(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Friday ruled to limit the power of federal regulatory agencies, upending a 40-year precedent widely known as the Chevron Doctrine that generally had courts show deference to agency experts in disputes over ambiguities in the law.
The 6-3 opinion was authored by Chief Justice John Roberts.
“Chevron is overruled,” Roberts wrote. “Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, as the [Administrative Procedure Act] requires.”
“Careful attention to the judgment of the Executive Branch may help inform that inquiry. And when a particular statute delegates authority to an agency consistent with constitutional limits, courts must respect the delegation, while ensuring that the agency acts within it,” Roberts continued. “But courts need not and under the APA may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.”
Roberts clarified the court’s ruling was forward-looking and would not impact past cases that relied on the doctrine.
Justice Elena Kagan, in her dissent, defended the rule as being the “backdrop against which Congress, courts, and agencies—as well as regulated parties and the public—all have operated for decades.”
“It has been applied in thousands of judicial decisions,” Kagan wrote. “It has become part of the warp and woof of modern government, supporting regulatory efforts of all kinds—to name a few, keeping air and water clean, food and drugs safe, and financial markets honest. And the rule is right.”
(NEW YORK) — Wendy’s has long offered a $5 meal deal, but newcomers like McDonald’s and Burger King have prompted an influx of fast food companies vying for customers’ attention and appetites.
Now, Taco Bell is the latest chain bringing more affordability to the table.
The California-based Mexican-inspired fast-food chain announced the launch of its $7 Luxe Cravings Box on Thursday, which includes a Chalupa Supreme, Beefy 5-Layer Burrito, Double Stacked Taco, chips and nacho cheese sauce, and a medium drink.
This limited-time offer gives customers a 55% discount off the suggested individual menu prices, according to Taco Bell.
The company said it created the new combo box “to satisfy fans’ hunger with quality, full-sized fan favorites at an affordable price.”
Taylor Montgomery, chief marketing officer for Taco Bell North America, said in a statement, “With the launch of the $7 Luxe Cravings Box, we’re giving consumers our most craveable items at an affordable price point and living up to our commitment on value to satisfy cravings with fan favorite full-sized menu items. Our Cravings Value Menu is one of the leading value menus within the industry, offering 10 items at under $3, because we believe consumers shouldn’t have to choose between affordability and abundance.”
In addition to McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and now Taco Bell, Subway also recently launched a new value menu item, the new $3 Footlong Dippers.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that an Oregon city’s ordinance to bar anyone without a permanent residency from sleeping outside does not amount to “cruel and unusual” punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
The 6-3 opinion was authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
IDF Observation unit soldiers monitor the Israel- Gaza border. — IDF/ABC News
(NAHAL OZ, Israel) — It was a sisterhood built around service: there were birthdays away from home, costume parties, TikTok dance videos and lots of laughter. Some of the young soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces’ Unit 414 were there by choice, others completing their mandatory military service after high school.
Stationed at the Nahal Oz IDF base, less than half a mile from Gaza, they were known as “the eyes of the military”– monitoring hundreds of surveillance cameras overlooking the border, 24/7. They were always watching and always on high alert.
“It felt like something out of the ordinary was about to happen,” said Roni Lifshitz, an observation soldier who was part of Unit 414 but happened to be away at a training on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise terrorist attack on Israel.
Lifshitz said she risks serious consequences in speaking to a news organization.
“The IDF may react. To tell you the truth, I don’t care. They abandoned my friends, I have no reason to listen to them,” she said. “If [my friends] were here, they would be talking for sure.”
According to Lifshitz, in the days leading up to Oct. 7, her unit was reporting unusual activity in Gaza on a daily basis — so much so that she says there was apparently a running joke on base: Who would be on duty the day Hamas attacked?
Just days before Oct. 7, she said she saw “10 pickup trucks, 300 meters away. It was unusual to see those. They stopped at every Hamas post, looking at our cameras, at the fence, at the gates, pointing,” she said. “The other thing was the training that we saw deeper inside Gaza, very much like a military routine, rolling over, shooting.”
Her account lines up with what Ori Asaf said he heard from his girlfriend, Sgt. Osher Barzilay, a communications officer who was killed inside the Nahal Oz command center. Asaf showed ABC News text messages Barzilay sent him just two weeks before Oct 7.
“All the violent disturbances and incendiary balloons are in our sector,” Barzilay wrote. “3 violent disturbances, people armed with weapons and explosives. The fence is destroyed.”
Asaf said Barzilay couldn’t tell him everything, since much of the information was classified. But he said she repeatedly told him she saw Hamas burying explosives near the border.
Lifshitz said the warning signs were there, but those at the top didn’t take them seriously.
“We were completely ignored, they belittled us,” she said. “No one really listened to us, mainly because I am not an officer. Because I am just a simple 20-year-old who knows nothing.”
Last November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC News: “The responsibility of a government is to protect the people. Clearly, that responsibility wasn’t met. And we’ll have a lot of questions, a lot of investigations. But I have now one responsibility. The responsibility is to defeat Hamas.”
Eyal Eshel heard similar stories from his daughter Roni Eshel, who was also part of Unit 414, and Roni Lifshitz’s best friend. She was just 19.
“‘Dad, the cameras on the fence, in this point, are not working. Dad, there is a problem in the fence here.’ Nobody came to fix it,” he said.
In a chilling phone conversation obtained exclusively by ABC News, Roni Eshel can be heard telling her mother Sharon on Sept. 27 that she’s overwhelmed by what she’s seeing.
“Listen, three days in a row, attempted infiltrations, today there was an attack at Karni, explosive devices,” she said.
Eyal Eshel took ABC News inside what’s left of the Nahal Oz base, and into the command center where his daughter would have watched Hamas’ incursion, reporting it in real time — until their cameras were neutralized.
When over a hundred Hamas fighters eventually reached the base, they set the command center on fire. Many of the young observation soldiers were trapped inside and burned alive.
“They didn’t find dog tags, they didn’t find bodies,” said Eshel. “[They found] pieces. You can understand what I’m saying. Pieces.”
There were only a few combat soldiers stationed at the base that day who tried to fend off the attackers. Lifshitz said observation soldiers are told their cameras are their weapons, so they are always unarmed, even when stationed so close to Gaza.
Lifshitz told us she never had a gun at the base, and that she did feel unsafe.
“They didn’t prepare us much,” she said. “I was never told where to go if terrorists infiltrated the base.”
Eyal Eshel said it’s not just that the girls’ warnings were ignored — they were also abandoned, left to fend for themselves on Oct. 7 for six hours.
When they called for help, Eshel and Lifshitz said this was the answer: “Good luck Nahal Oz, take care, we don’t have enough soldiers to come here and rescue you.”
Fifteen of the observation soldiers were killed, according to Israeli officials. Seven were taken hostage, as seen in footage released by the hostages’ families, handcuffed and bloodied. Five remain in Gaza to this day, according to Israeli officials.
“They are the ones who know what’s going on along the border. They are serving all the time,” said IDF Major General (Res.) Noam Tibon, who had to rescue his own family from a kibbutz on Oct. 7. “The commanders ignored what they told them. And this is a terrible mistake, because if they would listen to them, maybe the whole Oct. 7 would look totally different.”
“This is why Nahal Oz is a symbol of the failure,” he added. “Everybody that is in charge of this failure needs to go away.”
In response to a detailed list of questions about Nahal Oz, the IDF told ABC News in a statement, “the IDF is currently focused on eliminating the threat from the terrorist organization Hamas. Questions of this kind will be looked into at a later stage.”
In March, the IDF announced it was launching an internal probe into its missteps. Results are expected to be released by the end of August. Eight months after his daughter’s death, Eyal Eshel is still waiting for answers.
“No explanation. We’re still waiting. Nobody from the army made the explanation,” he said.
With no end in sight to the war, Lifshitz can’t help but reflect on all the lives she believes could have been saved — if only someone had listened to her unit.
“If someone had given the command to bring more troops, station the troops on the border, prepare all the forces with fire power, more tanks — really, to bring the additional force to defend the kibbutzim, which is exactly what was supposed to happen, maybe then there would not have been as many people killed, not the damage that was done,” she said.
The Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center is the first LGBTQ center in the National Park Service. — Courtesy of Stephen Kent Johnson
(NEW YORK) — Mark Segal was 18 years old and had only lived in New York City for six weeks when he found himself at the center of the Stonewall Uprising in 1969.
The very spot where Segal once danced, drank and took part in one of the most consequential moments in LGBTQ history is now the first LGBTQ visitor center within the National Park System.
“Before Stonewall, there were no more than 100 out activists in the entire United States of America on that first Pride,” said Segal, now 73. “Today, if you look around the world, there are millions of people who celebrate Pride. And it all started in that building.”
The Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, which opened to the public Friday, is what Segal would have hoped for over 55 years ago as a Stonewall veteran.
“If we are visible, that creates dialogue. Dialogue creates education, education creates equality,” said Segal.
The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969, began in response to a routine police raid on a gay bar, according to the Library of Congress.
Segal recalls the lights in the bar blinking on and off — signifying the arrival of the police who would typically “come in, take some money and leave.” But that’s not what he says happened that night.
“The police burst through the doors, started breaking up the bar, started throwing liquor bottles around, took people and threw them up against the wall — screamed, shouted, it was the most violent thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Segal.
Patrons responded by fighting back, entrapping the police in the bar: “We were in an uprising against those who oppressed us. For the first time in history, the people that are always incarcerating us, we were now incarcerating them,” Segal said.
Before the 1960s, living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer person was largely illegal, according to the National Park Service.
“At that time, we as a community were totally invisible,” said Segal. “LGBT people were not in newspapers, were not in magazines, were not radio, not in television.”
NYPD officials have since apologized for past anti-LGBTQ practices and the raid of Stonewall.
The Stonewall Inn, as it stands today, only holds a part of where the original bar once stood. The visitor’s center is now housed in the other half of the original bar — reclaiming the dark LGBTQ history of the location.
“The power of place can be felt walking through the Greenwich Village streets where people stood up and spoke out, paving the way for equality for all,” said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Association, in a recent statement. “When you explore the new visitor center, you’re learning from and honoring those courageous people. Stonewall will continue to inspire for generations and we’re proud to work to help ensure our national parks include diverse, inclusive stories that welcome and represent the people that shaped our nation.”
The bar became a national monument in 2016 under the Obama administration. Shortly after, LGBTQ advocacy group PrideLive secured the lease to the long vacant 51 Christopher Street part of the historic location and transformed it into the center it is today.
The center – organized by two queer women of color, PrideLive’s Diana Rodriguez and Ann Marie Gothard – hopes to serve as a living monument to those who have shaped the LGBTQ equality movement.
It has visual art displays and a dedicated theater space, with the hopes of growing even larger to tell more Stonewall stories. Segal in particular hopes to see further discussions about the intersectionality of the LGBTQ liberation movement and its connections to other movements for equality and civil rights.
“We’re intertwined with history, but people have made us invisible,” said Segal.
He said he’s seen backlash against the community throughout his lifetime whenever there is progress. This latest rise in anti-LGBTQ sentiment in the U.S. — particularly anti-transgender sentiment — is not shocking to him.
“We’re not going to be invisible ever again,” he added.
The center’s jukebox, the same model as the one that was previously housed in the original Stonewall Inn, plays the same songs that would have been played at the time. It gives Segal chills.
“I’ll stand back and I’ll close my eyes and I will almost dream of myself being back there,” said Segal.
He continued, “Please don’t be mournful. Be cheerful, because what happened [in the LGBTQ equality movement] got us to where we are today. So we should be somewhat celebratory. I know some of us didn’t make it. But we’re in a better place thanks to those people.”
Stephen Elkind said he and his husband Matthew McConnell have “become very close friends” with Lauren and Amanda Brown. They hope to stay in touch and be uncles to the Browns’ children and the Browns hope to be aunts to Elkind and McConnell’s child. — Lauren Brown
(NEW YORK) — After Lauren Brown and her wife Amanda Brown married in 2018, they knew quickly afterward they wanted to start their own family.
The Browns saved up money and began fertility treatment, opting to undergo reciprocal IVF treatment. Embryos were created with Amanda Brown’s eggs and donor sperm, and then Lauren Brown carried three pregnancies, and after an immense journey, the Browns were able to welcome their sons Judah in 2020 and Malachi in 2022.
Inspired in part by her experience and with the blessing of her family, Lauren Brown, 36, decided to look into becoming a surrogate, especially for another LGBTQ+ family like her own and particularly for a gay couple.
Giving the gift of life
“I had been interested in participating in the gift of life in some shape or capacity for a long time,” the mom of two told Good Morning America of her motivation.
Brown partnered with Brownstone Surrogacy, also an LGBTQ-owned agency, and is now in the second trimester of her fourth pregnancy, for which she will be compensated, and said she is feeling “great” overall.
“[It] has been really fun and really life-giving to be able to give back to other members of our community in a similar way that we have been given so much,” Brown, who shares on social media about LGBTQ+ family building, said.
For intended parents Matthew McConnell and Stephen Elkind of San Francisco, the journey to parenthood has been a “rollercoaster” but matching with Brown as their surrogate, nearly 3,000 miles away in the Washington, D.C. area, was an unexpectedly quick and near immediate process through Brownstone Surrogacy.
“I’ll remember that day forever,” McConnell told “GMA” of their first virtual meeting through a Zoom call. “We were nervous but so excited and conversation just flowed so naturally.”
“And then I think within five or 10 minutes, both us and Lauren as well sent emails being like, ‘It’s a yes,'” McConnell continued.
The state of surrogacy in the U.S.
Surrogacy has been on the rise and according to one study, nearly 31,000 babies were born via surrogacy between 1999 and 2013, with at least a 2.5% increase during the decade.
Surrogacy is also not regulated on the federal level and paid surrogacy is currently legal in 48 states, except for Nebraska and Louisiana. In March 2024, Michigan also decriminalized paid surrogacy contracts.
Hope for the Future
Elkind and McConnell, as well as Brown, said they wanted to open up publicly about their shared journey to offer an example for others, especially in the LGBTQ+ community, who are looking to build their families.
“We, in the queer community deserve to have the families of our dreams,” Elkind said. “We don’t see a lot of these stories personally out there and so we want to let people know it’s possible.”
“There is a lot of work to do to get there and it can be very expensive but if it’s a goal of yours, if it’s something that you want, it’s not impossible,” he continued.
“For LGBTQ+families, for many of us, maybe having dealt with unsupportive family members, where family might be a place of pain or sadness or of loss or rejection, to be able to create the families that we dream of can be so particularly redemptive and can be such a joy,” Brown added.
McConnell and Elkind, who described Brown’s offer to be their surrogate as “everything,” are expecting their child later this year on Thanksgiving Day and they’ve already affectionately nicknamed them their “little turkey.”
“It means everything for us that Lauren has agreed to be our surrogate and is in this process with us,” Elkind said. “As a queer community, we have what it takes to make a family. We just have to work together.”
“This has been such a wonderful experience. It seemingly couldn’t go better,” McConnell said.
For anyone else considering surrogacy, Brown encouraged them to do it.
“If you have had an uncomplicated pregnancy in the past, you really should consider it because it’s not something that you will ever regret,” she said. “Helping somebody create the family of their dreams is just priceless.”
Pregnancy is a potentially life-threatening condition and being over the age of 35 poses increased risks for complications, even in individuals with prior uncomplicated pregnancies.
People visit a makeshift memorial to the victims of a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on June 30, 2022. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
(UVALDE, Texas) — After the tragic event at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in 2022, a local librarian is giving back to the community where he was raised.
Mendell Morgan, Director of Development for El Progreso Memorial Library, welcomes people, especially those in Uvalde, to come for counseling services and other mental relaxation.
“After the tragedy here, I really wanted to do something for the community of Uvalde,” Morgan said. “I felt I was given so much growing up here I wanted to encourage our library to be a place of healing. I wanted to make a difference.”
El Progreso Memorial Library is situated in a rural area on the southwest side of Uvalde. The region is marked by poverty and students struggle with educational achievement.
Morgan was appointed library director in 2014, and the role transitioned to a more community-development position in January 2024. Morgan now helps people deal with grieving, death and anxiety through books in the library.
He also brought in therapy dogs and ponies to help people who are dealing with separation.
Locals in the community say he has been very resourceful, and he’s found ways to make the library a place that’s for everybody.
“He’s so kind,” Eliana Romero said. “He makes everybody feel like welcome and part of his group, and he’s just always trying to find ways to make the library better.”
To better connect with young people, Morgan began hosting game nights at the library, offering children a chance to learn chess and play Dungeons & Dragons.
The library also hosts a summer reading program, which Morgan says is extremely popular with young people.
“The goal is to keep up their interest in reading during this summer and help them be better prepared for the school year that lies ahead,” Morgan said. “Every Wednesday morning we start out with the song. And then we sit on our little special story rug and the story is read.”
Morgan says it is such a reward for him to see the results of the library’s programs: children acquiring a love for reading, being interactive with the library, experiencing the excitement of discovery.
He’s happy to see activity, life and good things going on in the Uvalde community, something he experienced as a child.
“I had a young mother come in to say in tears how thankful and grateful she was to see her child smiling again because that had not been seen since before the tragedy,” Morgan said.
(NEW YORK) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump met for a showdown over policy and their records, but not everything claimed by the candidates onstage was factual.
Inflation rates, border crossings, Jan. 6, abortion, the stock market and the cost to America of the Paris Climate Accord were among the issues the two sparred over that need a closer look.
ABC News’ politics team analyzed their comments to break down fact from fiction.
Did Biden inherit 9% inflation?
TRUMP CLAIM: “He also said he inherited 9% inflation — no. He inherited almost no inflation, and it stayed … stayed that way for 14 months, and it blew up under his leadership …”
FACT CHECK: This is mostly true. In January 2021, when Biden was inaugurated, year-over-year inflation was about 1.4%. Under Biden, year-over-year inflation peaked at 9.1 % in June 2022. But it is now down to 3.3 %. Under Trump, inflation rose 7.76 % from January 2017 to January 2021, and year-over-year inflation peaked at 2.9 % in July 2018.
–Zunaira Zaki
Were there any military conflicts during Trump’s term in office?
TRUMP CLAIM: “We got…a lot of credit for the military, and no wars and so many other things. Everything was rocking good.”
FACT CHECK: Needs context. While it’s true that Trump did not formally declare war against a foreign power while in the White House, he significantly scaled up military action in Syria and Iraq in the fight against ISIS and also authorized the air strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, putting the country on the brink of a direct conflict with Iran. Pentagon records also show that at least 65 American troops were killed in action during Trump’s term.
–Shannon Kingston
Crime and the Border
TRUMP CLAIM: “We have a border that’s the most dangerous place anywhere in the world, considered the most dangerous place anywhere in the world, and he opened it up, and these killers are coming into our country, and they are raping and killing women.”
FACT-CHECK: False. The reality is that no evidence points to a significant surge in crime caused by recent arrivals. The former president’s claims ignore the fact that, overall, crime is down across the country. According to the latest FBI statistics released quarterly, violent crimes were down 6% in quarter 4 of 2023 (through Dec 2023) compared to the same time frame in 2022. There was a 13% decline in murders and a 4% drop in property crimes across the country. That declining trend followed unprecedented spikes in 2019 and 2020, Trump’s last two years in office.
–Armando Tonatiuh Torres-García
Hunter Biden’s laptop
TRUMP CLAIM: “It’s the same thing — 51 intelligence agents said that the laptop was Russian disinformation. It wasn’t that — it came from his son, Hunter. It wasn’t Russia.”
FACT CHECK: True, but needs unpacking At the final presidential debate of the 2020 cycle, Joe Biden suggested the contents of his son’s laptop’s hard drive — which by then had been dubbed the “laptop from hell” in the New York Post and other conservative outlets — were “garbage” and a “Russian plant.”
Biden’s claim that the laptop hard drive was a “Russian plant” was an apparent reference to a letter signed by 51 retired intelligence officials who wrote that the timing of its emergence “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Several of those signees have since said that Biden mischaracterized the language in their letter.
Furthermore, earlier this month, prosecutors at Hunter Biden’s criminal trial in Delaware introduced the laptop into evidence and, in one of the more theatrical moments of the trial, showed jurors the physical MacBook Pro 13 that Hunter Biden purportedly abandoned at a Wilmington computer repair shop in April 2019.
“Ultimately, in examining that laptop, were investigators able to confirm that it was Hunter Biden’s laptop?” prosecutor Derek Hines asked an FBI agent who testified as an expert witness in Hunter Biden’s recent gun case.
“Yes,” the FBI agent said.
–Lucien Bruggeman
Late-term abortions
TRUMP’S CLAIM: “The problem they have is they are radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after birth.”
FACT CHECK: This is not true. Abortions that occur later in pregnancy are around 1% of abortions, according to KFF. Democrats do not call for abortions late into pregnancies, and infanticide is illegal in the U.S. Democrats often respond that abortions that do happen in the third trimester are the result of tragic circumstances in a pregnancy.
–Cheyenne Haslett
Who had a better stock market?
TRUMP CLAIM: “[Biden] created mandates. That was a disaster for our country but other than that we had, we had given back a country where the stock market actually was higher than pre-COVID, and nobody thought that was even possible.
FACT CHECK: Unclear. The Dow hit 30,000 for the first time on November 24, 2020. But that was after the last presidential election, so it’s hard to say whether it was because of Trump’s presidency or because of Biden’s win.
–Zunaira Zaki
Are more terrorists now crossing the border into America?
TRUMP CLAIM: “We have the largest number of terrorists coming into our country right now.”
FACT CHECK: Largely exaggerated. Trump appears to be referring to the increasing number of migrants on the federal terror “watchlist” who are encountered at the border. The number of people encountered by border authorities on the watchlist jumped from three in Trump’s last full year to nearly 100 in the first full fiscal year under Biden. However, the Terrorist Screening Dataset, maintained by the FBI, includes names of people who have suspected ties to individuals who may be affiliated with a foreign terror organization. It is not a comprehensive list of actual terrorists.
–Quinn Owen
Paris Climate Accord
TRUMP CLAIM: “The Paris Accord was going to cost us a trillion dollars and China nothing and Russia nothing, and India nothing. It was a rip-off of the United States, and I ended it because I didn’t want to waste that money because they treated us horribly.”
FACT CHECK: Not entirely true. Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Accord on his first day in office, according to a State Department memo. One-hundred and ninety-six countries signed on to the Paris Accord, agreeing to work together to limit the impacts of climate change and global warming. As part of that, the more developed, wealthier nations committed to contributing $100 billion to support developing countries more vulnerable to climate change’s impacts.
Biden pledged to work with Congress to authorize $11 billion to contribute to the Paris Agreement’s $100 billion in funds to support developing countries who need help adapting to climate change’s impacts. As of 2023, the U.S. was on track to meet that goal with $9.5 billion committed to financing global climate initiatives, according to the State Department.
–Stephanie Ebbs
National Guardsmen on Jan. 6
TRUMP CLAIM: “I offered her [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] 10,000 soldiers who are National Guard. And she turned them down, and the mayor of – in writing, by the way, the mayor, in writing, turned it down. The mayor of D.C. They turned it down. I offered 10,000 because I could see I had virtually nothing to do. They asked me to go make a speech.”
FACT-CHECK: False. The final report by the bipartisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol determined there was “no evidence” to support the claim that Trump gave an order “to have 10,000 troops ready for January 6th.”
The report quoted President Trump’s Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, who directly refuted this claim under oath, saying, “There was no direct order from the President” to put 10,000 troops to be on the ready for January 6th.
Instead, the report noted that when Trump referenced that number of troops, it was not to protect the Capitol but that he had “floated the idea of having 10,000 National Guardsmen deployed to protect him and his supporters from any supposed threats by left-wing counter-protesters.”
–Luis Martinez
Iran, Israel, and Oct. 7
TRUMP CLAIM: “He [Putin] never would have invaded Ukraine, never, just like Israel would have never been invaded in a million years by Hamas. You know why? Because Iran was broke with me. I wouldn’t let anybody do business with them. They ran out of money. They were broke. They had no money for Hamas. They had no money for anything, no money for terror. That’s why you had no terror at all during my administration.”
FACT CHECK: Not true. Iran has been Hamas’ principal backer for decades, including through the Trump presidency. Although Trump did withdraw from an Obama-era nuclear deal and levy sanctions against Tehran that dealt a sharp blow to its economy, records retrieved from inside Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces and verified by independent news outlets indicate Iran still funneled tens of millions of dollars to Hamas during his administration. Two of Trump’s top advisers for Middle Eastern affairs also claimed that Iran was supplying Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups with $100 million each year in an op-ed published in 2019.
–Shannon Kingston
Trump’s Manhattan hush-money case
TRUMP CLAIM: “That was a case that was started, and … they moved a high-ranking official, a DOJ, into the Manhattan DA’s office to start that case. … [Biden] basically went after his political opponent because he thought it was going to damage me.”
FACT CHECK: There are a few things to unpack here – but there is no evidence to support either statement.
First, there is no evidence that Joe Biden, as president of the United States, directed or choreographed a state prosecution — which was brought by the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg. Biden has no authority to do so, and there is no evidence to support Trump’s assertion.
Second, with regard to the “high-ranking” DOJ official who Trump claims was moved into the District Attorney’s office to “start the case,” Trump appears to be referring to Matthew Colangelo, who left the Justice Department in December of 2022, years after the investigation began. There is no evidence that Biden or the Justice Department coordinated Colangelo’s move. The case was brought by Bragg, an elected Democrat in New York.
Trump was found guilty by a jury of his peers.
–Lucien Bruggeman
Were tax cuts under Trump the largest in history?
TRUMP CLAIM: “I gave you the largest tax cut in history. I also gave you the largest regulation cut in history, that’s why we had all the jobs.”
FACT-CHECK: False. According to Erica York at the Tax Foundation, the Trump-era tax cut (TCJA) was a large tax cut but not the largest in history. If you look at percent of revenue as share of GDP in the first two years, several tax cuts going back to 1940 were larger. The most recent that was larger was the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.Separately, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the tax cuts under President Ronald Reagan were the largest tax cuts in recent history as a percent of GDP.
At the time the law went into effect, the Tax Foundation estimated that it would boost long-term employment by more than 300,000 jobs. But Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi says, “the tax cuts did support job growth, but at the cost of adding approximately $2 trillion to the nation’s debt.” He added, “The regulatory changes had no measurable impact on job growth.”
Joe Biden, 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, right, and President Donald Trump speak during the U.S. presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, Oct. 22, 2020. — Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are scheduled to square off again on the debate stage in September.
ABC News will host the Sept. 10 debate, with World News Tonight anchor David Muir and ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis serving as moderators.
More information on the debate, including the rules, location, staging and format, will be revealed closer to the date.
The ABC News qualifications for debate include receiving at least 15% in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters that meet ABC’s standards for reporting, appearing on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency prior to the eligibility deadline, and agreeing to accept the rules and format of the debate.
ABC News’ offices previously hosted two debates in 1960 between then-Vice President Richard Nixon and then-Sen. John F. Kennedy. The first was a split-screen televised debate on Oct. 13, 1960, filmed at ABC News’ New York and Los Angeles studios. Another debate between Kennedy and Nixon took place at ABC News’ New York studios on Oct. 21, 1960.
(DES MOINES, Iowa) — Health experts are warning of the possibility of floodwaters containing “fecal soup” after an agriculture-heavy region in Iowa was inundated with an unprecedented amount of precipitation.
Torrential rain began falling in the Midwest last week, prompting road closures, evacuation orders, helicopter rescues and failure at some water treatment plants, according to officials.
But as the floodwaters fail to recede — and more rain on the way threatens to extend the flood event — residents in several counties in northwest Iowa are being advised to find alternative water sources, as the precipitation likely caused overflows or breaches in the manure storage basins designed to contain the waste produced by the millions of farm animals within the region’s agriculture industry, Alicia Vasto, director of water programs for the Iowa Environmental Council, told ABC News.
The five counties most affected by the floodwaters and at most risk of being contaminated with fecal soup — animal feces mixed with water — are Clay, Emmet, Lyon, Plymouth, and Sioux, according to officials. The region is known for its heavy agricultural industry, the ample manure from which is now contaminating the standing water even further, according to a statement by Food and Water Watch, and environmental watchdog group.
The affected counties are home to more than 900 factory farms that produce about 23.6 billion pounds of animal waste annually — 175 times the human waste that is produced in all five counties, according to the group. The region has a high concentration of animal feeding operations, and the manure is stored in basins or lagoons that can be overtopped when too much rain falls in too little time, Vasto said.
“A lot of these facilities that have these large manure storage systems, and there’s a lot of potential for water contamination,” Vasto said.
The floodwaters have breached manure pits and lagoons, flushing animal feces and urine — as well as bacteria, parasites, viruses and nitrates — into waterways that supply the region’s drinking water, the environmental group said.
The rain fell fast and furiously. Precipitation that began on June 21 measured at 15 inches in some regions just two days later, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynold told reporters on Sunday. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Iowa on Monday.
The severe weather continued into Tuesday night, with more tornado warnings, flash flooding and large hail affecting the Midwest.
Since then, floodwaters contaminated with fecal soup have been flowing into people’s homes as well as the waterways, Vasto said.
“It’s creating this disgusting mess that will be really difficult to clean up and is really toxic and dangerous for folks,” she said.
Health experts are even more concerned about the water systems since the floodwaters have not yet receded, Vasto said. Human fecal matter is likely in the mix as well, since water treatment plants failed and untreated raw sewage is flowing into waterways, she added.
Not only is the drinking water not safe, but neither is swimming or boating in the lakes and rivers in northern Iowa, where runoff from the fecal soup has likely spread, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said in a press release on Thursday.
Humans who come into contact with or consume manure-contaminated flood water are at increased risk of contracting waterborne illnesses, including E. coli infections and Giardia infections, according to Food and Water Watch. Drinking nitrate contaminated water is linked to birth defects and several types of cancers, the group said.
Residents affected by the floodwaters “must remain on constant guard against the threat of animal waste,” Amanda Starbuck, director of Food and Water Watch, said in a statement.
Elsewhere in the state, floodwaters that spilled over the Big Sioux River levee near Sioux City, Iowa, damaged hundreds of homes and have prompted the local wastewater treatment plant to dump about a million gallons of untreated sewage per day into the Missouri River, The Associated Press reported.
Northwest Iowa was not the only region affected by the heavy rain. Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota — where the Rapidan Dam on the Blue Earth River is at risk of failure — have been under siege from severe flooding as well.
The flooding was so severe that a home teetering on the edge of the riverbank collapsed into the rising waters, images show.
This is not the first time fecal soup has affected northwest Iowa. In 2018, flooding caused manure overflows at 28 livestock operations. When Hurricane Florence struck eastern North Carolina in 2018, the flooding caused dozens of manure lagoons to overflow or breach entirely and flood fecal soup into homes and neighborhoods, according to Food and Water Watch. Thousands of hogs died in that event as well, the watchdog group said.
In the long term, the industry will need to rely on much larger manure storage systems that can handle the amount of precipitation that fell in the past week, Vasto said. In addition, lawmakers must start regulating pollution from the agriculture agency, Starbuck said.
“It takes more than disaster declarations to keep Iowans safe,” Starbuck said.
