2015 to the school in Carlisle, where more than 150 children from over 40 tribes were buried, including nine from the Rosebud Sioux tribe.
“The thing that really sparked this whole movement was asking, why are our kids still there?” she said.
“It like, really hit, like, wow, this could be my cousin, this could be my uncle, this could be my relative. What if I didn’t get to go home? It just really like sunk in, like, what if this was me?” she added.
After sharing her experience with her grandmother, the Sicangu Youth Council launched an effort to bring the remains of the children of the Rosebud Sioux tribe at Carlisle back home.
They had to request the remains from the U.S. Army, which owns the school, and on July 2021 the remains of six children were finally brought back home and were escorted by Brave and members of the the youth council.
The children are now buried in the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Veterans Cemetery in South Dakota. Their names are Maude Littlegirl, Lucy Take the Tail, Alvin Braveroaster or One that Kills Seven Horses, Dennis Strikesfirst, Warren Painter and Rose Long Face.
“It was a really hard, long journey. I mean, we really had to fight,” Brave said.
“They didn’t get to grow up. They didn’t get to have a family,” she added, as she visited the cemetery. “I’m really happy that they’re home, but at the same time it’s like this shouldn’t have happened.”
Haaland, whose great grandfather attended Carlisle, told Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega that she is “grateful” to have an opportunity to address this painful past.
“I have a great obligation, but I was taught by my mother and my grandfather and my grandmother that when you are asked to do something for your people that you step up,” she said.
For Lajimodiere, Haaland’s efforts are part of her journey of “healing.”
“I just wept,” she said, recalling Haaland’s announcement.
“It’s like, finally, finally, after a decade of working toward this moment, here it is. And it took a native female head of the Department of Interior to make this moment happen and to start the healing journey for so many survivors,” Lajimodiere added.
(NEW YORK) — David Berry and Morgan Helquist grew up in Rochester, New York, without knowing they were each other’s half-siblings.
It was only when Berry, now 37 and living in Miami, took a DNA test several years ago that he began to unravel his biological history.
He said he learned his father was not his biological father. He also learned he had half-siblings, including Helquist, whom he reached out to and then met in-person.
“We were just talking, I grabbed his face, I just looked and I was like, ‘Why is your face on my face?'” Helquist, 36, told ABC News of one of their initial meetings. “I just couldn’t understand. It was the craziest experience I’ve ever had.”
Helquist, who still lives in the Rochester area, and Berry, would go on to find more half-siblings, as first reported by The New York Times.
“There was five of us and we were all the same age — and 6 and then 7 — and it started to feel like, well, if there’s seven, there might be 20 and if there’s 20, there might be a hundred,” said Helquist. “And I started to feel terrified.”
Helquist and Berry said their half-siblings’ mothers used artificial insemination using the same fertility doctor: Dr. Morris Wortman.
When a biological daughter of Wortman’s agreed to take a DNA test, Berry said her DNA matched his and Helquist’s and their half-siblings.
Both Helquist and Berry’s mothers said Wortman told them he was using sperm from an anonymous medical student, not on his own.
“He had my permission to use a donor, specifically a medical student,” Karen Berry told ABC News. “He did not have my permission to use his own sperm for a donation.”
David Berry said of the revelation, “I’m the product of something that should have never happened with a an unconscionable violation of ethics at a minimum.”
“I can’t escape because his DNA is in me. His DNA is in my son,” he said. “I wrestle with that.”
Describing how she told her mother the news, Helquist said, “When we found out there wasn’t any need to tell her. I was screaming and sobbing at the top of my lungs.”
Helquist said Wortman had been her gynecologist for the past decade. “He knew the whole time who he was, and I didn’t. He took away that choice for me.”
She filed a lawsuit against Wortman in September, alleging, among other things, that he committed medical malpractice by treating her when he likely knew he was her biological father.
Wortman has denied the charges through his legal team.
Only seven states in the U.S. specifically penalize physicians for fertility fraud. Other states, like New York, only have laws pending.
Helquist is the only one of her half-siblings who may have a legal cause of action, which she said rests on Wortman’s past role as her gynecologist.
“I do not have a fertility fraud case,” she said. “I have a case because he touched my body without my consent.”
(NEW YORK) — In an announcement last week, Consumer Reports revealed results after it tested 118 food packaging materials from U.S. restaurants and grocery stores, and found evidence of dangerous per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in more than half of those products. The items ranged from paper bags for french fries and wrappers for hamburgers, to molded fiber salad bowls and single-use paper plates.
PFAS are man-made chemicals, dubbed forever chemicals because they don’t break down easily, that persist in the environment for a long time and are used in various industries around the world. If exposed in sufficient levels, PFAS can pose potential health risks to humans. The chemicals used to reduce friction are used in applications from cookware to aerospace technology.
Director of Medical Toxicology at St. John’s Riverside Hospital Dr. Stephanie Widmer told Good Morning America that “PFAS chemicals are essentially everywhere, they are used, to varying degrees, in the manufacturing of a ton of everyday objects and appliances, things all of us use on a daily basis.”
The concern, she continued, is that “we can’t exactly get away from these potentially dangerous chemicals and they are extremely difficult to regulate, so the best we can do is try to limit our exposure.”
“Consuming and being exposed to small amounts of PFAS is unlikely to cause any harm, and just like anything else we are exposed to in the world, nothing is ever good in excess, moderation is key,” Widmer said. “Toxic doses for PFAS have not been well established, although the EPA has set ‘health advisory’ thresholds in drinking water.”
Other reports, including a 2019 report from New Food Economy, make similar claims about the public health risks from these products. However, reporting, so far, is insufficient to conclude that PFAS in food containers are definitively harmful to humans.
Consumer Reports tested for total organic fluorine content, a simple and cheap substance. However, there are multiple types of PFAS chemicals which could mean that the test from Consumer Reports may have underreported the true amount of PFAS in these materials.
The exposure in these sources alone is unlikely to cause adverse health effects. It is more likely that adverse health effects come from direct exposure such as through ingestion, inhalation or dermal exposure — from contaminated water, soil, workplaces or food, as well as, from the lifetime cumulative exposures from multiple sources.
While some reports suggest a harmful link between PFAS and health issues, that has yet to be proven.
In response to Consumer Reports’ testing, Restaurant Brands International, the parent company of Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Hortons, announced new bans on the use of PFAS in its food packaging.
“As a next step in our product stewardship journey, the Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes brands have required that any added perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) be phased out from all approved, guest-facing packaging materials globally by the end of 2025 or sooner,” the company said in a statement.
Chick-fil-A followed suit shortly after stating the brand has “eliminated intentionally added PFAS from all newly produced packaging going forward in its supply chain.” The fast food expects the chemicals “to be phased out by the end of this summer.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, toxicity is difficult to evaluate because each chemical variation of PFAS has different half-lives, or time that it takes to break down, combined with water solubility and varied effects on humans.
Regulations, protections and studies on PFAS
The Environmental Protection Agency has established a health advisory level for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water at 70 parts per trillion (ppt) (0.07μg/L) individually or combined.
Last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law that goes into effect in 2023 to ban PFAS in paper-based food packaging and require disclosure of toxic substances in cookware. While this will regulate a specific maximum level, tougher regulation is likely needed.
“The potential dangers that have been demonstrated in animal studies, don’t necessarily translate to humans, and possible links to illnesses in humans — are merely an association, a causal relationship is yet to be determined,” Dr. Widmer explained. “Think potential links that we are aware of at this time are kidney and genitourinary cancers, blood pressure disorders, hormone imbalances and high cholesterol.”
In animal studies results show PFAS exposure can cause enlargement and changes in the function of the liver; changes in hormone levels; suppression of adaptive immunity; and adverse developmental and reproductive outcomes.
In human studies, there have been disease associations found, but no causal links. Some of the associations include: high cholesterol; ulcerative colitis; thyroid toxicity; testicular cancer; kidney cancer; preeclampsia, and elevated blood pressure during pregnancy.
How to protect yourself?
“Again, do all things in moderation,” Widmer said. “Maintain variety in your diet and the sources where you obtain food and water. If you want to be proactive, you can look into the levels of PFAS in your local drinking water by visiting the EPA website.”
The EPA says to be aware of the water and food you consume and ensure they do not come from contaminated sources. A map with historical advisories can be found here from the EPA.
While individuals do not need to be tested for PFAS exposure, according to the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the agency recommends undergoing regular routine health screenings and following a physician’s guidance.
Dr. Matt Feeley, a resident physician in the ABC News’ Medical Unit, contributed to this report.
(ROME) — Pope Francis apologized Friday for the Catholic Church’s role in running Canada’s brutal residential school system, which saw Indigenous Canadians taken from their families and sent to boarding schools where they suffered horrific conditions.
“I feel shame — sorrow and shame — for the role that a number of Catholics, particularly those with educational responsibilities, have had in all these things that wounded you, in the abuses you suffered and in the lack of respect shown for your identity, your culture and even your spiritual values,” Francis said in an address from the Vatican. “All these things are contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For the deplorable conduct of those members of the Catholic Church, I ask for God’s forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart: I am very sorry. And I join my brothers, the Canadian bishops, in asking your pardon.”
Earlier this week, Indigenous leaders from the First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities as well as survivors of Canada’s church-run residential schools held a series of meetings in the Vatican, calling for a formal papal apology for the Catholic Church’s role in what has been described as “cultural genocide.””
While the state of Canada has apologized for the system, in which Indigenous Canadians were ripped away from their homes to be raised in boarding schools characterized by appalling conditions, Friday’s statement was the first formal apology from the Catholic Church.
At least 150,000 Indigenous children were part of the system while it was active, and more than 6,000 are estimated to have died, according to a 2015 report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The report stated that the residential school system, in operation for over a century until the final institution was closed in the 1990s, was created to separate Aboriginal youths from their families and “indoctrinate children” into a new culture.
According to the report, cases of physical abuse and neglect were rife in residential schools, and there was no recorded cause of death in around half of the cases. The true number of deaths is unlikely to be ever known due the number of destroyed and incomplete records, the report stated.
The Catholic Church is estimated to have operated around two-thirds of Canada’s residential schools. Each of the three Indigenous groups as part of the Canadian delegations to the Vatican had asked for a papal apology. Francis expressed “indignation” and “shame” at what he had heard from the Indigenous leaders this week.
In recent years, the discovery of mass graves — such as the remains of 215 children found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia last year — have highlighted the unresolved trauma felt by Canada’s Indigenous communities.
Earlier in the week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chief Willie Sellars of Williams Lake First Nation announced additional funding to support those affected at St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School in British Columbia, where investigations this year found sites believed to be unmarked graves. Trudeau described the pain felt as “deep and everlasting,” while Sellars said there is “a huge amount of work still to be done.”
Francis heard testimony from various school survivors and Indigenous leaders this week, all of whom called on the pope to apologize and visit Canada.
In his apology on Friday, the 85-year-old pope expressed his intention to travel to Canada, where he would “be able better to express” his closeness.
(WASHINGTON) — The House is once again poised to pass legislation to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level.
The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, known as the MORE Act, would remove marijuana from the controlled substances list, leaving it up to states to set their own laws. It would also release people incarcerated on cannabis-related offenses of less than 30 grams and expunge criminal penalties associated with those who manufacture, distribute and possess it.
“There’s so many discussions that have gone on over the years about the use of marijuana or cannabis or whatever. The fact is, it exists. It’s being used. We’ve got to address how it is treated legally,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday during her weekly press conference.
Congress has tried, unsuccessfully, to pass this type of legislation before. The House passed a version of the same bill in December 2020, but it was stalled in the Senate because then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell never brought it to the floor.
The legislation is an attempt to reverse the harmful effects stemming from the “war on drugs,” a global campaign started in the 1970s by former President Richard Nixon with the stated goal of eliminating illegal drug use and trade in the United States. When former President Ronald Reagan took office, he substantially increased the scope of the drug war to focus on criminal punishment rather than rehabilitation and treatment. That drastically increased the number of incarcerated non-violent drug offenders, with a disproportionate impact on communities of color.
“More than anything else, the MORE Act is about ending and reversing decades of failed federal policy that has taken a heavy toll on too many people across this country, with a disproportionate impact on communities of color,” Rep. Nadler, D-N.Y., who authored the bill, said in a statement to ABC News.
Black people are almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession compared with their white counterparts despite using it at similar rates, according to a 2020 American Civil Liberties Union report.
“The sentence doesn’t really end after we get those folks out of prison,” said Stephen Post, campaign strategist at the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit advocating for reforming marijuana laws and releasing people incarcerated on marijuana offenses from prison.
“Whether it be denying them federal relief or impeding them from getting licensure for work, all these different laws create further barriers for folks when they’re trying to reenter society,” he told ABC News.
In an effort to help restore resources to communities adversely impacted by the “war on drugs,” the bill also creates a Cannabis Justice Office charged with establishing and carrying out the Community Reinvestment Grant Program. The program would provide legal aid in civil and criminal cases, job training and health education programs, among other community initiatives.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who vowed to make marijuana legislation a priority, is working on a separate bill with Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., that is expected to be introduced in April but would need all Democrats and at least 10 Republicans to pass the Senate.
Though roadblocks remain for federal decriminalization,18 states along with Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational marijuana and 37 states have legalized medical marijuana.
(NEW YORK) — Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are putting up “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation.” Heavy shelling and missile attacks, many on civilian buildings, continue in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, as well as other major cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 01, 6:43 am
Over 4.1 million refugees have fled Ukraine: UNHCR
More than 4.1 million people have been forced to flee Ukraine since Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24, according to the latest figures from the United Nations Refugee Agency.
The tally from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) amounts to just over 9.2% of Ukraine’s population — which the World Bank counted at 44 million at the end of 2020 — on the move across borders in 36 days.
More than half of the refugees crossed into neighboring Poland, UNHCR figures show.
-ABC News’ Zoe Magee
Apr 01, 5:48 am
Russia accuses Ukraine of striking oil depot in Russian city of Belgorod
Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out airstrikes on the Russian city of Belgorod early Friday.
Belgorod Oblast Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a statement via Telegram that two low-flying Ukrainian helicopters entered Russian airspace and fired on an oil depot in Belgorod city, setting the building ablaze. Ukraine has yet to comment on the claim.
The depot run by Russian energy giant Roseneft is located about 21 miles north of the border with Ukraine. Two employees were injured but are expected to survive, while all other staff have been safely evacuated from the building, according to Gladkov.
Security camera footage circulating online and verified by ABC News shows an attack on an oil depot in Belgorod. In the video, two airstrikes can be seen in the distance, with a helicopter flying nearby.
Another verified video circulating online shows oil tanks on fire and a massive cloud of smoke billowing from the depot.
Russian news agency Interfax reported that at least two businesses in the village of Severny, just north of Belgorod, were also damaged by an early morning airstrike.
It remains unclear who is responsible for the attacks.
Belgorod, a city of more than 300,000, is about 50 miles north of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which Russian forces have shelled heavily in recent weeks.
-ABC News’ Victoria Beaule
Apr 01, 4:32 am
100,000 remain trapped in Mariupol despite evacuation efforts, official says
An estimated 100,000 civilians remain trapped in Ukraine’s besieged port city of Mariupol despite repeated efforts by Ukrainian officials to evacuate them, according to Petro Andryushenko, adviser to Mariupol’s mayor.
Andryushenko told ABC News on Friday morning that Russia has not confirmed any humanitarian corridors leading out of Mariupol since announcing a localized cease-fire on Thursday to allow civilians to be evacuated.
A convoy of 45 evacuation buses that were sent to Mariupol have yet to reach the southeastern port city because it remains under Russian lockdown, according to Andryushenko, who noted that some people managed to escape by foot or in their own cars.
-ABC News’ Oleksii Pshemysky
Mar 31, 7:15 pm
Some Russian troops possibly heading to Belarus to regroup: Pentagon
Russian troops that have begun to withdraw from the ground effort against Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv seem to be heading north to Belarus to regroup before rejoining the fight, the Pentagon said Thursday.
“The best assessment we have – and it’s an assessment at this early stage – is that they’re going to be repositioned probably into Belarus to be refit and resupplied, and used elsewhere in Ukraine,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters.
It’s not clear where they might go, but the Donbas region is one candidate, Kirby said.
Roughly 20% of the Russian forces that were designated to move on Kyiv are now repositioning, several U.S. officials said.
Kirby said Russian forces that are apparently leaving the Chernobyl nuclear power plant also seem to be heading toward Belarus, though noted that “indications are not completely clear at this time.”
The Pentagon assesses these troops are leaving to “refit and resupply,” and not due to a health hazard or other crisis at Chernobyl, Kirby said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon has been providing daily updates on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s efforts to resist.
Here are highlights of what a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Wednesday on Day 36:
Russians being hunted as they withdraw from Kyiv area
The U.S. continues to see roughly 20% of the Russian forces that were arrayed against Kyiv repositioning away from the capital, the official said. And Ukrainian forces are attacking these troops as they withdraw from the area.
“As these forces begin to reposition, the Ukrainians are moving against them,” the official said.
Most of the Russian forces that are repositioning were located to the north and northwest of Kyiv. Most notably, they seem to have abandoned Hostomel airport, which has been a site of intense fighting at various points since the beginning of the invasion.
“We believe that they have very likely abandoned Hostomel airfield,” the official said.
Although some troops are repositioning, long-range strikes on Kyiv continue.
“Despite the rhetoric of de-escalation, we’re still observing artillery fire and airstrikes in and around Kyiv,” the official said.
Shifting focus to Donbas
“This repositioning that they’re doing around Kyiv and other places in the north, and this reprioritization on the Donbas, clearly indicates that they know they have failed to take the capital city, that they know they have been under increased pressure elsewhere around the country,” the official said.
While Russia might be dedicating more forces to taking control of the Donbas region, the Ukrainians are primed to make it a tough fight.
“The Ukrainians know the territory very, very well. They have a lot of forces still there, and they’re absolutely fighting very hard for that area, as they have over the last eight years,” the official said. “So just because they’re going to prioritize it and put more force there or more energy there doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy for them.”
Russian ships can hit Donbas
While there are still no signs of any imminent amphibious landings, Russia has several ships in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov that could be used to threaten the Donbas region with cruise missiles, the official said.
Putin not getting full picture from advisers
“Our assessment is that the planning for this war was done with a very small circle of people, and that Mr. Putin’s advisers do not count many. And, you know, our assessment is that they have not been completely honest with him about how it’s going,” the official said.
The official said Russian President Vladimir Putin has kept to a “very, very close circle,” a leadership style that inherently limits access to information.
“I can’t account for the fact that the people advising him have chosen to obstruct certain information or omit certain information. All we can say is we don’t believe that he has been getting the full picture,” the official said.
Odesa under blockade
“We know that the Russians have continued to blockade Odesa,” the official said. “So obviously it’s having it’s having an economic impact there.”
Kherson contested
“We assess that they’re still fighting over Kherson. We know that the Russians are in the city, but we aren’t prepared to call it for one side or the other at this point. I mean, it had been in Russian control, but the Ukrainians are attempting to retake Kherson, so it’s still being fought over,” the official said.
Bombardment of Mariupol continues
“I don’t have an update on the degree to which a cease-fire is being applied in Mariupol. What I try to give you is what we’ve seen, you know, in the last 24 hours since we last talked, and we have continued to see Mariupol will come under airstrikes,” the official said.
(NEW YORK) — The body of a Nevada teenager who was allegedly kidnapped from a Walmart parking lot over two weeks ago has been found, authorities said.
Naomi Irion, 18, was last seen inside her car outside a Walmart in Fernley, Nevada, outside Reno, on March 12, according to the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office. Surveillance video captured a man getting into the driver’s seat of her car and leaving in an unknown direction with Irion in the passenger seat.
A tip regarding her disappearance led investigators to a remote part of neighboring Churchill County on Tuesday, where they found a “possible gravesite” and recovered the body of a woman from the scene, authorities said. On Wednesday, the remains were identified as Irion’s by the Washoe County Medical Examiners Office.
Her death is being investigated as a homicide, authorities said Thursday.
“The exact cause of death is known however cannot be released at this time as the circumstances around that event if released would compromise the ongoing investigation,” the Lyon County and Churchill County sheriff’s offices said in a statement.
No further information is being released at this time due to the ongoing investigation, authorities said.
“We would like to extend our sympathy and condolences to the Irion family and thank all the volunteers for their hard work in trying to find Naomi and bring closure to the family,” the Churchill County Sheriff’s Office and the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office said in a joint statement.
Irion was waiting for a shuttle bus on March 12 around 5 a.m. to take her to her job at Panasonic Energy of North America in the Reno area. Her brother reported her missing the following day when she did not come home from work.
The sheriff’s office initially characterized her disappearance as “suspicious in nature.” After locating her car on March 15 in an industrial park about a mile from the Walmart, the sheriff’s office said investigators found evidence suggesting her disappearance was “criminal in nature.”
A suspect in the alleged kidnapping was arrested last week. Troy Driver, 41, of Fallon, Nevada, has been charged with first-degree kidnapping and is being held on $750,000 bail following his first court appearance Wednesday, according to Reno ABC affiliate KOLO.
The FBI was offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to Irion’s location. The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office also released multiple photos and a video of the man authorities say entered Irion’s car in hopes of identifying him.
Driver’s next hearing is scheduled for April 5, KOLO reported.
(WASHINGTON) — Congress could soon send to the president’s desk a bill that would cap the cost of the lifesaving drug insulin at $35 per month — a move that could significantly reduce and rein in out-of-pocket drug costs for millions of Americans with diabetes.
The House approved the bill Thursday by a vote of 232-193, with 12 Republicans joining all Democrats in support.
The bill now heads to the Senate, and it could be taken up in the upper chamber in a matter of weeks if there is bipartisan agreement.
Experts say it costs less than $10 a vial to manufacture, yet there are still American families with insurance paying hundreds of dollars per vial of insulin.
Currently, costs for patients can range from $334 to $1,000 a month for insulin, according to a 2020 Kaiser Family Foundation report.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37.3 million people in the U.S. have diabetes, which is about 11% of the U.S. population. Out of the nearly 40 million people who have diabetes — about 25% or 7.4 million Americans need insulin. Many people with diabetes are prescribed insulin, either because their bodies do not produce insulin (Type 1 diabetes) or do not use insulin properly (Type 2 diabetes).
The bill to cap the cost of insulin was originally a part of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” domestic policy agenda, but since that massive piece of legislation is stalled in the Senate, lawmakers decided to move unilaterally on this standalone bill specifically addressing insulin.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters on Wednesday that it is “inexcusable” people are being charged exorbitant prices for “a lifesaving and life-sustaining drug whose costs [have] not increased and whose research costs have been amortized a very long period of time ago.”
Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan, one of the authors of the House bill, said it’s “outrageous that a single vial of insulin costs up to $1,000, when the medication costs just a few dollars to make.”
The bill caps cost-sharing for a month’s supply of insulin starting in 2023 at whichever amount is lower: $35, or 25% of a plan’s negotiated price, according to the bill’s text. The bill does not lower the overall price of insulin; it would likely shift more of the cost onto insurers and employers.
Supporters of the bill say it will save lives by making insulin affordable for millions of Americans, many of whom now reduce the amount they take or skip doses, resulting in far more costly visits to emergency rooms and the hospital.
