(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 919,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 64.4% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Feb 14, 8:00 am
Prince Charles’ wife Camilla tests positive
Prince Charles’ wife, Camilla, has tested positive for COVID-19 less than one week after her husband tested positive for the virus.
Clarence House said she is self-isolating.
Feb 14, 7:37 am
Walmart drops mask requirement for vaccinated workers
Walmart employees in the U.S. who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will no longer be required to wear masks.
“Unvaccinated associates will be required to continue wearing masks until further notice,” company officials said in a memo obtained by ABC News.
Friday’s policy update was effective immediately for most employees, aside from those working in regions where state or local rules require retail staff to wear masks, the memo said. Associates working in clinical settings or with patients will also still be required to wear masks.
“We will continue to monitor the situation and advise of any changes,” the memo said.
The company, the largest private retail employer in the U.S., will also end its COVID-19 emergency leave policy for most employees at the end of March, the memo said.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — As the first in-person voters of the 2022 election cycle head to the polls on Monday, not only is this year’s early voting period expected to set the political tone for candidates ahead of the March 1 primary election, it will also put a renewed spotlight on Senate Bill 1, the state’s recently revised election law.
The law officially went into effect in December following nearly a year of debates in the Texas legislature over its possible impact on voting rights. Some of the most contentious floor debates were rooted in state Democrats’ claims that the law would limit voters’ ballot access through complicated voter identification requirements. Democratic lawmakers and voting rights advocates also took aim at the expanded access poll watchers would have within polling places under the new law.
New regulations surrounding voter identification appeared to create immediate ripple effects in election administration as early as January. In some of the state’s biggest counties, like Harris and Tarrant counties, hundreds of Texans eligible to vote by mail initially saw their mail ballot applications rejected due to the heightened proof of identity requirements.
Some counties had trouble matching original voter registration records to the information provided by voters on their mail ballot applications and, in some cases, voters appeared to have their applications rejected because they failed to include all of the newly required information.
In the middle of January, Harris County — which includes Houston — reported up to 30% of its mail-in ballots being rejected or flagged for rejection. The county is obligated to tell voters if their ballot was rejected, giving them a chance to fix it, which is bringing the numbers down. Now, Harris County is reporting to ABC News it is seeing a 13.45% rejection rate due to the new law.
Other counties are also reporting rejected ballots. Travis County — which includes Austin — told ABC News it is seeing a 7% rejection rate. Tarrant County — which includes Fort Worth — is reporting to ABC News an 8% rejection rate of its mail-in ballots.
“Every time there’s changes in the law, whether it’s ID requirements, new requirements for mail-in ballots, it takes some time for voters to get used to,” Texas’ Assistant Secretary of State for Communications Sam Taylor told ABC News in January.
Critics of the new law are also bracing for another potential change with the start of early, in-person voting — the possible effects poll watchers could have on voters, especially voters of color.
According to the Texas Poll Watcher’s Guide, which is issued by the secretary of state’s office, a poll watcher is a person appointed to observe the conduct of an election on behalf of a candidate, a political party, or the proponents or opponents of a measure. Poll watchers must first successfully complete a training course administered by the state and are limited in where they can serve. Although there are some limitations to who can serve as a poll watcher, partisans associated with campaigns or political parties are not exempt.
Under SB 1, poll watchers are given broad access to observe activities within polling places, as well as any instances of curbside voting, and situations in which a voter could be getting help with casting their ballot. According to the Texas election code, watchers are also “entitled to sit or stand near enough to a member of a counting team who is announcing the votes to verify that the ballots are read correctly.”
SB 1 stipulates that watchers are supposed to observe the happenings inside a polling place “without obstructing the conduct of an election,” and an election administrator can call for a law enforcement official to remove a poll watcher if that watcher “commits a breach of the peace or a violation of law.”
But the presence of people within polling places whose roles do not involve assisting voters could cause confusion, or even dissuade first-time voters from casting their ballots, according to Cesar Espinoza, executive director of the immigrant-led civil rights organization Fiel Houston.
“One thing is what you say on paper, but the other thing is what your actions portray or what your demeanor is — who really is going to be out there monitoring these people?” he said.
“Even if everything is done, right…we feel this is a waste of resources. This is a waste of people power. We should be all working to make more people want to go vote instead of trying to police those people who are already showing up to vote,” Espinoza added.
Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said empowering poll watchers through the new law could lead to a heightened partisan environment, putting voters of color on alert about interactions with poll watchers when voting in person.
“The push on empowering poll watchers, while increasing regulations around voting, have raised questions about voter intimidation, particularly from people of color, and in Texas – [voters] historically have an experience of voter intimidation during the period of Jim Crow – and… beyond that, during the period in which voting rights were not uniformly extended, particularly to African Americans, to Black voters and to Mexican American voters,” Henson said.
Although election administrators like Travis County Administrator Rebecca Guerreo tell ABC News they welcome trained poll watchers to be a part of the election process, despite concerns that some individuals “may be overzealous and overstep their authority,” voters could feel differently.
“Historical context is pretty clear, and I think historically, context is pretty hard to ignore for a lot of voters, and again, particularly voters that are people of color,” Henson said.
(WASHINGTON) — The very career experience that makes Supreme Court candidate Judge J. Michelle Childs attractive to both Democrats and Republicans may now be complicating her potential nomination, as some labor and progressive groups warn the White House that her appointment would break President Joe Biden’s promise to be “the most pro-union president” in history.
Childs, backed by influential South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn and the only candidate named by the White House as in the running to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, spent eight years practicing labor and employment law at a prestigious South Carolina firm, Nexsen Pruet. Some of her clients included employers accused of race and gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace.
“Her record shows that she wins for employers, and I think that’s problematic in this moment,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, billed as the nation’s largest grassroots-funded progressive group allied with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
“If we have any doubt about where [the nominee] stands on labor rights or the power of corporations verses labor in our economy right now, we should not put them forward and we would actively oppose them,” he said.
The firm’s website claims “one of the largest and most experienced” labor and employment law practices in the Carolinas, touting “litigation skills to aggressively pursue any matter through trial when it is in the best interests of the employers we represent.”
Earlier this month, a top lawyer for the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union with roughly 700,000 members, publicly called Child’s former employer an “anti-union law firm,” adding “that’s not what we need.”
While Childs did help defend corporate clients, she also represented employees in claims of mistreatment by their employers, her former Nexsen Pruet colleagues told ABC News. Several described her has a fair-minded and well-respected litigator. In 2000, she was named a partner at the firm — the first Black woman to become partner at a South Carolina law firm in a legal industry long dominated by white men.
“I would not characterize her work as anti-union or anti-employee,” said Nexsen Pruet managing partner Leighton Lord, who joined the firm a year after Childs and worked alongside her for many years.
“She worked on a dozen or so employee matters,” Lord said, referencing her work on behalf of employees suing their corporate employers. “Of the lawyers that came up in our firm, she’s probably one of the ones that worked more on the employee side than any of our other employment lawyers. So she’s very balanced in how she practiced in the private sector.”
Childs participated in 25 employment cases — in 23 of them defending an employer accused of alleged discrimination on the basis of race or sex, according to the American Prospect, a liberal publication which reviewed state court records during her tenure.
In one case, in the late 1990s, Childs represented a beachwear retailer sued by two former employees for alleged near-daily sexual assault at work. A federal jury sided with the plaintiffs, awarding compensatory and punitive damages, a decision upheld on appeal.
Her former colleagues say that court records do not reflect the many instances in which Childs achieved settlements for employees against their employers outside of court. Lord noted a 1999 case in which Childs represented a Mack Truck worker alleging wrongful termination, and she secured a “great” settlement without going to trial.
While some critics have accused Childs of working against unionization drives, Nexsen Pruet says it has never conducted any such campaigns and only has a single lawyer on staff specializing in union issues — one who joined four years after Childs left the firm.
“Diversity is more than just race and gender, it’s experience,” Lord said. “Her time at Nexsen Pruet gave her private practice experience representing employees, representing companies — it gave her a unique understanding of how the practice of law actually works.”
Childs has won the endorsement of some labor groups, including the South Carolina chapter of the AFL-CIO, whose president, Charles Brave, Jr., said in a letter to Biden earlier this month that Childs would “represent all of us well.”
After leaving Nexsen Pruet in 2000, Childs went on to oversee workplace safety regulations as an appointed deputy director at the state Department of Labor. From 2002 to 2006, she served as a workers’ comp judge on a state commission adjudicating benefits for injured or disabled employees.
“Everybody feels heard when they come into the doors of her courtroom,” said Meliah Bowers Jefferson, a former clerk for Childs on the federal bench.
Geevarhese said other candidates on Biden’s short list, including U.S. Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, do not raise the same level of concern as Childs. He stopped short of endorsing a particular nominee.
“If Sen. Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.] is vouching for Michelle Childs, it should give Democrats pause,” he said.
Graham said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that he believes Childs would “get the most Republican votes” of any candidate on Biden’s short list. “She would be somebody, I think, that could bring the Senate together and probably get more than 60 votes,” he said.
The White House has not directly responded to the criticism of Childs but made clear she is still under consideration. The president “is actively seeking the recommendations of members of both parties as he prepares to make an historic choice and fulfill one of the most important duties of the presidency,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates.
Jefferson, who remains close with Childs, said the judge is likely unfazed by the controversy.
“While she may have been known at the beginning of her career as someone who had this expertise in employment law, certainly while she was on the state court bench the breadth of her experience expanded,” Jefferson said. “Her approach in every case, at least from my perspective, was that it is decided on its own merits.”
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the United States and its allies will respond “swiftly and decisively” to any further aggression by Russia against Ukraine, according to a White House readout of a phone call between the two leaders.
The Sunday morning call took place as U.S. officials continue to warn that an attack from Russia could come “any day now” and urge all Americans still in Ukraine to leave the country.
“President Biden made clear that the United States would respond swiftly and decisively, together with its allies and partners, to any further Russian aggression against Ukraine,” the White House said of the call. “The two leaders agreed on the importance of continuing to pursue diplomacy and deterrence in response to Russia’s military build-up on Ukraine’s borders.”
In a tweet Sunday following the call, Zelensky said he and Biden discussed “security, economy, existing risks, sanctions and Russian aggression.”
The conversation with the Ukrainian president comes one day after Biden spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where Biden similarly warned that should Russia take action against Ukraine, the U.S., along with its allies, “will respond decisively and impose swift and severe costs on Russia.”
According to a White House official, the call between Biden and Zelensky, who last spoke at the end of January, lasted 51 minutes, a shorter call than Biden’s discussion with Putin on Saturday, which lasted just over an hour.
A senior administration official, speaking with reporters following the Saturday call with Putin, said the tone was “professional and substantive,” however, “there was no fundamental change in the dynamic that has been unfolding now for several weeks.”
Since Friday, the Biden administration has ramped up its warnings about a possible Russian attack on Ukraine — which they say could happen as soon as this week.
“We have seen, over the course of the past 10 days, dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces and the disposition of those forces in such a way that they could launch a military action essentially at any time,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on CBS on Sunday. “They could do so this coming week.”
Despite the warnings, Zelensky has continued to call for calm in the country and seemed to express frustration with the dire tone.
“The best friend of our enemy is panic in our country, and all that information which helps create only panic doesn’t help us,” Zelensky said Saturday.
(WASHINGTON) — Rudy Giuliani is in active discussions regarding testifying before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and potentially responding to some of the committee’s questions, sources familiar with the matter confirm to ABC News.
The extent of the cooperation remains to be seen and no deal is anywhere near final, the sources said. Sources have told ABC News that the negotiations could easily dissolve.
Giuliani was subpoenaed by the committee last month to appear for an interview last week.
“Mr. Giuliani’s appearance was rescheduled at his request,” a committee aide told ABC News on Sunday. “He remains under subpoena and the select committee expects him to cooperate fully.”
Committee investigators and Giuliani’s representation are expected to connect again in the coming days over Giuliani’s potential cooperation. It’s unlikely that Giuliani would agree to testify about or share records regarding his direct communications with former President Donald Trump, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Giuliani is still very close to Trump, having spent some time with the 45th president just last week in Florida, and was planning to watch the Super Bowl Sunday evening with Trump and other guests, a source told ABC News.
The former New York City mayor was on the front lines of Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election, working with allies Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, and a small team that filed numerous lawsuits and tried to assemble a slate of fake electors — all of which failed.
Should he testify, Giuliani would arguably be one of the closest to Trump’s efforts to undo the election results to meet with the committee.
News of Giuliani’s possible cooperation with the committee was first reported by the New York Times.
Trump has maintained that the committee’s efforts are a partisan witch hunt, and several top Trump allies have refused to cooperate with the probe.
Ex-White House strategist Steve Bannon was indicted on two federal counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the committee. A trial has tentatively been set for July.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reversed course after originally cooperating with the panel, leading the full House to hold him in criminal contempt. A referral to the Justice Department has yet to be acted upon.
An attorney for Giuliani did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Congress should be sending a stronger signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin as fears of an imminent invasion of Ukraine persist.
On “This Week,” anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Graham on Sunday whether he is convinced Putin will invade the neighboring Baltic state.
“No, I’m not, but I’m convinced that we could do more in Congress and should,” Graham answered.
The Senate’s prospects of passing a sweeping bipartisan sanctions bill have stalled, and Graham said the White House “keeps pushing back” against pre- and post-invasion sanctions being considered by Congress.
Stephanopoulos followed up: “You’re saying the president is pushing back against, but you also have some pushback from your Republican colleagues in the Senate?”
“Yeah, but not in a real, meaningful way. There’s 70 votes in the body for invasion sanctions, pre-invasion sanctions with a waiver, post-invasion sanctions,” Graham responded. “So, the problem has been secondary sanctions. It’s not just enough to sanction a Russian bank. You want to sanction anybody that does business with that bank.”
On Saturday, President Joe Biden spoke with Putin for a little more than an hour from Camp David, pledging to “impose swift and severe costs” if Russian forces invade Ukraine.
Graham said the U.S.-Russia relationship “would be forever changed,” possibly harming the diplomatic process for decades to come, if Putin launched an invasion.
“This is not the last president America will have. If Russia invades the Ukraine, you will destroy the U.S.-Russia relationship for decades and every president in the near-term will be put in a box when it comes to dealing with Russia, so I hope Putin understands that,” Graham said.
When asked about whether the Biden administration’s release of intelligence on a possible false flag operation has been effective in deterring a military advance into Ukraine, Graham said the U.S. government should be doing more.
“I don’t want to ring alarm bell as much as take action. They’re telling us the invasion is imminent. But they’re not telling Putin with clarity what happens if you invade,” Graham added. “He should be punished now.”
Recently, the South Carolina senator came under fire by the former President Donald Trump after disagreeing with Trump suggesting he would pardon Jan. 6 rioters if reelected to office. Trump even called Graham a “RINO,” a Republican in name only, during an interview with NewsMax.
Stephanopoulos pressed: “So where do things stand with you and President Trump right now? Do you support his comeback in 2024?”
“If he wants to be the Republican nominee for the Republican Party, it’s his for the taking,” Graham responded. “Donald Trump is the most consequential Republican in the Republican Party today. He has a great chance of being president again in 2024.”
Despite some Republicans still casting doubt on the legitimate results of the last presidential election, Graham said “the 2020 election is over for me” and that he’s not “contesting” the results.
The key GOP senator gave advice to the former president as well, suggesting that “if he looks backward, I think he’s hurting his chances.”
Given Trump’s fractured relationship with longtime Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, Stephanopoulos asked Graham: “If (Republicans) take the Senate back, will you vote for Mitch McConnell as Senate Republican leader? In the past, you have said that he’s got to fix his relationship with President Trump if he’s going to earn your vote.”
“Yes, I think any Republican leader in the House or the Senate has to have a working relationship with President Trump, because most Republicans like President Trump’s policies,” Graham said. “And so Mitch McConnell, if he runs, or anyone else, I think, would have to show a working relationship with the president.”
U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs, who sits on the federal court in South Carolina, is reported to be one of Biden’s top contenders to replace Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who recently announced his retirement.
Graham, a fellow South Carolinian, has previously voiced his support for Childs to become Biden’s nominee.
Stephanopoulos asked: “Is Judge Michelle Childs of South Carolina the only Biden nominee you could support?”
“I think she’s the one that would get the most Republican votes. I would be very inclined to support her because of her background,” Graham said. “She didn’t go to Harvard or Yale, which I think is a plus. She went to the University of South Carolina. But we’ll wait and see what President Biden does.”
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a stark warning for Russian President Vladimir Putin as the Russian military buildup near the Ukraine region showed no signs of slowing on Sunday.
“The fact is that we think that an assault on Ukraine is an assault on democracy,” Pelosi told George Stephanopoulos during an exclusive interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “We understand that the loss of life, the damage, the collateral damage to civilians, to military and the rest are severe.”
“If he decides to invade, the mothers in Russia don’t like their children going into what he’s had to experience that — forgive the expression — bodybags from the moms before, so he has to know that war is not an answer. There’s very severe consequences to his aggression, and we are united in using them.”
Pelosi said the U.S. has to be prepared for any potential invasion, and she believes sanctions have acted as a deterrent thus far.
“If we were not threatening the sanctions and the rest, it would guarantee that Putin would invade. Let’s hope that diplomacy works. It’s about diplomacy, deterrence. Diplomacy, deterrence,” Pelosi said.
“And the president’s made it very clear: There’s a big price to pay for Russia to go there. So if Russia doesn’t invade, it’s not that he never intended to, it’s just that the sanctions worked,” Pelosi said.
“I’m very proud of what the president has done. The unity of our allies and NATO to come to an agreement as to the severity of the sanctions is very, very important. And that is, that is something that Putin should pay very close attention to,” Pelosi added.
Pelosi noted that while President Joe Biden has the authority to issue sanctions by executive order, “it would be better” if Congress did so through legislation.
The Senate has been negotiating a Russia sanctions bill, but as of last week, lawmakers concluded that they had hit an “impasse” in their talks. Senators have said they will continue to negotiate while also considering “other” options.
On the domestic front, Pelosi defended passing historically massive spending bills to address the coronavirus and infrastructure, which some say has contributed to rising costs across the U.S.
She noted that legislation the House passed recently to better compete with China, as well as the long-stalled Build Back Better Act, would help with supply chain issues and improve the economy in the long run.
“The fact that people have jobs always contributes to increase in inflation. And that’s a good thing. But inflation is not a good [thing],” Pelosi said.
“There has to be a cumulative effect, a cumulative effect and part of the consequences of all of that investment in the infrastructure bill the rest, is that more people have jobs and and, therefore, inflation goes up,” Pelosi said.
“The BBB is a deficit reduction bill,” Pelosi added. “The [Joint Committee on Taxation] says that BBB will reduce the national debt by $100 billion in the first 10 years and a trillion dollars in the second 10 years.”
She urged Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia to understand Congress’ role in addressing inflation as opposed to contributing to it, which he claims passing the BBB will do.
“It’s very important for us to address it. We must bring it down and but is not. It’s not right — with all the respect in the world to my friend Joe Manchin — it’s not right to say that what we’re doing is contributing to inflation because it is exactly the opposite,” Pelosi said.
Stephanopoulos also pressed Pelosi on the rate of rising crime in America and noted the differing opinions among some members of Congress as to how to address the issue. Some have called for an increase in the police force, while other members, such as Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, have supported the “defund the police” movement.
“Well, with all the respect in the world for Cori Bush, that is not the position of the Democratic Party,” Pelosi said of the “defund the police” movement, which calls for a reallocation of money from police forces to local community organizations and non-policing forms of public safety.
“Community safety, to protect and defend in every way, is our oath of office,” Pelosi said. She pointed to the “The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021” as an answer to rising crime. The legislation is a human rights and police reform bill drafted by Democrats. The legislation aims to combat police misconduct, excessive force and racial bias in policing. The House approved the measure in 2020 following Floyd’s murder, but it is stalled in the Senate.
Stephanopoulos also pointed to Biden’s low approval rating as Democrats gear up for the upcoming midterm election this November. He asked Pelosi if she is concerned about losing the majority given the high number of Democrats who have already announced they are not running for re-election.
“I don’t agonize. I organize,” Pelosi countered. “We fully intend to win this election. Nothing less is at stake.”
“Forget history,” Pelosi said to Stephanopoulos when he pointed to historical election results during a midterm year. “We’re talking about the future….We have every intention every single day to do everything in our power. We have decided to win and that’s what we will do.”
Asked by Stephanopoulos if she intends to run for speaker again, Pelosi quipped: “That’s not a question. My purpose right now is just to win that election. Win that election, nothing less is at stake than our democracy.”
(NEW YORK) — Walk into a Lamborghini dealership and brace yourself for the bad news.
The wait time for the new Huracan STO supercar, a track weapon with a conspicuous carbon-fiber wing, air ducts and shark fin, is at least a year. Same goes for the Italian marque’s brawny Urus sport utility vehicle. The Aventador LP 780-4 Ultimae, the automaker’s last supercar with a naturally aspirated V-12 engine, sold out instantly when it was revealed last July.
Lamborghini, Cadillac, Porsche and Mercedes are building some of their best sports cars before hybrid powertrains and electric power rule the road. Industry watchers say consumers are racing to buy performance cars with mighty V-8, V-10 and V-12 engines for one reason: a boycott of electrification.
“After 130 years of internal combustion engines, these companies have to write one last love letter to the industry, to their fans, and go out with a bang,” Tyson Jominy, vice president of data and analytics at J.D. Power, told ABC News. “Battery cars cannot replicate the sound, vibration and feeling of an ICE sports car.”
Cadillac, the luxury brand of General Motors, will exclusively make electric cars by 2030, with the futuristic Lyriq crossover SUV the first to go on sale in spring of 2022. Before that happens, Cadillac has offered performance fans one final hurrah: the street predators CT4-V Blackwing (472 horsepower) and CT5-V Blackwing (668 hp), two sport sedans with boosted V-6 and V-8 engines that provide a visceral and exhilarating experience behind the wheel.
“The reception has been so incredible, beyond what I would have expected,” Tony Roma, Cadillac’s chief engineer, told ABC News. “It’s a testament to how good these cars are. Not that many cars reward the driving experience.”
These cars mark an end to an era for Cadillac, Roma said, adding that neither he nor his team realized their significance until halfway through the development process.
“The Blackwings are a swan song to the internal combustion engine and the V-8,” he said. “The pressure was weighing on us. Clearly these cars were designed for the ultimate enthusiast. We obsessed about lap times and metrics.”
He added, “But performance is not going away with EVs.”
Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars.com, said enthusiasts are frantically buying ICE sports cars — even used ones — before they’re gone. The extensive wait times for new Porsches and Lamborghinis in addition to the absurd markup on car prices send a signal to automakers that electrification has its drawbacks, he argued.
“There are two opposing forces — the die-hard enthusiasts, which are a small fraction of the market — and government,” Brauer told ABC News. “Usually enthusiasts lose.”
He pointed to Ferrari’s 458 Speciale, a mid-engine sports car with a naturally aspirated V-8 powerplant that was produced from 2010 to 2015.
“That car had no electrification and everyone wants one now,” he said. “It represented the last generation of traditional Ferrari engineering.”
Brauer said he’s closely watching to see if any sports car makers hold out on electrification.
“I don’t see it as an asset. Electrification is not fully evolved yet,” he argued. “I genuinely believe there is a number of enthusiasts who are starting to panic about EVs.”
Andrea Baldi, CEO of Lamborghini America, conceded that owners are still clamoring for gas-powered thrills.
“There is still a huge appetite for internal combustion engines,” Baldi told ABC News. “Today there is no question — everyone prefers them. This is what they consider the purest expression of a super sports car.”
The STO, the newest addition to the Huracan family, sprints from 0-62 mph in 3 seconds and bellows when the driver stands on the accelerator. The hardcore supercar’s naturally aspirated V-10 engine produces 630 horses and will likely be the last from Lamborghini; a plug-in hybrid successor arrives in 2024.
The next generation of the Aventador, Lamborghini’s flagship model with a ferocious V-12, will come with a cord for charging an electric battery in 2023. A fully-electric Lamborghini launches in the second half of the decade.
Baldi, however, said the storied automaker is not abandoning its legendary V-10 and V-12 engines. But the company has realized that it cannot continue producing gas-guzzling sports cars in an era of increasing regulation.
“What we will see in the Huracan and Aventador successors will be dramatically disruptive,” Baldi said. “The V-10 and V-12 engines will reach full their potential soon.”
German automaker Mercedes-Benz will go all-electric by 2030, with a battery-powered option for every vehicle by 2025. Until then, Philipp Schiemer, CEO of Mercedes-AMG, said the company will offer more V-8 sports cars like the completely redesigned AMG SL roadster, which replaces the GT AMG coupe.
“There are still three years to go and there are some more interesting projects yet to come,” he told ABC News. “There is a persistently high demand for our V8 models. I’m pretty sure we will see, feel and drive the V-8 still for a while.”
The seventh generation SL, an automotive icon since its launch in 1954, got modern updates like all-wheel-drive and a power-folding fabric top in this iteration. Two potent engine configurations are also available: a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 with 480 hp in the SL 55 or 560 hp in the SL 63. A plug-in hybrid SL arrives next year.
“Mercedes-AMG is right in its transition phase and well prepared for a pure electric future,” Schiemer said. “The V-8 is not dead. It will survive also in combination with our E Performance hybrid technology.”
Porsche’s nimble 718 Cayman and Boxster mid-engine sports cars are going electric by 2025, according to a report from Car and Driver. That may explain the massive demand for the 2023 Cayman GT4 RS, a naturally aspirated, 493 hp road rocket with a 9,000 RPM redline. Even longtime Porsche owners can’t get an allocation for one. A Porsche spokesperson would not confirm the 718 report, telling ABC News: “As a matter of policy we are not able to comment on speculation about future products.”
Ralph Gilles, chief design officer at Stellantis and a serious enthusiast, has pledged that Dodge’s Charger and Challenger muscle cars will still appeal to fanatics when they go electric. Dodge is preparing to launch an electric muscle car by 2024, according to CEO Tim Kuniskis, with production of the revered supercharged Hellcat V-8 engine ending next year.
“We are pretty confident that we have several good solutions that will be an alternative visceral stimulus. We’re going to thrill in a different way,” Gilles told ABC News.
Brauer is skeptical; Hellcat muscle cars “selling like crazy” and collectors are “scrambling” to get one, he said. Jominy, however, disagrees.
“The muscle car segment is shrinking rapidly. An electrified powertrain brings it relevance,” he said.
Cadillac’s Roma acknowledged that building performance EVs are more challenging and engineers are struggling with the nascent technology.
“Can you cool the battery, can you make the car light enough? All that becomes more difficult,” he said. “There is no defined recipe for an EV performance car.”
Enthusiasts will have to accept that internal combustion engines are not going to make a comeback, Jominy explained.
“The train is not stopping. Electrifying cars is the way to go in terms of performance — not just for emissions,” he said.
There is a silver lining, though: this recent crop of sports cars will at least satiate the desires and wants of performance die-hards and muscle car fans.
“Automakers are going out with their best-ever engines. These will be some of the most-sought after vehicles,” Jominy said.
(NEW YORK) — A Charlotte, North Carolina, city bus driver has died after being shot while at the wheel and on his route with passengers aboard in what police are investigating as a possible road rage incident, authorities said.
Ethan Rivera, 41, a driver for the Charlotte Area Transit System, died at a hospital Saturday night, a day after being shot while operating a bus in a busy area of uptown Charlotte, police said.
No arrests have been announced as of Sunday as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police homicide detectives combed through surveillance video and urged witnesses to come forward with information that could help identify the shooter.
Rivera was on his route about 9:30 p.m. Friday when he was shot while stopped at a red light, authorities said. Police sources told ABC affiliate WSOC-TV in Charlotte that investigators are looking into whether the shooting is linked to a road-rage altercation with a motorist.
Police officers found the bus veered off the road with the mortally wounded driver still in his seat.
Four passengers aboard the bus were not injured, police said.
Rivera’s co-workers told WSOC that the shooting has left them upset and fearful for their own lives.
“We worry every day. We worry and we pray that we make it home the same way we made it to work,” said one driver, who asked not to be identified.
Another city driver said of Rivera, “He was a good co-worker. I think he’s been in Charlotte less than two years, but every time you saw him, he was always smiling. Always smiling.”
The shooting came just two days after a school bus operator in Minneapolis was shot in the head while driving home three children. None of the children were injured and the driver is expected to survive, police said.
No arrests have been made in the Minneapolis shooting and police are investigating whether the driver was targeted or struck by a stray bullet, authorities said.
(TEHRAN, Iran) — As nuclear talks enter what U.S. officials have described as the “final moment,” Iran struck a defiant tone Friday, marking the 43rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution that brought to power its hardline government.
In the streets of Tehran, thousands celebrated in convoys of cars and motorbikes because of COVID-19 restrictions — waving flags, honking horns, and displaying “Down with U.S.A.” signs.
But elsewhere across the capital, a weary Iranian public suffering under years of tight U.S. sanctions and economic mismanagement are eager for relief, especially from sky-high inflation, which now exceeds 40%.
Whether they’ll see a significant reprieve soon depends on the diplomatic efforts underway in Austria, where the U.S. and Iran are negotiating through proxies in an attempt to resuscitate a President Barack Obama-era nuclear deal.
At its core, the 2015 agreement saw the U.S. and international community lift certain sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program — a swap that was disrupted by former President Donald Trump when he exited the deal and reimposed crushing U.S. sanctions in 2018 — an attempt to strengthen his hand in negotiations.
But in response, Iran has since then escalated its nuclear program, enriching enough uranium at high-enough levels that U.S. officials say they are just “weeks” away from having enough for a nuclear bomb.
One week ago, President Joe Biden’s administration waived sanctions related to Iran’s civilian nuclear program, exempting foreign countries and companies that work with Tehran on nonproliferation projects from penalties.
The move is aimed at laying the groundwork for resuming U.S. compliance with the 2015 deal, but Iran’s foreign ministry called it “insufficient,” with its president dismissive of the ongoing talks in the Austrian capital.
“We put our hopes on the east, west, north, south of our country and never have any hope in Vienna and New York,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in a speech Friday.
Raisi’s speech was repeatedly interrupted by chants of “Death to America” — a familiar slogan that dates back to the 1979 revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed ruler and ushered in an Islamist government, led by a supreme leader known by the clerical title, ayatollah.
But for the thousands of Iranians joining the protests and burning flags, there are thousands more who lament the economic situation, desperate for relief.
“The high prices are really hurting us,” one woman out shopping with her mother told ABC News. She declined to identify herself.
“I’m not that much into politics. I like my country, but the only problem is that things are really expensive, and when we have problems, states people do not really solve them,” she said, adding that since Raisi was inaugurated in August, “Nothing has changed. Nothing has gotten better. Things are even getting worse after him.”
Omid Kalavi, a toymaker in Tehran, said inflation has meant more people come to him for repairs than to purchase new toys for their children.
“I’m not a politician, but as far as I know, people are those who suffer the most from the political games. I can’t say our government or the United States because of imposing sanctions — I don’t know exactly to be honest, but as far as I know, people are suffering from it most.”
Without a deal, that economic hardship will continue. A senior State Department official said the U.S. would “fortify our response” if it has to walk away from talks, “and that means more pressure — economic, diplomatic, and otherwise.”
The Biden administration’s efforts to negotiate a mutual return to the deal have not yielded results in 10 months of talks. When the two sides were making progress last June, the talks went on hiatus for Iran’s presidential elections.
Raisi’s government stalled for months before resuming negotiations in late November. After making hardline demands at the start of the new round of talks, they returned last month “in a serious, business-like negotiation,” the senior State Department official said.
But time is running out to reach a new agreement. U.S. Special Envoy to Iran Rob Malley and other senior administration officials briefed Capitol Hill Wednesday on Iran’s growing nuclear stockpile and the urgency of talks, which lawmakers described as “sobering” and “shocking.”
“Breakout time has gone from a year to a matter of weeks,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., echoing what Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other officials have said in recent weeks. Murphy added that “a deal is in sight, but there is significant gaps between the two sides that need to be closed.”
The senior State Department official declined to discuss how much distance remains between both sides, saying nothing was agreed until everything was agreed. But Iran has demanded some sort of guarantee that a future U.S. administration cannot again exit the deal — the kind of promise any American president can’t give — while also publicly calling for the U.S. to completely lift sanctions first.
On the other side, the U.S. has warned that Tehran’s nuclear stockpile must return to the deal’s levels — enriching uranium to 3.67% and with a stockpile of 300 kilograms for the first 15 years of the deal.
“If is not reached … in the coming weeks, Iran’s ongoing nuclear advances will make it impossible for us to return to the JCPOA,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday, using an acronym for the deal’s formal name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
But many critics say that point has already passed. Iran is spinning more advanced centrifuges and building more of them, enriching uranium metal, and enriching uranium up to 60% purity — a short technical step from weapons-grade, which is above 90%.
Some analysts say the scientific knowledge Iran has developed since the deal was scrapped will be impossible to eliminate.
“You cannot put the genie back into the bottle. Once you know how to do stuff, you know, and the only way to check this is through verification,” Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N. nuclear watchdog — told the Financial Times last year.
But restoring the deal is intended to allow for that verification, ensuring Iran does not use its program to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran has obstructed the IAEA’s work repeatedly in recent years. It has failed to account for uranium detected at three undeclared sites, and for a year now, it has barred the agency from reviewing data from surveillance equipment at Iran’s declared sites.
The obstruction, which also includes harassing some IAEA inspectors, “was seriously affecting the ability of the Agency to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program,” the IAEA reported in late November.
