(NEW YORK) — Fans will soon be able to call Disney home.
On Wednesday, the company announced the launch of Storyliving by Disney, a new community for Disney fans to live in that incorporates the company’s brand of magic.
“These master-planned communities are intended to inspire residents to foster new friendships, pursue their interests and write the next exciting chapter in their lives — all while enjoying the attention to detail, unique amenities and special touches that are Disney hallmarks,” Disney said in a press release.
Disney Imagineers will develop the community’s concept while working with developers and homebuilders. Storyliving communities will also include a club membership so that residents can access curated experiences, such as wellness programming, and entertainment, such as live performances, cooking classes, seminars and more. Some neighborhoods will also be for residents ages 55 and up.
Disney’s first Storyliving location, Cotino, will be in Rancho Mirage, California, which is located in California’s Coachella Valley. This location is special to the company because it was once a retreat for Walt Disney and his wife, Lillian.
Cotino will also pay tribute to the history and rich, present-day culture of the Coachella Valley.
“Story is at the heart of everything we do and we love bringing authentic places to life to immerse you into those stories,” Michael Hundgen, executive producer of Walt Disney Imagineering, said in a statement. “We dive deep into the history and the culture of the place itself and we’re really inspired by its surroundings.”
Cotino, which will have private homes and a hotel, will surround a 24-acre grand crystalline turquoise lagoon. It will also have a clubhouse and feature Disney programming, entertainment and activities throughout the year.
To see if Storytelling by Disney is coming to your neck of the woods, visit Storylivingbydisney.com, to learn more.
Disney is the parent company of ABC News and Good Morning America.
(NEW YORK) — The United States continues to warn that Russia could invade Ukraine “any day” amid escalating tensions in the region.
More than 150,000 Russian troops are estimated to be massed near Ukraine’s borders, U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday, as U.S. officials have urged all Americans to immediately leave Ukraine.
Biden said Tuesday that the U.S. has “not yet verified” claims by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin that Russia was withdrawing some troops from near Ukraine’s borders.
ABC News has learned Putin had told his military forces to be ready to invade by Wednesday, but it remains unclear whether he has made a decision to attack his neighbor. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for a national day of unity Wednesday.
Russia has denied it plans to invade and has demanded the U.S. and NATO bar Ukraine from joining the military alliance.
Here’s how the news is developing Wednesday. All times Eastern:
Feb 16, 8:31 am
Kremlin reacts to Biden’s speech on Russia
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Russia has “grown tired” of listening to “threats,” referring to U.S. President Joe Biden’s speech the previous night.
“We’d prefer not to listen to various sorts of threats as to what would happen to us if we did something that we have no intention of doing,” Peskov told reporters during a daily call.
If the United States did not issue warnings about a Russian invasion of Ukraine and threaten consequences, then perhaps the Russian people would like Americans more, Peskov said.
“We have pretty much grown tired of [the threats],” he added. “If we heard such messages that would be free of threats, the Russian people would probably like them much more.”
Peskov noted that Russia hopes it would be able to begin a “negotiating process” with the U.S. over the Kremlin’s demands for security guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO, as well as confidence building measures such as limits on missile deployments and troops exercises.
Biden during his speech Tuesday night again ruled out any guarantee on Ukraine’s potential NATO membership, saying the U.S. will not sacrifice fundamental principles and that countries have a right to choose their alliances. The Biden administration, however, has offered to engage with Russia on the confidence-building measures, which Western nations have put forward in the hope of persuading the Kremlin to choose a diplomatic route out of the crisis.
Feb 16, 7:48 am
Kremlin criticizes ‘Western hysteria’ around possible invasion
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that while he expects the “hysteria” in Western media outlets about the threat of a Russian invasion to continue, he hopes foreign journalists will ultimately admit that they were wrong.
During a daily call with reporters, Peskov was asked whether Western media reports that Russia would attack Ukraine on Wednesday could be described as the culmination of “information hysteria.”
“Frankly, the way the Western hysteria is developing indicates there is still a long way until culmination. There won’t be a remission any time soon, we should be patient,” Peskov said. “Still, it is very important that Western media outlets, in this case, the British ones, say at least at the end of every day that their predictions have been wrong.”
Feb 16, 6:55 am
Russia says some troops returning to base after loading up tanks
The Russian Ministry of Defense said Wednesday that troops from its Western Military District massed near Ukraine have completed loading their tanks and are now returning to their bases, some 1,000 kilometers (over 620 miles) away.
“Personnel of the units of the Western Military District’s tank army have finished loading their tanks and tracked armored hardware onto flatbed railcars and have embarked on a 1,000-kilometer march using various means of transportation back to their permanent bases upon completion of their routine drills,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
Russia has currently deployed forces from all of its military districts near Ukraine. The Russian military has said that the Western and Southern Military Districts are returning to their bases. Meanwhile, units from Russia’s Eastern Military District remain in Belarus, having traveled some 10,000 kilometers (over 6,200 miles) there.
Feb 16, 6:33 am
NATO: ‘Russia continues their military build-up’
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Wednesday that Russia has still shown no signs of de-escalation on the ground, despite claims of withdrawing troops from near Ukraine.
“We have heard the signs from Moscow about the readiness to continue diplomatic efforts, but so far we have not seen any de-escalation on the ground,” Stoltenberg said during a press conference outside NATO headquarters in Brussels. “On the contrary, it appears that Russia continues their military build-up.”
NATO continues to monitor the situation “very closely,” as it remains unclear whether Russia is pulling back, according to Stoltenberg.
“What we see is that they have increased the number of troops and more troops are on their way,” he told reporters. “So, so far, no de-escalation but of course, we hear also the message about diplomacy and we are ready to engage in diplomatic efforts with Russia.”
Stoltenberg explained that the Russian military has “always moved forces back and forth.”
“So, just that we see movement of forces of battle tanks doesn’t confirm a real withdrawal,” he said. “It has been a big up and down, back and forth, all the way, but the trend over the last weeks and months has been a steady increase in the Russian capabilities close to Ukraine’s borders. So Russia retains the capability of a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine without any warning time.”
As of Wednesday morning, there were still approximately 100,000 Russian troops at Ukraine’s borders, including in Belarus, according to Stoltenberg, who said he hopes the dialogue with Russia will continue and that the claims of withdrawal are true “because nobody has any interest in confrontation or war in Europe.”
“We are at a pivotal moment in the history of Ukraine, Europe and global stability,” he added. “We look forward to seeing evidence of the withdrawal of troops on Russia’s part, but we need to prepare for any eventuality, with that significant escalation of Russian troops that we have seen over the last weeks and months.”
Stoltenberg’s comments came ahead of a meeting of the military alliance’s defense ministers, including U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, to discuss the current crisis.
Feb 16, 5:36 am
Russia releases video showing more troops leaving Crimea
The Russian military released more videos on Wednesday morning purportedly showing troops pulling back from Moscow-annexed Crimea.
The footage aired on Russian state media, with one video showing a trainload of armour being carried across the Russian-built bridge that connects the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula to Russia’s mainland. Another video shows military trucks driving out of Crimea across the bridge, which Russian state media described as support troops leaving “exercises.”
However, officials in the West and regional analysts continue to caution that they have not yet seen significant movements of Russian troops pulling back from near Ukraine’s borders.
Meanwhile, massive military exercises continue in neighboring Belarus and are not due to finish until Sunday. Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei said Wednesday that “not a single” Russian soldier will remain in the country once those drills end.
Feb 16, 5:05 am
Zelenskyy wishes Ukrainians ‘a happy day of unity’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wished citizens “a happy day of unity” on Wednesday.
Zelenskyy had said on Monday evening that instead of Feb. 16 being “the day of the attack,” he would make it “the day of unity” and declared an impromptu national holiday.
ABC News has learned that Russian President Vladimir Putin had told his military forces to be ready to invade Ukraine by Wednesday, but it remains unclear whether he has made a decision to attack the neighboring country.
“We are all united by our wish to live, to live in peace, to live a happy life with our families, parents and children. We have the full right to all of this, because we’re at home here, in Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in an address on social media Wednesday morning. “Nobody will love our home as much as we do, and nobody can defend our home as we can. I wish you a happy unity day, my blue-yellow ones, a happy day of unity of Ukraine, in the east and west, in the south and north. It works only together, and when it works, we’re strong.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has rejected another of former President Donald Trump’s executive privilege claims, deciding that Trump White House visitor logs should be handed over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — and the effort to overturn the 2020 election — within 15 days.
A letter from Chief White House Counsel Dana Remus to the National Archives obtained by ABC News states, “The President has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified, as to these records and portions of records.”
The visitor logs in question, Remus writes, “are entries in visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were processed to enter the White House complex, including on January 6, 2021.”
The letter goes on to explain that the Biden administration routinely discloses visitor logs, as did the Obama administration, therefore “preserving the confidentiality” of the Trump logs “is not necessary to protect long-term institutional interests of the Executive Branch.”
Biden likewise ordered the Archives to hand over previous batches of Trump documents, and in Tuesday’s letter regarding the visitor logs, Remus quotes Biden’s previous justifications: “Congress has a compelling need in service of its legislative functions to understand the circumstances that led to . . . the most serious attack on the operations of the Federal Government since the Civil War. . . . Constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield, from Congress or the public, information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself.”
Trump lost a legal challenge to prevent the release of previous tranches of documents.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.8 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 925,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 64.5% 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 Wednesday. All times Eastern:
Feb 16, 7:37 am
WHO: Weekly global number of COVID-19 cases fell by 19%
The global number of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases fell by 19% during the week ending on Feb. 13, compared to the previous week, according to a weekly epidemiological update released Tuesday by the World Health Organization.
Meanwhile, the number of newly recorded deaths from the disease that week remained similar to that of the previous week. Just over 16 million new cases and just under 75,000 new fatalities were reported worldwide during the week of Feb. 7 to Feb. 13, the WHO said.
All WHO regions reported decreases in the number of weekly cases except for the Western Pacific region, which reported an increase of 19%. The number of new weekly deaths increased in the Eastern Mediterranean region, the Western Pacific region, the African region and the region of the Americas, while it remained similar to that of the previous week in the European region and decreased in the Southeast Asia region, according to the WHO.
(WASHINGTON) — As the midterm primary season approaches, several Republicans running for state or national office are either refusing to disclose their COVID-19 vaccination status or advertising that they haven’t received a shot, even as former President Donald Trump calls on his followers to get the vaccine.
Some experts say that disconnect could expose cracks in a party that continues to grapple with its loyalty to Trump as well as a growing distrust of government, scientists and the media — and may signal a loosening of Trump’s grip on the Republican voting base, according to Sarah Isgur, a former spokesperson for the Justice Department during the Trump administration.
“There’s been an assumption within the political class that these are ‘Trump voters,’ implying that the former president himself can dictate their political support for or against a given candidate,” said Isgur, who is also an ABC News contributor. “But the vaccine issue demonstrates the limits of that idea.”
After denigrating many of the measures promoted by scientists to help curb the spread of COVID-19 during his time in office, Trump has emerged as an unlikely champion of vaccines. His promotion of the shot as “something that works” belies polling that shows unvaccinated adults are more than three times as likely to be Republicans than Democrats.
Trump has at least twice been booed by supporters for promoting the vaccine — once at an August rally in Alabama and again in December when he told an audience that he’d received a booster shot.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” Trump told dissenters who booed the vaccine at the December event.
“If you don’t want to take it, you shouldn’t be forced to take it — no mandates,” said Trump, whose administration oversaw the speedy development of the vaccine. “But take credit, because we saved tens of millions of lives. Take credit. Don’t let them take that away from you.”
Critics of Trump, however, accuse him of paving the way for widespread vaccine hesitancy by undermining scientists in his own administration who advocated for masks and social distancing in the early months of the pandemic.
Now, several Republican candidates running under the Trump banner — including some who have already earned his endorsement — are parroting anti-vax rhetoric in their campaigns. Others are trying to toe the line by refusing to share their vaccination status altogether — a position Trump has characterized as “gutless.”
“Trump empowered this anti-vax monster, and now even he can’t control it,” said former Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va.
Former NFL running back Herschel Walker, who earned Trump’s endorsement for U.S. Senate in Georgia, has declined to say whether he has been vaccinated. The early frontrunner in Ohio’s GOP primary for U.S. Senate, Josh Mandel, has aligned himself with Trump but recently implied that he has not been vaccinated. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a longtime Trump ally, has dodged questions about whether he’s received a booster shot.
In Arizona, a gaggle of Trump-backed and Trump-aligned candidates have been more explicit in their opposition to vaccines. Former television anchor Kari Lake, who Trump endorsed in the state’s gubernatorial primary, said recently that she has “enough concern about the vaccine” to not take it.
Justin Olson, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona, also said this month that he has not been vaccinated — calling his decision “an issue of rebellion against” the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates. And Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., enthusiastically accepted Trump’s endorsement for reelection, even as he continues to stoke anti-vaccine fears.
A number of Trump-aligned candidates have cast their vaccine status as a matter of privacy. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is also running for U.S. Senate, has mocked reporters who have questioned him about it.
“My health information is my own information,” Brnovich said. “Have you had an STD? I mean, seriously, if we’re going to start asking about people’s health information.”
There’s already evidence that opacity could be a winning strategy. In Virginia’s recent election for lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, a fierce Trump loyalist, refused to disclose her vaccination status, leading her Democratic opponent, Hala Ayala, to try to make it a major campaign issue.
“I encourage everyone to get the vaccine but no one should be forced to disclose their vaccination status,” Sears wrote in a tweet ahead of election day. She then won the race.
Sears’ triumph could be a sign that voters simply don’t care if public servants are vaccinated. But it could also indicate the evolving relationship between Trump and members of his base, many of whom Isgur says are “disaffected and angry” — even if some of that anger is directed toward Trump himself.
“It’s why Trump’s disapproval of a candidate has been so much more effective than his endorsement,” Isgur said. “These voters are on the hunt for enemies, and they are just as willing to turn on Trump as anyone else.”
(NEW YORK) — Victoria’s Secret has unveiled ads for its latest collection of bras and panties, called Love Cloud, featuring women of different shapes, sizes and backgrounds.
The Love Cloud collection announced last year, features ads with images of accessories designer Slyvia Buckler holding her pregnant stomach, and Nez Perce Tribe-Wildland Firefighter, Celilo Miles.
The ads also feature familiar faces such as top models Hailey Bieber, Adut Akech and Paloma Elsesser as well as Valentina Sampaio who became Sports Illustrated’s first transgender model to be featured in the publication’s swimsuit issue.
“Love Cloud Collection is a major moment in the brand’s evolution,” said Victoria’s Secret head creative director Raúl Martinez. “From the cast of incredible women that bring the collection to life, to the incredible inclusive spirit on set, this campaign is an important part of the new Victoria’s Secret standard we are creating.”
Officially available to shop in-stores and online, the new Love Cloud collection features a wide selection of bras and panties sized 32A-40DDD and XS-XXL. The pieces include cloud-like padding as well as a soft fabric that consists of smoothing technology to give a sleek appearance, according to the company.
“After listening to and being inspired by the real needs of our consumers, Love Cloud has been created as a collection that fits everyday comfort without sacrificing functionality or sexiness,” said Victoria’s Secret chief design officer Janie Schaffer.
She continued: “With this new line, we are launching high-quality bras and panties in shapes that fit women’s daily needs, in our ongoing effort to develop products that champion women and support their individual journeys.”
(SAN FRANCISCO) — San Francisco voters overwhelmingly cast their ballots to remove three members of the city’s school board Tuesday night, marking the first time in the city’s history members of the board have been recalled.
In an election marred by debate over the pace of school reopenings during the pandemic and the management of controversial social issues in the district, School Board President Gabriela López and board members Faauuga Moliga and Alison Collins were all ousted, with more than 70% of voters backing the effort to recall them, preliminary results from the San Francisco Board of Elections showed.
“As the first results post for the recall election, it appears we were unsuccessful at defeating my recall,” Moliga said on his Facebook page. “We fought hard and ran a great campaign. I want to thank the Pacific Islander community for standing up and taking on this challenge. There are many more fights ahead of us.”
The three members will now be replaced with appointees selected by Mayor London Breed, who endorsed the recall, until another election is held for the positions in November.
In a statement Tuesday night, Breed said that voters “delivered a clear message that the School Board must focus on the essentials of delivering a well-run school system above all else” and recognized “all the parents who tirelessly organized and advocated in the last year.”
“Elections can be difficult, but these parents were fighting for what matters most — their children,” Breed said. “It’s time we refocus our efforts on the basics of providing quality education for all students, while more broadly improving how this City delivers support for children and families.”
When reached for comment by ABC News, Autumn Looijen, campaign co-lead at Recall the SF School Board, said over text that the reaction in her house was “total celebration.”
“It’s one thing to think you’ll win,” she said. “Quite another once it’s real.”
San Francisco’s recall has drawn widespread attention amid a year in which 25 recall efforts have been launched against 66 officials nationwide, according to tracking by Ballotpedia.
“School boards are where the rubber meets the road when it comes to Americans meeting their government,” ABC News Political Director Rick Klein said of the recall. “Schools, for better or worse, are the battlefront. They’re where the major issues of 2022 are colliding for so many Americans.”
Financial documents reviewed by ABC News show the effort in San Francisco has largely been bankrolled by big donors who don’t have children in the district.
According to campaign finance records, some of the biggest backers are 95-year-old billionaire Arthur Rock and PayPal COO David Sacks, who contributed nearly $400,000 and more than $74,000, respectively.
“You’d never think that a liberal member of a school board in San Francisco would have to worry about his or her job,” Klein said. “The power of the arguments that are being put forward and on display in this recall election, I think will animate so many campaigns up and down the ballot for state and national political office in 2022.”
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Tuesday issued six subpoenas to Trump campaign staffers and Republican operatives in several key battleground states who supported efforts to send “fake electors” to Congress in an effort to challenge the 2020 election results.
The group includes Michael Roman and Michael Brown, who worked on Election Day operations for Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, as well as Mark Finchem, Arizona GOP Party Chair Kelli Ward and former Michigan GOP Chair Laura Cox.
Finchem is now running to serve as Arizona’s top election official, while Ward has sued to stop the committee from obtaining her and her husband’s phone records.
The committee also subpoenaed Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who chartered buses to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 and organized a post-election hearing in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to raise claims of widespread and unproven voter fraud. He was also involved in Trump’s White House meeting with Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers in December of 2020, as Trump worked to overturn the results in the state and in other presidential battlegrounds.
Mastriano was also a leader of the GOP’s 2020 election audit in Pennsylvania, which was based on a similar review conducted by Republicans in Arizona.
Cox, the leader of the Republican Party in Michigan during the 2020 election, also supported Trump’s efforts to challenge the results in her state. In the aftermath of the election, Trump also gathered a group of Michigan GOP lawmakers at the White House to make his case.
“The Select Committee is seeking information about efforts to send false slates of electors to Washington and change the outcome of the 2020 election,” Jan. 6 committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in a statement. “We’re seeking records and testimony from former campaign officials and other individuals in various states who we believe have relevant information about the planning and implementation of those plans.”
Thompson recently told ABC News that the panel’s planned public hearings this spring would review Trump’s state-level pressure campaign and the unsuccessful lawsuits that sought to challenge election results in key swing states, and will possibly include testimony from state and local election officials.
To date, the committee has collected tens of thousands of pages of records, conducted more than 560 interviews and issued at least 81 subpoenas.
(NEW YORK) — Researchers revealed on Tuesday that an American, described as a middle-aged woman of mixed race, has likely been cured of HIV after undergoing a new transplant procedure using donated umbilical cord blood.
The patient, who needed a stem cell transplant for leukemia, reportedly developed a new HIV-resistant immune system following a breakthrough procedure in which she was genetically matched with umbilical cord stem cells that contained an HIV-resistant mutation.
She was part of a study that began in 2015 designed to monitor outcomes of 25 people with HIV in the U.S. who underwent a transplant, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Dr. Yvonne Bryson, an infectious disease physician at UCLA, who led the study, discussed their team’s finding along with the patient’s condition at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections this week.
“Today, we reported the third known case of HIV remission and the first woman following a stem cell transplant and using HIV-resistant cells,” Bryson said in a press conference.
“This case is special for several reasons: First, our participant was a U.S. woman living with HIV of mixed race, who needed a stem cell transplant for treatment of her leukemia. And she would find a more difficult time finding both a genetic match and one with the HIV-resistant mutation to both cure her cancer and potentially her HIV. This is a natural, but rare mutation,” she said.
Bryson added that while this approach of using genetically-matched umbilical cord blood with HIV-resistant mutation opens the door to more diverse populations and studies, she confirmed there is no current routine screening in place in the U.S. for this mutation.
Previously, only two men have been cured of HIV using a bone marrow or stem cell transplant. And while this is the third known case, according to Bryson’s team, of HIV remission in an individual who received a stem cell transplant of any kind, experts in the field caution that this method is not ideal for curing the many millions of HIV-positive people around the globe today.
Bryson said there could eventually be “approximately at least 50 [people] per year that may benefit from this.”
In an interview with Community Health Center, Inc., Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading expert in infectious disease in the U.S., whose work in HIV care and treatment innovation spans four decades, said, “I don’t want people to think that now this is something that can be applied to the 36 million people [globally] who are living with HIV.”
“This person had an underlying disease that required a stem cell transplant. … It is not practical to think that this is something that’s going to be widely available,” Fauci added. “It’s more of a proof of concept.”
While there is no practical and applicable cure for HIV on a large scale, there have been incredible strides in HIV treatment over the years that allow individuals to live a normal and healthy life.
Known as U=U, or Undetectable=Untransmittable, if an HIV-positive person begins HIV treatment and brings the virus in their body to an undetectable level, the individual cannot transmit the virus to someone as long as they remain on said treatment or medication.
Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first long-acting injectable drug for HIV prevention.
Until recently, the only medications licensed and approved by the FDA for HIV prevention or pre-exposure prophylaxis, most commonly known as PrEP, were daily pills, which slow the progression of an HIV infection in the body.
PrEP is usually taken daily so that it builds up in in a person’s system, to the point that if there is an HIV infection, it prevents the virus from replicating and spreading throughout the body.
When taken as prescribed, PrEP services reduce the risk of getting HIV from sex by about 99%, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now, individuals who feel at-risk of HIV infection have the option of taking the daily pill, or the new shot every two months, after two initiation injections administered one month apart.
On the vaccine front, Moderna recently announced that it’s launched early stage clinical trials of an HIV mRNA vaccine. ABC News previously reported that the biotechnology company teamed up with the nonprofit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative to develop the shot, which uses the same technology as Moderna’s successful COVID-19 vaccine.
Because bone marrow transplantation is a dangerous and risky procedure, it is considered unethical to perform on people with HIV, unless the person also has cancer and needs a transplant as part of their treatment.
(WASHINGTON) — A group of Republican senators sent a letter to the Justice Department on Tuesday to express “strong opposition” to creating a federal no-fly list for unruly passengers, claiming “the majority of recent infractions on airplanes has been in relation to the mask mandate.”
Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas were among those who signed a letter opposing Delta Airlines’ CEO Ed Bastian’s request earlier this month that the DOJ create a “no-fly” list for passengers convicted of federal offenses relating to on-board disruptions.
Last year saw a major spike in unruly passengers, with more than 5,981 reported cases, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The agency notes, of those cases, 4,290 were mask-related.
“Creating a federal ‘no-fly’ list for unruly passengers who are skeptical of this mandate would seemingly equate them to terrorists who seek to actively take the lives of Americans and perpetrate attacks on the homeland,” the GOP senators’ letter said. “The [Transportation Security Administration] was created in the wake of 9/11 to protect Americans from future horrific attacks, not to regulate human behavior onboard flights.”
The senators argued airlines could create their own no-fly lists and refuse services to unruly passengers, but that it would be an overreach for the federal government to do so.
Many airlines have already done this, but they do not prevent an offender from boarding another carrier. Delta has previously asked other U.S. airlines to share their internal no-fly lists so that people who endangered their crew can’t do so on another airline.
“The creation of this list by DOJ would result in a severe restriction on the ability of citizens to fully exercise their constitutional right to engage in interstate transportation,” the GOP letter said. “It also raises serious concerns about future unrelated uses and potential expansions of the list based on political pressures.”
In Bastian’s request to the DOJ, he indicated that he believes banning unruly passengers from all commercial flights will send a strong signal to the flying public that not following crew member instructions comes with severe consequences.
“This action will help prevent future incidents and serve as a strong symbol of the consequences of not complying with crew member instructions on commercial aircraft,” he wrote.
Unruly passenger incidents onboard Delta planes have increased nearly 100% since 2019, according to Bastian. The airline has placed almost 2,000 people on Delta’s internal no-fly list for refusing to wear a mask and has submitted around 1,000 banned names to the TSA to pursue civil penalties.
Other people in the industry have called for support of a no-fly list for unruly passengers. Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, responded in a statement to the GOP senators.
“We’ve been punched, kicked, spit on, and sexually assaulted. This puts everyone at risk and disrupts the safety of flight, which is never acceptable and every single one of the senators who signed this letter knows full well what is at stake if we leave a gap in aviation safety and security,” Nelson said. “It is irresponsible and political brinkmanship that will put our economic security at risk right along with our lives.”
Nelson pushed back against the lawmakers’ argument about mask mandates, noting many charges stem from incidents unrelated to mask-wearing.
“Our union continues to call for the creation of a centralized list of passengers who may not fly for a period of time after being fined or convicted of a serious incident. This is not about ‘masks,’ and the worst attacks have nothing to do with masks,” Nelson said. “You’re either for protecting crew and passengers from these attacks or you’re against. We need clear and consistent rules with strict consequences for those who cannot respect our collective efforts to keep everyone safe – in the air and on the ground.”
Joe DePete, the president of the Air Line Pilots Association, called for the Department of Homeland Security to create a “no-fly list” for unruly passengers.
“There should be zero tolerance for airline passengers who threaten the safety of others,” DePete said in a tweet Tuesday.
Delta responded to the Republican senators in a statement, saying unruly passengers risk the safety of airline staff and other passengers.
“Delta welcomes the interest from Congress as U.S. airlines continue to grapple with an uptick in unruly passengers, putting the safety of airline employees and the flying public at risk,” a spokesperson for Delta told ABC News on Tuesday. “At Delta, nothing is more important than ensuring a safe and secure travel experience for our customers and our people.”
