(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump’s one-time personal attorney Rudy Giuliani won’t contest that he made “false” statements about two Georgia election workers in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
The mother-daughter tandem of Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss are suing Giuliani for defamation, follow remarks he made accusing the pair of fraudulently manipulating ballots on Election Day in Fulton County, Georgia.
In a court filing on Tuesday, Giuliani stated that he “does not contest the factual allegations” made by Freeman and Moss regarding his statements, but that his statements were “constitutionally protected.”
Giuliani said in the filing that he won’t contest their claim that he falsely accused the election workers of manipulating ballots, in order to “avoid unnecessary expenses in litigating what he believes to be unnecessary disputes.”
As a result of the concession, there’s no need for “any additional discovery or sanctions” in the case, Giuliani said in the filing.
“Mayor Rudy Giuliani did not acknowledge that the statements were false, but did not contest it in order to move on to the portion of the case that will permit a motion to dismiss,” Giuliani’s adviser, Ted Goodman, told ABC News in a statement.
“This is a legal issue, not a factual issue,” Goodman said. “Those out to smear the mayor are ignoring the fact that this stipulation is designed to get to the legal issues of the case.”
In the days after the election, Freeman and Moss became the subjects of a Trump-backed conspiracy theory that was later found to be “false and unsubstantiated,” according to an investigation by the Georgia Elections Board. Giuliani, in an appearance before a committee of the Georgia state legislature, told lawmakers that a video circulating online showed “Ruby Freeman and Shaye Freeman Moss … quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports, as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.”
Last year Freeman told ABC News’ Terry Moran that she subsequently received so much harassment from conspiracy theorists that for a time she was forced to leave the suburban Atlanta home where she had lived for 20 years. The pair gave similar testimony when they appeared before the House selection committee investigating the events of Jan. 6.
The investigation by the Georgia Elections Board cleared Moss and Freeman of all wrongdoing last month.
“This serves as further evidence that Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss — while doing their patriotic duty and serving their community — were simply collateral damage in a coordinated effort to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election,” the attorney representing Freeman and Moss said in a statement following the release of the elections board’s report.
(LONDON) — Actor Kevin Spacey was on Wednesday found not guilty in a London court of a series of sexual assaults against several accusers.
Twelve jurors at the Southwark Crown Court had begun deliberating at about noon on Monday following a three-week trial. Spacey, 64, had pleaded not guilty to 12 charges of sexual assault.
The jury cleared Spacey of nine charges. The additional charges had been struck down before the jury began its deliberations.
Prosecutors had sought during the trial to label Spacey as a “sexual bully,” and the actor took the stand to defend himself. Musician Elton John appeared as a witness for the defense, testifying remotely from Monaco about Spacey once attending a gala at his Windsor home.
Spacey had appeared in a London court in July 2022 to plead not guilty after Metropolitan Police formally charged him.
The Crown Prosecution Service announced five charges against Spacey in May 2022, accusing him of sexual assaults against three men and one charge of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent, prosecutors said. An additional seven charges were added in November 2022.
The Academy Award-winning actor has faced allegations and charges of sexual assault in both the United Kingdom and United States. He was found not liable in October in a civil sexual assault suit brought by fellow actor Anthony Rapp in New York City.
Spacey in May 2022 told ABC News’ Good Morning America that he would “voluntarily” appear in court in London.
“I very much appreciate the Crown Prosecution Service’s statement in which they carefully reminded the media and the public that I am entitled to a fair trial, and innocent until proven otherwise,” Spacey told GMA at the time. “While I am disappointed with their decision to move forward, I will voluntarily appear in the U.K. as soon as can be arranged and defend myself against these charges, which I am confident will prove my innocence.”
Several of the U.K. allegations from 2001 and 2013 stemmed from Spacey’s tenure as artistic director at The Old Vic, a London theater company. Allegations were made public in 2017, two years after Spacey had left his post.
“These allegations have been a shock and a disturbing surprise to many of us,” Matthew Warchus, who followed Spacey as artistic director, said in a statement issued at the time. “It is incorrect, unfair and irresponsible to say that everybody knew.”
(NEW YORK) — With Guatemalan authorities appearing to ramp up their interference in the country’s presidential election, including last week’s raids of the election tribunal offices and the anti-corruption candidate’s party offices, the U.S. is sending stronger signals to back off.
The top U.S. diplomat for the Western Hemisphere called Guatemala’s foreign minister on Tuesday to stress that the runoff should be allowed to take place “without interference or harassment of the candidates or political parties. Guatemalans have the right to elect their government,” Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols said on social media on Monday.
Guatemalan Foreign Minister Mario Búcaro confirmed the call took place, but spun the conversation as a “pleasure,” saying they had discussed the “positive role that the executive branch of Guatemala has played in guaranteeing the development of the electoral process.”
A Biden administration official confirmed to ABC News that the State Department will also host both runoff candidates — reform candidate Bernardo Arévalo and establishment candidate, former first lady Sandra Torres — in Washington.
“We routinely engage with candidates ahead of elections in support of democratic institutions and to deepen relations between the United States and other countries,” the official said.
The meetings are expected to send a growing message that the U.S. government is closely watching the situation and is invested in a free and fair election.
So is the rest of the region. The Organization of American States is meeting for a special session Wednesday, with briefings by the head of its election observation mission and the president of Guatemala’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal, who declared Arévalo and Torres the runoff candidates and had their offices raided last Thursday.
The concern here is only growing because of the increasingly authoritarian measures Guatemala’s ruling class has been taking to crack down on political opposition, free speech, and anti-corruption measures. Saturday, for example, also marks one year of detention for prominent investigative journalist José Rubén Zamora, who was sentenced to six years in prison last month on bogus charges.
At the National Press Club in Washington Wednesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Zamora’s son and a Guatemalan journalist in exile will mark his first year in prison and again raise concerns about “the erosion of democracy in the country and the region,” per a press release.
Look around the region, and that erosion is stark — in El Salvador and Honduras, whose governments are using severe anti-gang measures to violate human rights — and especially in Nicaragua, where dictator Daniel Ortega and his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo have sent tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Nicaraguans fleeing, including in record numbers to the U.S. southern border.
Arévalo’s Semilla Party stunned the South American nation with a second-place finish in the June elections, beating out other establishment candidates in a vote that international observers from the OAS and the European Union determined was spared of major inconsistencies.
But the election environment had long been tainted by Guatemalan authorities, with President Alejandro Giammattei’s government barring three top opposition candidates in the months before the vote — including the leading candidate.
That sparked strong statements of condemnation from the U.S., EU and others, but it also brought a wave of protest votes from Guatemalans. Nearly 25% of the ballots cast in that first round were either spoiled or marked “null” — hundreds of thousands showing they have zero faith left in the country’s political system.
But the rest of those protest votes went to Arévalo, who ran a campaign zeroed in on corruption after decades of rule by a small group of corrupt elites. The son of the first democratically elected Guatemalan president, Arévalo laid out detailed plans for reforms, including creating a national anti-corruption system.
Guatemala once had a similar anti-corruption court, backed by the U.N. and the U.S., but it was disbanded in 2019 by Giammattei’s predecessor, with critics saying the issue has only worsened since then.
Just last week, the U.S. sanctioned 10 Guatemalan officials, barring them from obtaining U.S. visas. The list includes several judges and prosecutors accused by the State Department of “authorizing politically motivated criminal charges against journalists for exercising their freedom of expression as protected by Guatemalan law,” including Zamora.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden is appearing in a Delaware courthouse Wednesday to formally agree to the plea deal he negotiated last month with federal prosecutors, in what could bring a close to the Justice Department’s yearslong probe into the younger Biden’s business affairs.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jul 26, 7:20 AM EDT
Hunter Biden’s legal team threatened with sanctions
Less than 24 hours before Hunter Biden was expected in federal court, the judge overseeing his case threatened his legal team with sanctions after she found that a staffer might have “misrepresented her identity” in communications with the court clerk.
The bizarre saga played out Tuesday on the court’s public docket, where Ted Kittila, an attorney for the GOP-led House Ways and Means Committee, shared Hunter Biden’s taxpayer information as part of an effort to intervene in the case.
Chris Clark, an attorney for Hunter Biden, asked Kittila to seal the information, and when Kittila refused, a member of the firm representing Hunter Biden reached out to the court seeking to have it removed from the docket.
Judge Maryellen Noreika wrote late Tuesday that, having “discussed the matter with the relevant individuals,” Jessica Bengels, an attorney with Clark’s firm, “represented that she worked with Mr. Kittila and requested the amicus materials be taken down.”
“It appears that the caller misrepresented her identity and who she worked for in an attempt to improperly convince the Clerk’s Office to remove the amicus materials from the docket,” Noreika wrote.
Noreika asked Hunter Biden’s legal team to explain why she should not level sanctions against them. In response, Matthew Salerno, an attorney for Biden, called it “an unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication,” dispelling Noreika’s suggestion that it might have been a nefarious ploy to have a docket entry suppressed.
“We have no idea how the misunderstanding occurred,” wrote Salerno. “But our understanding is there was no misrepresentation.”
Jul 26, 6:56 AM EDT
Republicans urge judge to block Hunter Biden plea deal
Republicans embarked on a long shot bid in the hours leading up to Hunter Biden’s expected arrival in court to press Judge Maryellen Noreika to consider denying his plea agreement until the court reviews testimony from a pair of IRS whistleblowers.
Those whistleblowers, according to an attorney for the GOP-led House Ways and Means Committee in court documents filed Tuesday, have said the younger Biden “appears to have benefitted from political interference which calls into question the propriety of the investigation.”
Experts said it would be exceedingly rare for the judge to deny a plea deal negotiated in good faith. But Theodore Kittila, the attorney for the House panel, wrote that the judge should “evaluate” the IRS whistleblowers’ remarks before ruling, claiming that “plea negotiations were tainted by improper conduct at various levels of government.”
The judge did not indicate whether she would consider Republicans’ arguments at Wednesday’s hearing.
Republican lawmakers have for weeks publicly decried Hunter Biden’s plea agreement as a “sweetheart deal” and called on the judge to either delay Wednesday’s hearing or reject it outright. Experts have told ABC News that both scenarios are unlikely.
Jul 26, 6:52 AM EDT
Judge will weigh Hunter Biden’s plea deal with DOJ
A federal judge will have the opportunity to either reject or accept the terms of the plea deal Hunter Biden struck with the Justice Department last month.
Judge Maryellen Noreika will preside over the younger Biden’s initial court appearance in the case, set to take place in a Delaware courtroom.
According to the plea agreement, Hunter Biden has agreed to acknowledge his failure to pay taxes on income he received in 2017 and 2018. In exchange, prosecutors will recommend probation, meaning he will likely avoid prison time.
He will also agree to a pretrial diversion on a separate gun charge, with the charge being dropped if he adheres to certain terms.
“I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life,” Christopher Clark, an attorney for Hunter Biden, said in a statement last month. “He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden is appearing in a Delaware courthouse Wednesday to formally agree to the plea deal he negotiated last month with federal prosecutors, in what could bring a close to the Justice Department’s yearslong probe into the younger Biden’s business affairs.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jul 26, 6:56 AM EDT
Republicans urge judge to block Hunter Biden plea deal
Republicans embarked on a long shot bid in the hours leading up to Hunter Biden’s expected arrival in court to press Judge Maryellen Noreika to consider denying his plea agreement until the court reviews testimony from a pair of IRS whistleblowers.
Those whistleblowers, according to an attorney for the GOP-led House Ways and Means Committee in court documents filed Tuesday, have said the younger Biden “appears to have benefitted from political interference which calls into question the propriety of the investigation.”
Experts said it would be exceedingly rare for the judge to deny a plea deal negotiated in good faith. But Theodore Kittila, the attorney for the House panel, wrote that the judge should “evaluate” the IRS whistleblowers’ remarks before ruling, claiming that “plea negotiations were tainted by improper conduct at various levels of government.”
The judge did not indicate whether she would consider Republicans’ arguments at Wednesday’s hearing.
Republican lawmakers have for weeks publicly decried Hunter Biden’s plea agreement as a “sweetheart deal” and called on the judge to either delay Wednesday’s hearing or reject it outright. Experts have told ABC News that both scenarios are unlikely.
Jul 26, 6:52 AM EDT
Judge will weigh Hunter Biden’s plea deal with DOJ
A federal judge will have the opportunity to either reject or accept the terms of the plea deal Hunter Biden struck with the Justice Department last month.
Judge Maryellen Norieka will preside over the younger Biden’s initial court appearance in the case, set to take place in a Delaware courtroom.
According to the plea agreement, Hunter Biden has agreed to acknowledge his failure to pay taxes on income he received in 2017 and 2018. In exchange, prosecutors will recommend probation, meaning he will likely avoid prison time.
He will also agree to a pretrial diversion on a separate gun charge, with the charge being dropped if he adheres to certain terms.
“I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life,” Christopher Clark, an attorney for Hunter Biden, said in a statement last month. “He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward.”
(LONDON) — Wildfires that have killed at least 34 people in northern Algeria over the past several days are now almost entirely under control, officials said.
As of Tuesday afternoon, 80% of the wildfires had been extinguished, according to the Algerian Ministry of the Interior, which in a statement credited the “positive results” to the uninterrupted mobilization of firefighters overnight, the use of firefighting aircraft and a drop in both wind speed and air temperature.
Firefighting operations are continuing, with 13 hotspots remaining across seven provinces. The areas where blazes have been put out are being monitored, the interior ministry said.
Local authorities in the areas where the wildfires are contained have begun to inspect the damage and count the number of people affected, according to the interior ministry.
The flames ignited Sunday and rapidly spread across forests and agricultural areas in at least 16 of Algeria’s 48 provinces, driven by strong winds and scorching heat. The hardest-hit areas were in the coastal provinces of Bejaia, Bouira and Jijel, east of the capital Algiers. At least 1,500 people were evacuated, the interior ministry said.
Some 8,000 firefighters and 529 trucks were deployed to battle the raging blazes alongside military firefighting aircraft. Among those killed were 10 soldiers who were fighting the flames in Bejaia, according to the interior ministry.
Two people suspected of starting the wildfires in Bejaia were arrested on Monday, according to the provincial attorney general’s office.
Temperatures are forecast to reach as high as 50 degrees Celsius, or 122 degrees Fahrenheit, in the southern part of the North African nation on Thursday and Friday, according to the Algerian National Office of Meteorology.
Algeria is susceptible to wildfires in the summertime. Last August, at least 43 people were killed and 200 others were injured by blazes that burned through forest and urban areas in the eastern part of the country, according to the Algerian Red Crescent.
(PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea) — Lloyd Austin’s arrival in Papua New Guinea on Wednesday marked the first time that an American Defense Secretary has visited the island nation reflecting its growing strategic importance as the U.S. tries to rein in China’s growing influence in the South Pacific.
That competition with China has escalated American efforts to increase security cooperation with Papua New Guinea (PNG) as China has been making security inroads with the neighboring Solomon Islands and increasing its economic ties with other Pacific Island nations.
Austin is the latest senior American leader to visit Papua New Guinea, highlighting the importance the United States is placing on its relationship with the country located just north of Australia.
The visit will build on the Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) worked out between the U.S. and Papua New Guinea earlier this year that will increase security cooperation between the two countries.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited in May to sign the cooperation agreement when he took the place of President Joe Biden who had to cancel a stop in Papua New Guinea so he could return to Washington for negotiations on the debt limit.
It is not just the United States that sees the importance of Papua New Guinea in checking China’s influence in the region, however.
Later this week, France’s President Emmanuel Macron will make history as he becomes the first French president to visit the island nation.
On Thursday, Austin will meet with PNG’s Prime Minister James Marape, Defense Minister Win Badri Daki and other top military leaders from the island nation.
U.S. officials are also looking towards a possible expansion of a recent “boatrider” agreement that will allow Papua New Guinean military personnel to ride along U.S. Coast Guard vessels as they track unregulated fishing.
The Defense Cooperation Agreement has yet to be ratified by PNG’s parliament and Prime Minister Marape has faced domestic criticism and protests from Papua New Guineans concerned that it might infringe on the country’s sovereignty.
But U.S. officials see the agreement as a major milestone and that expanding military cooperation between the two countries will improve security in the region, increase U.S. training opportunities for Papua New Guinea’s military and help the U.S. respond to humanitarian and regional crises.
The security agreement is part of a broad U.S. effort to improve relations with island nations in the region in the wake of a security agreement signed last year between the Solomon Islands and China.
That agreement has been seen as a major driver in the broad U.S. effort to reach out to Pacific Island nations that also have tight economic ties with China.
“The U.S. has been playing catch-up in the South Pacific since the China-Solomon Islands security deal was leaked last year,” Mihai Sora, the project director for the AUS-PNG Network at the Lowy Institute, told ABC News.
“China is still on the look-out for opportunities to expand its relationships with Pacific countries in the security space,” said Moha.
“Pacific countries value their economic relations with China. Some, like PNG, are happy to take security assistance support from the U.S., but will not want to jeopardize economic relations with China,” he added.
Acknowledging the fine line the U.S. must tread in its outreach to island nations in the South Pacific, a senior U.S. defense official made clear that the U.S. is not asking them to have to choose between the U.S. and China.
“Our approach is to demonstrate value and to demonstrate the ways in which we can contribute meaningfully to a long term mutually beneficial security relationship,” said another U.S. defense official. “And that’s what we’re seeking to do, not just with PNG but with the whole region.”
U.S. officials have stressed that the agreement does not mean that American troops will be stationed on the island which saw a sizable U.S. presence during World War II. Though it is possible that after it is ratified, the U.S. and Papua New Guinea might begin talks about a rotational U.S. military presence.
“It certainly changes the status quo for Papua New Guinea’s security cooperation with other countries in that the Defense Cooperation Agreement lays out extensive U.S. access to PNG territory,” said Sora.
Sora believes the United States moved too quickly in working out the agreement and will have to work to gain support while it is being implemented.
“It moved extremely fast to get that signature, which has caused some frictions in the region,” said Sora. “And asking for too much, too soon will ultimately be counterproductive to U.S. influence and access-building efforts in the Pacific.”
Papua New Guinea is one of only three Pacific island nations that has a military, the other two are Fiji and Tonga.
Troops from all three nations are participating for the first time in the Talisman Sabre exercise being held in Australia this year — the largest version of the exercise to date with 30,000 troops from 13 countries joining in the exercise held every two years.
After his visit to Papua New Guinea, Austin will travel to Brisbane, Australia, where he will join Blinken for an annual meeting with their Australian counterparts.
The annual meetings have taken on a greater significance in recent years as the U.S. and Australia have developed closer security ties to counter China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and provocations towards Taiwan.
That includes the rotational presence of up to 2,500 U.S. Marines for regular training exercises in northern Australia.
Ahead of this weeks’ meetings, U.S. defense officials signaled an expansion of those bilateral security agreements that could lead to additional rotations involving different military services and capabilities.
Later in the week, Austin and Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles will observe U.S. and Australian troops participating in the Talisman Sabre exercise.
(WASHINGTON) — The Departments of Commerce and Defense signed a memorandum of agreement on Wednesday in an effort to strengthen information sharing and coordination in doling out CHIPS incentive funds — a move top U.S. officials say will shore up national security as China attempts to overtake the United States in semiconductor production.
The agreement signed on Wednesday ensures the Defense Department and Commerce Department coordinate on what the defense sector needs and ensures that it has the CHIPS to keep America safe, according to the Commerce Department.
“This agreement is an important step forward in increasing the capacity and resiliency of our domestic semiconductor industrial base,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy Laura Taylor-Kale, who signed the MOA on behalf of the Department of Defense. “It is essential for DoD and DoC to consult one another to ensure we are making complementary investments that support a robust semiconductor industrial base. Both Departments are working together to expand domestic semiconductor production capacity in a coordinated fashion.”
The agreement also allows for a national security review and ensures that semiconductors are made in America and used by the defense industry.
“Advancing U.S. national security is a top priority. Our Departments must work together and align on where and how we are making investments to strengthen the U.S. industrial base,” said CHIPS Program Office Director Michael Schmidt, who signed the MOA on behalf of the Department of Commerce. “This agreement will enable our teams to coordinate the national security review of applications, produce semiconductor chips in America that our military relies on, and bolster our domestic supply chain resiliency.”
Experts compare semiconductors to the brain for any machine with a computer system. Their prevalence in everyday items from cell phones to cars to microwaves and more means that production of these semiconductors is a lucrative industry — and one with broader implications for international relations. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has repeatedly said producing semiconductors in the U.S. is vital not only to the domestic economy, but also to national security, saying in a 2022 letter to congressional leaders that China, which has spent hundreds of billions of dollars developing its own semiconductor production, “is both determined to become the global leader in the industries of the future and has the means and resources to do so if we are not on our game.”
“Over the last two years, China has produced more than 80% of new global capacity for certain mature chips, and their market share is growing. … And the brutal truth is that, without manufacturing strength in the U.S., and the innovation that flows from it, we are at a clear disadvantage in the race to invent and commercialize future generations of technology,” Raimondo said in February at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in remarks applauding the CHIPS and Science Act.
The CHIPS and Science Act, signed in 2022, provided nearly $53 billion in funds to “support the domestic production of semiconductors and authorize[d] various programs and activities of the federal science agencies.” The act, intended to address a nearly two-year global chip shortage that stemmed from supply chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, also tasked the Department of Commerce with doling out funding to kickstart CHIPS manufacturing in the United States.
(NEW YORK) — Fetal mortality rates declined among Black women in 2020 but were much higher than other racial/ethnic groups in the U.S., new federal data shows.
A report, published early Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, looked at data from the National Vital Statistics System.
Fetal deaths are deaths that occur at 20 weeks’ gestation — about five months of pregnancy — or later and affect 1% of all pregnancies in the U.S.
Researchers found that, overall, there were 21,105 fetal deaths in 2021, an increase of 1% from the 20,854 fetal deaths reported in 2020.
The 2021 rate of fetal deaths was relatively unchanged at 5.73 per 1,000 live births compared to 5.74 per 1,000 in 2020.
“Although they note that the number of fetal deaths increased, what’s actually important is that the overall rate was unchanged, because the number of fetal deaths obviously depends on the number of pregnancies, which presumably increased if the rate was unchanged,” Dr. Simon Manning, director of fetal care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts, told ABC News.
The report also found Black women were the only racial/ethnic group to see a significant change for mortality rates, declining 4% from 10.34 to 9.89.
No significant changes in fetal mortality rates were seen for other groups including American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and white women.
However, Manning said it’s notable that the rate of 9.89 per 1,000 is nearly double the national rate of 5.74 per 1,000.
“Their rates are still almost double the average rate for all women,” he said. “So, it’s good to see that there is a small decrement in deaths for that group, but there’s still a fair way to go.”
“We can always be cautiously optimistic, but this is really early data and it will be important to document that this is a durable decrease, and not to rest on our laurels,” Manning added.
The report did not explore reasons behind the decline for Black women — or why other groups did not see a significant change — but Manning said there could be multiple reasons.
One reason could be that the racial reckoning that started in summer 2020 helped illuminate disparities experienced between Black women and other minorities compared to white women.
“So maybe there’s been more attention to improving access and care for Black women, one would hope hypothesize that,” Manning said.
He said another potential reason could be that unemployment among Black Americans has been falling, which could lead to them having more access to health care.
“You shouldn’t think that there’s something genetic or inherent about Black pregnant people that causes them to have worse outcomes,” Manning said.
The report also looked at fetal mortality rates by state and found, between 2019 and 2021, rates were highest in Mississippi at 6.38 per 1,000 and other states in the South and lowest in New Mexico and Connecticut at 2.60 per 1,000 and states in the West and Northeast.
Additionally, the fetal mortality rate for women who smoked during pregnancy was 9.62 per 1,000, almost double the rate for women who did not smoke during pregnancy at 5.08 per 1,000.
“We know that smoking causes blood vessels to constrict and we know that it causes babies to not grow as well and that occurs most likely because it affects placental blood flow,” Manning said. “So there is a direct biological correlation between smoking and poor fetal outcomes and this is yet another reminder, as if we needed more reminders, that stopping smoking is one of the most effective ways you can improve your health and the health of your baby.”
(BIRMINGHAM, Ala.) — The first baby has been born from a transplanted uterus, outside of a clinical trial, the University of Alabama at Birmingham announced Monday.
UAB said the birth occurred via a planned cesarean section in late May, and mom Mallory — who prefers to be identified only by her first name for privacy reasons — and her baby boy are healthy.
Mallory had been diagnosed over two decades ago with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, a rare condition characterized by the absence of a uterus or an underdeveloped uterus and vagina, according to the National Institutes of Health.
“I had come to terms with knowing that, OK, I won’t be able to carry my own children; but for me, it always felt like something that was lacking,” Mallory said in a statement.
Mallory was accepted into and joined the uterus transplant program at UAB Medicine, and she and her husband Nick and their daughter had to relocate to Birmingham for over a year. She received a donated uterus from a deceased donor through the nonprofit Legacy of Hope.
Aside from a uterus transplant, Mallory also underwent an in vitro fertilization process before a high-risk pregnancy and delivery. The entire process took nearly 18 months, according to UAB.
Mallory’s son is the first baby born from UAB’s uterus transplant program — only one of four in the U.S. — and the university’s Comprehensive Transplant Institute.
“We are thrilled for Mallory and her husband, Nick, and humbled that they entrusted our UAB Medicine care team to guide them through this long, difficult — and exciting — journey of transplantation, pregnancy and childbirth,” Dr. Anupam Agarwal, UAB’s senior vice president for medicine, said in a statement.
“Our goal and dream for this program is to make this routine for women who want to experience pregnancy and childbirth but can’t for a variety of health reasons. We have the expertise and the multidisciplinary teams in place here to help make this reality. Their work with Mallory and our other transplant recipients and pregnancies to date has just been phenomenal,” Agarwal added.
With the arrival of their son, Mallory and Nick are now parents of two. The couple also have a daughter, whom they welcomed with the help of Mallory’s sister, who was their gestational surrogate.
