(Photo by Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(KENAI, Alaska) — A woman has suffered “serious injuries” in Alaska when a bear attacked her near her driveway while she was out on her early morning jog, officials said.
The incident occurred early Tuesday morning when the Kenai Police Department in Alaska received a call at 6:58 a.m. informing them that there had been a bear attack near the intersection of Chinook Drive in Kenai, the Alaska Department of Public Safety said in their statement on Tuesday.
“[An] investigation revealed a 36-year-old female departed her residence at 5:45 a.m. to go jogging and was near her driveway when the initial attack occurred,” police said.
A neighbor eventually came outside and located the unnamed victim before alerting authorities to the incident.
The jogger was taken by helicopter to an Anchorage area hospital where she was treated for “serious injuries,” according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety, though no details were given about what injuries she sustained or what condition she was in following her initial medical evaluation and treatment.
“Alaska Wildlife Troopers, Kenai Police Department, and Alaska Department of Fish and Game personnel searched the area on foot and with a drone looking for the bear,” officials said. “The bear has not been located. Patrols of the area will continue, and the public is advised to remain vigilant while outdoors.”
The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge nearby contains almost 2 million acres of land along with an estimated 2,183 different animal species living there, according to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
The investigation into the attack is currently ongoing.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on August 28, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A rare political standoff continued between the leader of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Trump administration continued on Thursday, leaving CDC Director Susan Monarez’s termination in limbo as high-level CDC officials resigned in protest.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters President Donald Trump had fired Monarez, saying Monarez “was not aligned with the president’s mission to make America healthy again.”
“It was President Trump who was overwhelmingly reelected on November 5,” Leavitt said. “This woman has never received a vote in her life, and the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission.”
Leavitt said her replacement will be announced “very soon” either by Trump or by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
But immediately after the White House press briefing, Monarez’s attorneys pushed back that she still hasn’t heard directly from the president and thus hasn’t been officially terminated from her job — her stance since Wednesday.
“[White House press secretary] can say whatever she wants because thankfully free speech still exists in this country. But it doesn’t make her comments factually true, even when from a White House podium,” attorney Mark Zaid wrote on X.
Monarez’s attorneys maintain that she will respect the decision of the president himself, but said they have not had any further communication with the White House since Wednesday night, when a White House staffer notified her that she’d been fired. They don’t consider the notification substantial enough because she is a Senate-confirmed, presidential appointee.
Further legal routes, if they don’t hear from the president, are “under consideration,” Zaid told ABC News. In the meantime, Monarez does not have access to her work office or email, he said.
Meanwhile, President Trump has yet to publicly weigh in on the dispute.
Kennedy, at a news conference about rural health in Texas on Thursday, said Monarez was “let go.”
“There’s a lot of trouble at CDC, and it can require getting rid of some people over the long term in order for us to change the institutional culture and bring back pride and self esteem and make that agency the stellar agency that it’s always been,” Kennedy said.
Monarez’s attorneys say the administration is attempting to oust her for “protecting the public” over serving “a political agenda.” The dispute began as a disagreement over demands from Kennedy and his top staff for Monarez to support changes to COVID vaccine policy and the firings of high-level staff, which Monarez would not commit to, a source familiar with the conversations told ABC News.
After HHS said on Wednesday that Monarez was no longer director of the agency, four other senior career officials at the CDC also resigned, according to emails obtained by ABC News.
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a deciding vote on Kennedy’s confirmation to lead HHS as chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, wrote on X that the “high profile departures will require oversight by the HELP Committee.”
Cassidy also called for the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a committee that reviews vaccine data and determines nationwide recommendations, to be indefinitely postponed following the CDC staff shakeups. The next meeting of the agency’s vaccine panel is scheduled for September 18 and 19.
“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting. These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted,” Cassidy said in a statement on Thursday.
The White House on Thursday was asked about Trump’s stance on COVID vaccines, specifically whether he believes they should be available and covered by insurance for all Americans, regardless of age and pre-existing conditions.
The question came after the FDA on Wednesday approved updated COVID-19 vaccines for only high-risk Americans, a narrower scope than in the past.
The new, more limited FDA approval for the vaccines questions about accessibility — whether people will still be able to get the vaccines easily in pharmacies, rather than doctors offices — and insurance coverage, which is often determined by the CDC advisory committee’s recommendations. The list price, without coverage, for certain COVID vaccines is over $100.
“The reason for the revocation of that emergency youth authorization is because, obviously, the COVID pandemic and the public health emergency is over,” Leavitt said. “But just to correct the record, because there’s been a lot of misinformation on this, the FDA decision does not affect the availability of COVID vaccines for Americans who want them.”
“We believe in individual choice. That’s a promise both the president and the secretary have made. It’s a promise they have now delivered on,” Leavitt said.
Dozens of first responders crowd the street in front of Annunciation Catholic Church that was the scene of a shooting that killed two children and wounded seventeen other people on Wednesday, August 27, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minn. (Renee Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)
(MINNEAPOLIS) — A motive in the Annunciation Catholic School mass shooting remains under investigation, and police said they’ve not identified a specific trigger for why the children at this church were targeted.
Investigators determined that Westman “harbored a whole lot of hate towards a wide variety of people and groups of people,” and also “had a deranged obsession with previous mass shooters,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told ABC News Live on Thursday.
“This person, you know, committed this act with the intention of causing as much terror, as much trauma, as much carnage as possible for their own personal notoriety,” O’Hara said.
“The shooter expressed hate towards almost every group,” Joe Thompson, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota, said at a news conference on Thursday. “The shooter expressed hate towards Black people, the shooter expressed hate towards Mexican people, the shooter expressed hate towards Christian people, the shooter expressed hate towards Jewish people. In short, the shooter appeared to hate all of us.”
The shooter also “expressed hate” toward President Donald Trump, he said.
“There appears to be only one group that the shooter didn’t hate, one group of people who the shooter admired — the group were the school shooters and mass murderers that are notorious in this country,” Thompson said.
“More than anything, the shooter wanted to kill children, defenseless children. … The shooter wanted to watch children suffer,” Thompson said.
An 8-year-old and a 10-year-old were killed and 18 people — including 15 kids — were injured when the shooter opened fire through the windows of the Minneapolis school’s church on Wednesday morning. All injured victims are expected to survive, police said.
Westman never entered the church building, but could have entered after shooting out a door-sized window, O’Hara told ABC News.
“These children were slaughtered by a shooter who could not see them,” O’Hara said at a news conference, noting the shooter “was standing outside of the building firing through very narrow church windows.”
Westman died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Driver’s license information reviewed by ABC News described Westman as a female, born on June 17, 2002. A name change application for a minor born on the same date, June 17, 2002, was approved by a district court in Minnesota in 2020, changing the name of a Robert Westman to Robin Westman, explaining the minor child “identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification.”
Investigators are reviewing hundreds of pages of documents, videos and other evidence as they look for a motive, O’Hara said.
Police have also conducted dozens of interviews with witnesses as well as people who knew the suspect, though investigators “have not been successful” in talking to Westman’s mother, the chief said.
A neighbor of Robin Westman’s father and stepmother, who describes himself as a close friend of the family, said some family members began getting death threats less than three hours after the shooting took place.
“This is going to ruin their lives,” the neighbor, who declined to be publicly named, told ABC News.
The neighbor said Robin Westman was into activities that interested many kids — particularly skateboarding and rock climbing — and was “a good kid who gave up no signs of violence.”
“If she was radicalized, it must have been quickly. We have no idea how this could happen,” the neighbor said.
The father and stepmother “were the best neighbors I can possibly imagine,” the neighbor said, describing the family as “apolitical,” “not a gun family” and “live and let live people.”
The neighbor said he wishes for “grace and sympathy” for the parents.
“They are not at fault,” the neighbor said. “She was a young person living on her own. The parents don’t have access to what they are doing unless they are checking everything they do. What parent is doing that?”
Officials are investigating a series of videos posted to YouTube believed to be associated with the suspect, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the matter. Two videos, posted Wednesday morning and since removed by YouTube, show someone flipping through dozens of pages of notes dated over the course of several months, which include what appears to be doodles of weapons, middle fingers and expletives, as well as repeated references to killing.
Writings in notebooks and on the guns indicate a series of grievances, anger and ideations of harm to self and to others. The writings also appear to show overt references to other high-profile school shootings and shooters.
Officers recovered three guns — one rifle, one shotgun and one handgun — at the scene, all of which are believed to have been fired in the attack, police said. All of the guns were purchased legally by Westman, police said, and authorities believe they were purchased recently in Minnesota.
Three shotgun shells and 116 rifle rounds were recovered, police said. One live round was recovered from a handgun that appeared to malfunction, leaving the bullet stuck in the chamber, the chief said.
As Minneapolis mourns, Mayor Jacob Frey is stressing the need for gun control, telling ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” “How many times have you heard politicians talk of an ‘unspeakable tragedy’? And yet this kind of thing happens again and again.”
“Prayers, thoughts, they are certainly welcomed, but they are not enough,” Frey said. “There needs to be change so that we don’t have another mayor, in another month-and-a half, talking about a tragedy that happened in their city.”
Danielle Gunter, whose son, an eighth grader, was shot and wounded, said in a statement to Minneapolis ABC affiliate KSTP, “We feel the pain, the anger, the confusion, and the searing reality that our lives will never be the same. Yet we still have our child.”
“We grieve and we pray: for the others who were shot, for their families, and for those who lost loved ones,” she said.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he’s sending state law enforcement to help with security at schools and places of worship in the city.
ABC News’ Alex Perez, Alyssa Acquavella, Mariama Jalloh, Pierre Thomas, Jack Date, Luke Barr, Aaron Katersky, Sasha Pezenik and Mark Guarino contributed to this report.
The Chelan County Sheriff’s Office released photos of Travis Decker in a wanted poster. (Chelan County Sheriff’s Office)
(CHELAN COUNTY, Wash.) — After a two-day search of the area where Travis Decker allegedly murdered his three young daughters, the FBI said they will be analyzing “several items” that were recovered near the crime scene.
The FBI concluded its two-day grid search operation on Tuesday, focusing within the vicinity of Rock Island Campground in Leavenworth, Washington, where the girls bodies’ were found back on June 2, W. Mike Herrington, special agent in charge of the FBI Seattle field office, said in a press release on Thursday.
The purpose of search was to “locate Travis Decker, discover signs of his whereabouts or find any other evidence of the murder of his three daughters,” Herrington said.
Over 100 personnel were deployed and 1,000,000 square meters were searched, but Decker has not been located, Herrington said.
“A search of this magnitude and detail has not previously taken place in this area,” Herrington said.
During the investigation, Herrington said search personnel recovered “several items that are being examined to determine if they are related to this investigation,” saying that final results “will take some time.”
“Finding this potential evidence emphasizes the value in having various teams search an area multiple times, especially in such challenging conditions,” Herrington said.
Herrington added that officials are “committed to bringing every available FBI resource that will advance this case for as long as it takes.”
During a press conference on Monday, Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison said officials “will not relent” and “not give up” on the search efforts, even if locating Decker takes years.
“The girls would not want us to give up,” Morrison said on Monday. “If it’s not me wearing this uniform, it’s another Chelan County sheriff. We will find him, in one fashion or another.”
Paityn Decker, 9; Evelyn Decker, 8; and Olivia Decker, 5, were found dead near the Rock Island Campground after they left home for a planned visit with their father on May 30, according to police.
The U.S. Marshals Service is still offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading directly to Decker’s arrest.
Anyone who sees Decker or knows of his whereabouts should call 911 immediately and not contact or approach him, officials said. He is currently wanted for three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of kidnapping, officials said.
Decker is considered armed and dangerous, officials said.
In this screen grab from a video, Newark Airport is shown on Aug. 28, 2025. (WABC)
(NEW YORK) — A temporary ground stop halted incoming flights at Newark Liberty International Airport on Thursday due to air traffic control communication issues, marking the latest in a series of disruptions at the busy New Jersey airport.
Air traffic controllers briefly lost their radio frequencies during the ground stop, which lasted from approximately 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET, according to Federal Aviation Administration bulletins. Delays averaged more than two hours.
The FAA responded by further reducing Newark’s flight capacity. The agency cut incoming flights to 28 per hour until at least Friday, a significant decrease from the airport’s normal capacity of 40-42 flights per hour, which had already been lowered to 34 in recent weeks.
“The FAA is pausing some flights into Newark Liberty International Airport due to equipment issues. We are investigating the cause,” the agency said in a statement. Controllers were instructed to space arriving aircraft about 20 miles apart on approach to Newark, a controller on duty told ABC News.
The disruption marked the second outage for controllers at the Philadelphia air traffic control center, which manages Newark’s airspace, within 24 hours.
During Wednesday evening’s outage, pilots reported that controller call signs were cutting out entirely, according to air traffic recordings obtained by LiveATC.net. One controller was heard telling pilots they were “having some sort of FTI issues” and had placed flights in a hold.
“Out here it’ll be no call sign or just be heading 040,” one pilot reported during Wednesday’s incident, explaining why aircraft weren’t acknowledging transmissions.
The latest disruption adds to a growing list of technical issues at Newark.
On May 11, a telecommunications problem at the Philadelphia TRACON facility prompted a 45-minute ground stop. Just days earlier, on May 9, radar screens went dark for 90 seconds, forcing controllers to warn incoming aircraft about potential communication issues, according to FAA reports.
In late April, controllers experienced a 60-90 second outage that darkened their computer screens and cut off aircraft communications, sources familiar with the incident told ABC News.
Following the April incident, several controllers took medical leave, citing the event as traumatic, ABC News had reported.
(SAN ANTONIO) — Former Major League Baseball player Mark Teixeira has announced a run for Congress in Texas in a red district that includes areas around San Antonio and Austin.
“As a lifelong conservative who loves this country, I’m ready to fight for the principles that make Texas strong and America exceptional. It takes teamwork to win, and I’m ready to help defend President Trump’s America First agenda, Texas families, and individual liberty,” he says in a statement on his new campaign website.
The former first baseman is running to fill the seat of Republican Rep. Chip Roy, who is running for Texas attorney general and has clashed with the Trump administration at times.
This will be Teixeira’s first run for political office after his 14 seasons in the MLB — during which he earned three All-Star selections, five Gold Gloves and three Silver Sluggers. He retired in 2016, having played for several teams, including for the Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Angels and New York Yankees.
Teixeira was on the World Series-winning Yankees team in 2009.
“Playing for the Texas Rangers and raising my family in the Lone Star State has been one of the greatest blessings of my life,” Teixeira said in a statement. “Now I’m ready to answer the call to serve my country, my state, and the conservative principles that made Texas the envy of the nation.”
(MINNEAPOLIS) — The Minneapolis Police Department’s response to Wednesday’s deadly church shooting showed significant improvements in how law enforcement handles mass casualty events, according to a former police chief who managed a similar crisis.
Jarrod Burguan, who led the response to the 2015 San Bernardino terror attack, praised Minneapolis authorities for their clear communication and fast response to the Annunciation Catholic School shooting that killed two children — an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old — and left 18 others injured.
“Minneapolis PD has done a very good job in this case,” Burguan told ABC News on Thursday. “Chief O’Hara was tremendous. He was very clear in his press conferences and gave very good information. For the most part, this has not been an incident that had a lot of false information getting out there.”
The FBI is investigating the attack as potential domestic terrorism and a possible hate crime after the shooter, identified as 23-year-old Robin Westman, opened fire through church windows during a Mass marking the first week of school. Westman died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Burguan told ABC News that the coordinated response between local police and federal authorities reflects improvements made since previous mass shootings.
“We are better today than we were three years ago, five years ago, 20 years ago,” he said, while acknowledging the tragic reality that schools now require enhanced security measures.
Drawing on his experience in the December 2015 San Bernardino attack, in which 14 people were killed and 22 were injured, Burguan explained how federal and local agencies cooperate in such investigations.
“The reality is, on the ground, the FBI agents and the leadership in Minneapolis, as well as Minneapolis PD and the surrounding agencies… they really work well together,” he said.
However, Burguan expressed concern about potential warning signs that may have preceded the attack.
“For somebody to have been living that life, people in and around that suspect had to have known something was off,” he said, noting the suspect’s “hatred of institutions in this country, whether it was the church.”
Burguan warned that extensive coverage of mass shootings could motivate copycats who glorify such violence.
“You hear a story of somebody like this that somehow seemed to idolize people that perform this act,” he said. “That is very, very disturbing to think that even in light of coverage like this and the anger and the community frustration that happens, somebody might be sitting back going, ‘Well, this was a good thing.’ That’s frightening.”
(WASHINGTON) — Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook sued President Donald Trump on Thursday over his move to fire her, saying she should retain her position as a top policymaker at the central bank.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, describes Trump’s effort as “illegal and unprecedented,” claiming Cook’s ouster violates the independence of the Fed, a cornerstone of the nation’s economy.
Trump’s action violates Cook’s constitutional right to due process, as well as her right to notice and a hearing under the Federal Reserve Act, the lawsuit says.
Hours after Cook filed the lawsuit, a judge granted a hearing for Friday morning. The case has been assigned to Judge Jia M. Cobb, who was nominated to the court in 2021 by former President Joe Biden.
Federal law allows the president to remove a member of the Fed board “for cause,” though no president has attempted such a removal in the 112-year history of the central bank.
In a letter posted on social media earlier this week, the president moved to fire Cook over allegations lodged by a Trump administration official, who claimed she had committed mortgage fraud. Trump pointed to a “criminal referral” from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte. Cook has not been charged for the alleged misconduct.
In a previous statement, Cook’s attorney rebuked Trump’s social media post.
“President Trump has taken to social media to once again ‘fire by tweet’ and once again his reflex to bully is flawed and his demands lack any proper process, basis or legal authority. We will take whatever actions are needed to prevent his attempted illegal action.”
Cook has not directly addressed the substance of the allegations against her. In a statement last week, Cook said she would seek out her financial documents to answer “any legitimate questions and provide the facts.”
The move came after Trump railed for months against the Federal Reserve and its Chair Jerome Powell for declining to heed his call for lower interest rates.
In the lawsuit, Cook’s attorney rebuked the allegations as a pretext aimed at removing her for political reasons. Cook has repeatedly voted against interest rate cuts, the lawsuit notes.
“That the President says he has found (or created) some basis for removing a Governor does not magically make such a basis grounds for a ‘for cause’ removal,” the filing says. “The President had no ’cause’ to remove Governor Cook.”
“President Trump has indicated his desire to impede the independence of the Federal Reserve since he assumed office in January 2025,” the lawsuit adds.
The lawsuit names Powell and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors as co-defendants. The Federal Reserve Board, its governors and Powell are sued in their official capacities “to the extent that any individual Governor has the ability to take any action to effectuate President Trump’s purported termination of Governor Cook,” the lawsuit says.
Cook’s lawsuit urged a judge to find her attempted firing “unlawful and void,” adding that Cook seeks “immediate declaratory and injunctive relief to confirm her status as a member of the Board of Governors.”
The lawsuit also asked the judge to issue a declaration outlining the definition of “cause” — which Cook’s lawsuit says includes only “instances of inefficiency, neglect of duty, malfeasance in office, or comparable misconduct.”
In a statement to ABC News, the White House rebutted Cook’s claims, saying Trump’s move to fire Cook is permitted under federal law.
“The President exercised his lawful authority to remove a governor on the Federal Board of Governors for cause under 12 U.S.C. 242. The President determined there was cause to remove a governor who was credibly accused of lying in financial documents from a highly sensitive position overseeing financial institutions. The removal of a governor for cause improves the Federal Reserve Board’s accountability and credibility for both the markets and American people,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.
The Federal Reserve declined to comment. In a previous statement, the Fed affirmed the independence of the central bank and vowed to abide by a court ruling on the matter.
“The Federal Reserve will continue to carry out its duties as established by law,” the Fed said. “The Federal Reserve reaffirms its commitment to transparency, accountability, and independence in the service of American families, communities, and businesses.”
Two Fed governors appointed by Trump — Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller — already sit on the seven-member board. A third appointee — Stephen Miran, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors — has been nominated as a replacement for Adriana Kugler, who retired this month. If Trump were to replace Cook, his appointees would make up a majority of the Fed board.
Five meetings and eight months have elapsed since the Fed last adjusted interest rates.
Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank faces a “challenging situation” as a hiring slowdown coincides with tariff-driven price increases, putting pressure on both sides of the Fed’s dual mission to maximize employment and control inflation.
Powell said the Fed would “proceed carefully” but he hinted at the possibility of an interest rate cut, appearing to indicate greater concern for flagging employment growth than rising prices.
The policy shift may align the Fed with Trump’s desire for lower interest rates, though the central bank is expected to opt for a modest quarter-point reduction rather than the larger cut Trump has sought.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a 12-member body responsible for setting interest rates, is made up of the seven members of the Fed board as well as a rotating set of five Federal Reserve bank presidents.
In February, the members of the Fed board will oversee the appointment of presidents of the Federal Reserve banks, meaning a potential Trump-appointed majority on the board could aim to install allies.
(LEWISTON, Maine) — One of Maine’s largest abortion care providers said it will have to dramatically cut services after a federal judge ruled earlier this week that the Trump administration is not required to restore Medicaid funding.
Under H.R.1 — the mega-bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last month — family planning and abortion providers are not allowed to collect Medicaid funding if they received at least $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in 2023.
The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) sued the Trump administration on behalf of Maine Family Planning — the largest network of sexual and reproductive health care clinics in the state — arguing that the provision violates the Equal Protection clause under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
However, Judge Lance Walker ruled that because Roe v. Wade was overruled in June 2022, ending the constitutional right to abortion, Congress can “withhold federal funds and otherwise disassociate from conduct that is not enshrined.”
Medicaid funds are not used to cover abortion costs in most circumstances, but they are used to pay for other health care costs. George Hill, president and CEO of Maine Family Planning, said the network will have to cut services or drastically reduce the number of patients they can see.
“Right now, we’re not accepting new Medicaid-insured patients for primary care,” he told ABC News. “We are going to have to stop providing primary care to Medicaid enrolled patients, probably by the end of September.”
Hill said Maine Family Planning is not billing Medicaid for current Medicaid patients, but added that continuing to do so is likely not a sustainable option.
“It’s costing us, in lost revenue, about $165,000 a month,” Hill said. “That clearly is unsustainable. We’re spending a good deal of time getting the word out about the quality of the care that we provide, why it’s necessary in the areas that we provide, to a wide range of private donors. But … it’s not sustainable over the long term.”
Maine Family Planning has been receiving about $1.9 million a year in reimbursements, which makes up about 20% of its budget, Olivia Pennington, director of advocacy and community engagement at Maine Family Planning, told ABC News.
Pennington said the provision in the mega-bill was intended to prevent federal dollars from reaching Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the U.S., but the Maine agency appeared to be caught in the crosshairs.
“We knew there was a chance we were going to get caught up in this attempt to defund Planned Parenthood,” she told ABC News. “We weren’t sure exactly what that was going to look like, but July 4, when that bill was signed, we were acutely aware that, as of that day, we had to stop billing MaineCare, which is what we call Medicaid here in the state of Maine.”
Pennington said that although Maine Family Planning does provide abortion care, the clinics also provide contraceptive care, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and HIV testing and prevention.
Maine Family Planning can also refer patients to other services, such as care for HIV treatments, Pennington said.
Additionally, at three of Maine Family Planning’s 18 brick-and-mortar clinics — mainly in rural and unserved areas — staff provide primary care. The agency also has a mobile medical unit for those who can’t make it to a physical location.
Pennington said the clinics are in areas with no public transit infrastructure and that the next closest clinic for patients may be as far as three hours away.
“There’s a lack of access to primary care in those areas,” she said. “For most of our patients, we know that we are the first and only health care provider they see in a year.”
Pennington added that half of all patients not receiving abortion care at Maine Family Planning are covered by Medicaid. Currently, the clinics are seeing those patients free of charge.
However, she is worried that not having Medicaid funding restored will result in a domino effect that could harm all patients, including those not on Medicaid.
“If MaineCare patients can no longer receive services at their local Maine Family Planning, other providers are going to be forced to absorb those patients,” Pennington said. “And because there’s already such a shortage of family planning and reproductive health care providers in the state, it will become much harder for everyone in the state to get health care.”
She went on, “We are continuing to see these patients free of charge because we believe that they deserve access to high-quality health care, but that’s not a sustainable option.”
Astrid Ackerman, staff attorney at CRR, told ABC News the team is prepared to explore every legal avenue to restore Medicaid funding for Maine Family Planning. She said the decision by the court this week is putting the health care of “thousands” of people in Maine in jeopardy.
“What is really happening is that it’s a way for the Trump administration to punish and go after abortion providers,” Ackerman said. “Medicaid funding has not … covered abortion, besides just some very limited exceptions, for decades — like they cannot use Medicaid funding for abortion generally.”
“So then the Trump administration, what they’re doing is trying to say, ‘Look, you are providing abortions. I know that I’m not giving you federal funding for abortions, but nonetheless, I’m going to punish you for providing abortion.’ Again, in a state [like Maine] where abortion is protected,” she added.
ABC News reached out to the HHS asking for a request for comment.
Police are searching for three male suspects in the fatal shooting of a 69-year-old with a walker in Harlem, New York, on Aug. 27, 2025. WABC
(NEW YORK) — Police are searching for three male suspects in the fatal shooting of a 69-year-old with a walker in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, according to the New York Police Department.
Robin Wright, 69, was shot in the face once by an unidentified person, the NYPD said.
Police responded to the report of a person shot in the vicinity of East 110 Street and Madison Avenue on Wednesday afternoon, according to police.
Wright was found with a gunshot to the face and was transported to Mount Sinai Morningside in critical condition, where she was later pronounced dead, authorities said.
Police have not made any arrests in the shooting and have not released any further description of the suspects, police said.
Police told WABC that a man who had just been mugged by two other men chased after them and started shooting. One of those bullets struck the victim, who never saw it coming, officials said.
The investigation into the shooting is ongoing, according to police.
