(WASHINGTON) — Former Vice President Mike Pence has declined an invitation to the Conservative Political Action Conference, sources told ABC News.
The decision by Pence, who is debating a 2024 presidential run, comes as other notable figures are absent from this year’s lineup.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who spoke at CPAC last year, has two events scheduled in Texas as CPAC gets underway in Maryland.
A spokesperson for CPAC told ABC News that neither Pence nor DeSantis are currently slated to attend.
DeSantis’ spokesperson did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment. A spokesperson for Pence declined to comment.
Pence did not attend the event in 2022 and declined an invitation in 2021. This year’s absences come as the chairman of CPAC — which bills itself as the “largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world” — is embroiled in a sexual assault scandal.
Earlier this year, a staffer for one-time Senate candidate Herschel Walker alleged that Matt Schlapp, the chairman of CPAC, “groped” and “fondled” his crotch while he was driving Schlapp back from a bar in Atlanta, according to a report from The Daily Beast. The staffer then filed a lawsuit against Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes, seeking $9.4 million for sexual battery and defamation, according to a report.
A statement from Schlapp’s attorney at the time said the complaint is “false” and the “Schlapps and their legal team are assessing counter lawsuit options.”
But some say the allegations have “exacerbated” issues for the organization.
“It shouldn’t come as a surprise that CPAC is not attracting the big names that it once did. There’s a feeling within the Republican Party that CPAC has long abandoned the traditional values that it once stood for,” one GOP operative said. “The allegations against Matt Schlapp for allegedly ‘pummeling’ a man’s ‘junk’ against his will have only exacerbated these issues and are likely to contribute to further decline by the organization.”
Still, the event had drawn speakers such as former President Donald Trump and ambassador Nikki Haley, both of whom have declared their candidacy for 2024.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently called for a “national divorce” between Republican and Democratic states, is also scheduled to speak.
Kari Lake, the Trump-backed candidate who lost her bid for governor in Arizona and pushed false claims of election fraud, will be the featured speaker for Friday night’s Reagan dinner.
The CPAC announcement praised her as “a rare leader who captured the hearts of conservatives with her honest, bold message including closing the Arizona border and exposing widespread election fraud.”
“CPAC is a great place for conservatives to come together, Lake said in a video posted on Twitter by Schlapp last week.
(MOSCOW, Idaho) — The Moscow, Idaho, house where four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death will be demolished, according to the university president.
“This is a healing step” in the wake of a “crime that shook our community,” president Scott Green said in a letter to students and employees on Friday.
“We are evaluating options where students may be involved in the future development of the property,” Green added.
Roommates Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, as well as Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, were killed in their off-campus house in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022. Two roommates survived the crime, which garnered national interest.
After a six-week search for a suspect, 28-year-old Bryan Kohberger was arrested on Dec. 30. Kohberger was a Ph.D. graduate student at nearby Washington State University at the time.
Green said a memorial, including a garden, will be designed on the university’s campus in honor of the slain students. The exact location hasn’t been decided, Green said.
“The garden will also be a place of remembrance of other students we have lost and a place of healing for those left behind,” Green said.
“We will never forget Xana, Ethan, Madison and Kaylee, and I will do everything in my power to protect their dignity and respect their memory,” Green added.
Kohberger, who is in custody in Idaho, has not entered a plea.
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — The measles outbreak in central Ohio that left 85 children infected has officially been declared over, Columbus Public Health announced Thursday.
“CPH has received the last pending test result, which was negative for suspected measles cases,” the agency tweeted. “We have surpassed 42 days, or two incubation periods, since the last rash onset, which fits the CDC’s definition of the end of an outbreak.”
According to data from CPH, no cases have been recorded since Dec. 24.
Over the course of the outbreak, which began in November 2022 and was seen across several schools and day cares, 80 of the 85 children infected were unvaccinated.
Four had received at least one dose of the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine and one patient had an unknown vaccination status.
An overwhelming majority, or 65%, of cases occurred among children between ages 1 and 5 with children under age 1 being the next most affected group.
In total, 36 children were hospitalized, but none of the sickened children died.
“We did have several children that required intensive care,” Kelli Newman, communications director at CPH, told ABC News. “Most cases that were hospitalized were due to dehydration, which is common in young children like that.”
Measles is a very contagious disease with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying every individual infected by the virus can spread it to up to 10 close contacts, if they are unprotected including not wearing a mask or not being vaccinated.
Complications from measles can be relatively benign, like rashes, or they can be much more severe, like viral sepsis, pneumonia or brain swelling.
The CDC says anybody who either had measles at some point in their life or who has received two doses of the MMR vaccine is protected against measles.
In the decade before the measles vaccine became available, an estimated three to four million people were infected every year, 48,000 were hospitalized and between 400 and 500 people died, according to the federal health agency.
One dose of the measles vaccine is 93% effective at preventing infection if exposed to the virus. Two doses are 97% effective.
Children are recommended to receive their first dose between 12 and 15 months old and their second dose between ages 4 and 6.
According to a report from the CDC published in January, during the 2021-22 school year, 88.3% of kindergartners in Ohio had received two doses of the MMR vaccine, less than the national average of 93%.
“I think this is kind of a wake up call for all of us,” Newman said. “While this outbreak is behind us, and we’re grateful for that, we know that the next outbreak could just be one missed vaccine away.”
Newman said CPH spent a great deal on the ground working with community partners and pediatricians to get the MMR vaccine out into the community, as well as educate on the importance of vaccination, in response to the outbreak. This included setting up special vaccine clinics and having pediatricians call parents whose children were behind the schedule to remind them to bring them in for their second shot.
In 2000, measles was declared eradicated from the U.S. thanks to the highly effective vaccination campaign.
However, last November, a joint report from the CDC and the World Health Organization declared measles to be an “imminent threat” around the world.
The report found that in 2021, nearly 40 million children — a record-high — missed a dose of the measles vaccine. Specifically, 25 million missed their first dose and 14.7 million missed their second dose.
The authors stated much of the progress that was made in beating back the disease was lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the U.S., a May 2022 study found one-third of American parents reported a child with a missed vaccination due to barriers imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Newman said that many parents of the unvaccinated children infected with measles had chosen not to have their kids receive the MMR shot due misconceptions that it causes autism, a theory that has been widely debunked across the scientific community.
“Many of these kids were vaccinated for everything, but MMR because there was a lingering misconception that it caused autism,” Newman said. “That’s what we heard in feedback when we worked with parents during the case investigation and so that was something we had to provide a lot of education and engagement around, and we’re continuing to do that.”
(NEW YORK) — A 2-year-old Brooksville, Florida, boy has been found alive in the woods about 24 hours after he went missing, authorities said.
Joshua “JJ” Rowland was found Friday morning by a volunteer searcher, Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis said at a news conference. The sheriff’s announcement was met with cheers from journalists.
JJ’s condition was not immediately clear, but the sheriff’s office said he is “doing well, considering he has been out in the elements all night.”
JJ went missing on Thursday morning. It’s believed he left his home while his parents were asleep, the sheriff’s office said.
Helicopters searched overnight, and over 500 volunteers turned out Friday morning to help law enforcement look for the toddler, according to the sheriff’s office.
JJ was found in the woods “quite a ways away from home,” Nienhuis said.
Volunteer Roy Link, who located JJ, said he said a prayer about 10 minutes before finding the 2-year-old. The sheriff called Link “man of the year” and called JJ’s rescue a “true miracle.”
“I was hoping and praying for a miracle,” the sheriff told reporters. “I think a lot of people were praying — and prayer works.”
(NEW YORK) — Amid a recent series of headline-making near misses involving commercial planes and an impending federal review of the nation’s aerospace system, data from the Federal Aviation Administration shows the number of the most serious close calls at U.S. airports has actually been decreasing even as overall incidents have risen.
Last year, there were at least 1,633 runway incursions at U.S. airports — which the agency defines as any occurrence at an airport in which an aircraft, vehicle or person is incorrectly on the protected areas designated for landing and takeoff.
The number of runway incursions in 2022, including general aviation and commercial aircraft, is up from the 1,397 incursions reported a decade prior, in 2012, and the 987 reported in 2002.
But the most serious incursions in which a collision was “narrowly avoided” or in which “there is significant potential for a collision” have decreased over the past 20 years, according to the FAA.
In 2022, there were 18 serious runway incursions in the U.S., agency data shows. That number is up from a low of five reported in 2010 but down from a high of 32 reported in 2007.
While the numbers are small compared to the more than 45,000 flights that take off across the country each day, experts say it’s important to keep working to bring the incidents down.
“Aviation safety has to be premised on the idea that we don’t want any negatives at all,” ABC News contributor and former commercial pilot John Nance said in an interview. “We can’t accept a small number per year and just say, ‘Well, that’s the cost of doing business.’ We have to believe we can get to 0 and I think this is one of those areas where we have to redouble our efforts.”
In a Jan. 13 close call at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, an American Airlines flight crossed a runway without clearance from air traffic control, causing a Delta Air Lines plane to abort its takeoff from that runway, government officials said. The planes came within 1,400 feet of each other, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
Air traffic controllers at the airport were notified of the potential catastrophe through technology that provides visual and audible alerting of traffic conflicts and potential collisions, according to the FAA — technology that is currently in place at 35 major airports across the country.
The tech was not in place at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Austin, Texas, where earlier this month a close call occurred after a FedEx cargo plane and a Southwest Airlines flight came within 100 feet of each other, the FAA has said.
NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy praised the FedEx crew, telling ABC News, “It could have been catastrophic if not for certain actions, including the actions of the FedEx crew.”
The FAA currently does not have plans to install the alert technology at more airports across the country. The funding for the technology, called ASDE-X, comes from the FAA’s Facilities and Equipment Actual Appropriations budget, which has remained stagnant in recent years.
The incidents in Austin and New York City are still under investigation by the FAA and NTSB.
The FAA’s acting administrator, Billy Nolen, announced last week that the agency would establish a safety review team to examine the nation’s aerospace system — saying the group will look at structure, culture, systems and integration of safety efforts.
“We are experiencing the safest period in aviation history, but we cannot take this for granted,” Nolen said in a hearing on Capitol Hill. “Recent events remind us that we must not become complacent. Now is the time to stare into the data and ask hard questions.”
The last fatal crash involving a commercial plane in the U.S. occurred in 2009, when Colgan Air 3407 crashed in New York state killing all 49 passengers and crew. The last death on a commercial plane occurred in 2018, on Southwest Airlines 1380, after an engine cowling broke and damaged an aircraft window, causing a passenger to be partially ejected from the aircraft.
(WASHINGTON) — A year into Russia’s invasion, President Joe Biden has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to Ukraine.
He’s sent more than $31 billion in aid and weapons, made a surprise last-minute visit to the war zone, rallied NATO allies to stand firm in their commitments despite threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin and has promised continued support for President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of an expected new Russian offensive.
On Monday, Biden made clear his bond with Zelenskyy was unbreakable by going to Kyiv, a historic trip by a sitting president visiting a war zone where no U.S. troops had control, saying he wanted to show the world that America’s support for Ukraine is steadfast.
“You remind us that freedom is priceless,” Biden said at Mariinsky Palace. “It’s worth fighting for for as long as it takes. And that’s how long we’re going to be with you, Mr. President: for as long as it takes.”
The setting for those remarks was a sight unimaginable a year ago when Putin’s forces began their invasion. Expectations were that Russia would soon overtake Ukraine’s capital, possibly the entire country, and the war would quickly come to an end. However, in the 12 months that have gone by, Ukrainian forces have displayed a heroic effort on the battlefield, retaining much of their territory and revealing weaknesses in the Russian military.
Throughout the past year, President Biden has had to carefully calibrate his warnings to Russia, navigate backing Ukraine financially and militarily without direct U.S. involvement in the fighting and manage the war’s impact on the U.S. economy while garnering Americans’ support.
‘Minor incursion’
Before the invasion fully began, Biden seemed to throw into question how the U.S. and NATO would respond if Russia did take action against Ukraine — in the case of what he called a “minor incursion.”
A day later, the president made it “absolutely clear” that any Russian move into Ukraine would be seen as an “invasion.”
“I’ve been absolutely clear with President Putin. He has no misunderstanding. If any, any, assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion. But — and it will be met with severe and coordinated economic response that I’ve discussed in detail with our allies, as well as laid out very clearly for President Putin,” he said on Jan. 20, 2022.
Sanctions
After Putin ordered Russian troops into two Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine in February, Biden said Moscow’s latest moves amounted to “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine,” announcing new sanctions and saying he would send additional U.S. troops to the region.
He called the Russian moves “a flagrant violation of international law” and one that demanded “a firm response from the international community.”
“That means we’ve cut off Russia’s government from western financing. It can no longer raise money from the West and can not trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either,” he said.
Sanctions restricted Moscow’s ability to raise key funds, and were placed on Russia’s biggest banks, the country’s elites and their families.
‘Genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’
On April 12, President Biden used the term genocide to describe Putin’s actions in Ukraine following his forces retreating from Bucha and the atrocities carried out left for the world to see.
“Yes, I called it genocide. Because it has become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being able to be a Ukrainian. And the evidence is mounting,” Biden said.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris said recently that the U.S. had determined Russia committed crimes against humanity — in Ukraine.
“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: These are crimes against humanity. The United States has formally determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity,” she said at the Munich Security Conference.
It’s not clear what impact, if any, such a declaration would have.
According to a U.S. official, “the primary purpose” of the State Department’s determination “is to recognize the egregiousness of Russia’s atrocities, namely that members of Russia’s forces and other Russian officials have committed crimes as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population of Ukraine.”
Security assistance
The Biden administration has provided more than $32 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded.
The latest package announced on the war’s anniversary Friday, which included more missiles for the HIMARS system, 155mm artillery ammunition, Switchblade drones, and other equipment.
On top of U.S. support, American allies and partners have committed more than $20 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, including tanks, armored vehicles, air-defense systems, artillery systems, and other crucial capabilities, according to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
The U.S. has worked hand-in-hand with the Ukrainians to provide them with key weapons, but Zelenskyy has been vocal that more is needed, including F-16 fighter jets.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, has said F-16s are “not the key capability needed for now,” but that Biden and Zelenskyy discussed the request during his visit to Kyiv.
“F-16s are a question for the long-term defense of Ukraine and that’s a conversation that President Biden and President Zelenskyy had,” he said during a CNN Town Hall Thursday.
High gas prices
While the war in Ukraine has been fought thousands of miles away, Americans felt the impact at home in the form of alarmingly high prices at the gas pump.
“Putin’s price hike” was the term he used to deflect political criticism that the Biden administration was driving up costs for angry consumers.
As oil companies made staggering profits, Biden accused them of “war profiteering,” threatening them with higher taxes and other restrictions if they didn’t boost production and refinery capacity to help lower prices.
The sanctions imposed on Russia following the invasion and its effect on Russian oil sent crude prices skyrocketing, even though U.S. imports from Russia only account for 8% of all oil imports, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Starting in March, the president withdrew 180 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, leaving it at a level not seen since the 1980s. The administration has since started to purchase oil to replenish the SPR.
In June, AAA reported that the average price for a gallon of regular gas was a record-setting $5.
Challenges ahead
“Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia – never,” Biden proclaimed during an energetic speech from Poland on Tuesday, highlighting the solidarity of the alliance opposing Putin’s invasion, while also setting the stage for the fight still to come.
Though Biden’s remarks felt like a victory speech — he cautioned that “we have to be honest and clear-eyed” about the current status of the battlefield.
“The defense of freedom is not the work of a day or of a year,” he said. “It’s always difficult. It’s always important. As Ukraine continue to defend itself against the Russian onslaught and launch counter offensive of its own, there will continue to be hard and very bitter days. Victories and tragedies. But Ukraine is steeled for the fight ahead.”
Public support at home for continuing to provide billions in aid to Ukraine is also declining, putting pressure on the president to persuade Americans that funding the war should continue, an argument he might find more difficult if, as expected, he runs for reelection.
A February AP-NORC poll showed only 48% of Americans favor the U.S. providing weapons to Ukraine, compared to 60% of U.S. adults who supported the assistance in May 2022.
And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found 33% of Americans think the U.S. is doing too much for Ukraine, up from 14% last spring.
Biden will also have to navigate a divided Republican Party with mixed views on how long the U.S. should be sending aid.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has voiced his support for Ukraine, but not a “blank check,” and he’s facing increasing pressure from his fellow House Republicans to scale back aid as they look to rein in spending overall.
On Friday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said his party was committed to backing Ukraine, saying in a statement, “… it is not an act of charity for the United States and our NATO allies to help supply the Ukrainian people’s self-defense. It is a direct investment in our own core national interests. If Putin were given a green light to destabilize Europe, invading and killing at will, the long-term cost to the United States in both dollars and security risks would be astronomically higher than the miniscule fraction of our GDP that we have invested in Ukraine’s defense thus far.”
And the White House has already begun warning that China could soon assist Russia with military support — a step that could dramatically shift the war in Russia’s favor.
“We have information that gives us concern that they are considering providing lethal support to Russia in the war against Ukraine,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC News.
Blinken has not explained where this heightened alert is stemming from. The State Department has been clear that they “have not yet seen the PRC [China] provide Russia with lethal aid, but we don’t believe they’ve taken it off the table either.”
China’s President Xi Jinping plans to visit Russia this spring, but no meeting between the two leaders has been announced.
(WASHINGTON) — As Russia’s forces closed in on Ukraine a year ago, many anticipated its capital Kyiv would collapse in a matter of weeks, if not days.
But while Washington has widely rejoiced in what has so far been an upset of historic proportions by the underdog Ukraine — boosted by its steadfast Western allies — a prolonged conflict is presenting its own set of problems.
ABC News spoke to analysts and former officials about U.S. efforts to bolster Kyiv while imposing steep costs on Moscow through the war’s first year, how those strategies might shift in the months to come, and whether a resolution is within reach.
Getting Western weapons to the frontlines
While few may have predicted that Ukraine could sustain Russia’s attacks for so long, the West’s strategy for arming its fighters has changed along the way — ultimately amounting to support of unprecedented proportions, led by President Joe Biden.
“A year ago, no one would have predicted or anticipated in the U.S. would have provided Ukraine with more than $25 billion in security assistance,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe Program and the Stuart Center in Euro-Atlantic and Northern European Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former State Department official. “That’s in part because the Ukrainians demonstrated not only that they could use the equipment, but that they were going to have an army that needed to be resupplied and that was not a given pre-war.”
The steady increase in the level of firepower shipped to Ukraine has served another strategic purpose by limiting the risks of aggravating Russia and provoking a broader conflict, according to Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and former senior advisor at the State Department.
“Part of this is the successful boiling of the frog,” he said. “By doing this gradually, I think Russia has adjusted to each incremental ramping up and nothing has been seen as such a great departure from what was going on just before it that would merit Russia undertaking a dramatic shift in the pursuit of its war aims.”
Brad Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Senate adviser on foreign affairs, says that while the Biden administration deserves commendation for “moving heaven and earth to conduct a one of the most impressive security assistance programs in modern American history,” ultimately the issue isn’t keeping pace — but rather, a slow start.
“The Biden administration was incredibly slow before the February 24th invasion in sending weapons to Ukraine. They lost valuable time,” Bowman said. “That was painful and who knows had we been more aggressive? Maybe we would have deterred the invasion. We’ll never know.”
Bowman also says what he calls the “no, maybe, yes” dynamic that has played out when determining whether military supplies like Abrams tanks and Patriot missiles can be sent to Ukraine is detrimental.
“The request initially comes from Kyiv. The first answer is no,” he said. “And then something horrific happens in this unprovoked invasion. And then it becomes a maybe, and then it becomes a yes.”
“It isn’t an intellectual debate,” Bowman added. “This is life and death, victory and defeat on the battlefield.”
Have sanctions been effective?
Along with pledging its unwavering support to Ukraine, in the lead-up and immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion, the White House promised it would impose “severe and swift economic costs” on Moscow. Now, the Treasury Department is arguing those penalties are proving to be devastating — even if their true impact hasn’t yet been realized.
“While Russia’s economic data appears to be better than many expected early in the conflict, our actions are forcing the Kremlin to use its limited resources to prop up their economy at a time where they would rather be investing every dollar in their war machine,” Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in an address.
Indeed, while Ukraine’s military has outpaced expectations, so, too, has Russia’s economy. While many economists anticipated it would contract by double digits at the outset of the invasion, it only shrunk by two percent.
“Many did not anticipate is the effectiveness of the Russian central bank in taking emergency measures to stabilize the financial system,” said Charap. “Long term, the sanctions are obviously going to have a significant impact on the Russian economy. I think that short term squeeze is what wasn’t achieved.”
Bergmann says if it weren’t for the restrictions imposed, Moscow could have seen unbridled growth thanks to sky high energy costs. The greater problem, he says, is not the effectiveness of the set of sanctions imposed by the U.S and its allies, but rather the limited role any sanctions can play in ending a conflict.
“Banks don’t stop wars. An economic lever can cause pain, but it’s not going to substantially impact the leader’s decision making such as Putin, who is hell bent on trying to reclaim Ukraine for a nationalist reason,” he said.
Still, that economic leverage could still prove to be more effective in the long run, Bergmann predicts.
“What we’ve seen is that sanctions do work at strangling an economy. And the thing about strangulation is it can take time,” he said. “If we’re in a long war, battle of attrition, I think the sanctions really have an impact on Russia, in on Putin, who’s very sensitive to the whims of Russian public opinion.”
While implementing sanctions is one thing, enforcing them is a taller hurdle. The Treasury Department says it will escalate its crackdown on entities that help Russia subvert its policies — something Bowman says is crucial.
“Sanctions require constant maintenance because the whack-a-mole nature–you’ll sanction one entity and then they’ll just pop up under a new name somewhere else,” he said.
Bowman said that while Russia is currently able to rely on partners like Iran to prop up its military production, if Russian President Vladimir Putin is able to draw a much more powerful ally into its war effort, that could render the U.S. strategy on this front largely ineffective.
“If you have China starting to send weapons, then that’s really going to undermine really anything we’re doing on the sanctions front,” he said.
Prospects for peace?
If there’s one thing that every direct and indirect party to the conflict can seemingly agree on, it’s that a negotiated resolution doesn’t seem to be on the horizon.
But there may be some daylight between Kyiv and Washington as to the ultimate objective. Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy has vowed he aims to reclaim all of Ukraine, including Crimea, a peninsula Russia has occupied since 2014. The U.S. has maintained that Crimea is rightfully Ukrainian territory, but the administration has not explicitly said whether it will support any efforts to retake the land.
“Our job is to make sure that, for example, if it does come to a negotiation, they’re in the strongest possible positioning from which to negotiate, which is why we are maximizing the efforts that we’re making now to help them regain territory that has been taken from them, whether it’s since February or since 2014,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday.
“Politicians are going to say certain things,” said Bergmann. “How the war unfolds will really determine what Ukraine is willing to accept or not, and I don’t think that’s really going to be up to folks in Washington or other European capitals.”
“I think the ultimate end goal for Ukraine is territorial borders that are recognized and that they can live with so that it can shift its westward toward the Europe Union and NATO,” he added.
While American officials readily say Ukraine must determine the terms of any peace agreement, Bowman says perhaps the most decisive thing the U.S. can do to strengthen Kyiv’s position at any negotiating table that emerges is sustaining public support.
“As we’ve seen throughout recent history, Europeans follow Washington’s lead. So if we get squishy, we should expect a lot of European capitals get squishy,” he said.
“The history books about this haven’t been written yet,” Bowman said. “If they say the we put up a good showing for a year, but in the end, Putin wore down the West he was able to grab territory by force, essentially giving a green light for him and other autocrats to do more of the same — that’s not something I want my kids reading.”
(WASHINGTON) — As Democrats set their sights on the 2024 presidential cycle, several prominent party figures remain at odds over which blue city should host the next Democratic National Convention. The final choice — which has narrowed to Atlanta, Chicago or New York City — would reflect, in part, what Democrats see as their political path to the White House in the coming year.
A DNC official confirms to ABC News that Houston is no longer in consideration, though it was.
Democrats expect the party’s final decision will come sometime in the spring, following a similar timeline established in 2019, when Milwaukee was chosen as the 2020 DNC host city. Plans to host tens of thousands of attendees in the midwestern city were later upended by COVID-19 restrictions and transformed the gathering into a virtual broadcast presentation incorporating other elements from across the country.
Although the 2024 city preference broadly rests with President Joe Biden, the lead-up to the party’s decision is full of intraparty jockeying. Democrats from various corners of the U.S. have been touting regional politics, historic ties to policies and voter demographics in hopes of bolstering their case for hosting privileges, which also traditionally serve to symbolize the party’s platform and future aspirations.
Southern Democrats argue their electorate has been a catalyst for the party’s political success in recent elections, given that Georgia voters contributed to Biden’s 2020 victory while also helping Democrats claim and then retain a majority in the Senate. In a recent letter addressed to Biden, a group of more than 65 Southern Democratic lawmakers and political leaders cited these electoral gains, as well as the South’s legacy in the civil rights movement, as reasons for backing Atlanta as the top choice for the 2024 national convention.
“Everything we have accomplished as a party since January of 2021 can be traced back to Georgia, and specifically, to the metro Atlanta area which swung the state in our favor,” the letter said.
The Southern Democrats also argued that choosing Atlanta would “inspire Democrats in other competitive Southern states to run, to organize, to fundraise, and to volunteer in what is now truly fertile Democratic territory.”
According to former Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, who helped organize the letter, the South is poised for a groundswell of Democratic support.
“It is the message I think that Democrats want to show — that we see the potential in the South, we understand how elections have been going there, but we see the potential of the South. We appreciate that. And second of all, the strongest base of the Democratic Party is the African American vote, and Atlanta and Georgia are the heart of the civil rights movement, [given ties to] Dr. [Martin Luther] King, John Lewis, I mean, it just makes perfect sense,” Jones told ABC News.
Farther north, Midwestern Democrats are coalescing around Chicago’s pro-labor history and proximity to perennial battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin in their case for the nation’s third-largest city.
Similarly to the South, proponents of hosting the convention in the Midwest say the host city’s significance could affect support in surrounding political landscapes at a time when Democrats are facing hurdles with support from blue-collar workers who have historically been a key voting bloc for the party base.
“The Midwest makes or breaks presidential campaigns. Wisconsin has been the tipping-point state [that decided] both of the last two presidential elections. We are right next door to Chicago. Michigan’s not far, Minnesota is a key protector [of the battleground map]. Iowa is an aspirational state to flip. This is ground zero for the states that will take things one way or the other,” said Ben Wikler who serves as the Wisconsin Democratic Party chair.
Chicago-area labor groups are also voicing concerns about the potential for implied mixed messaging regarding the party’s policy platform if the convention were held in Georgia, a “right-to-work” state, which forbids union membership as a condition of employment — but, its critics say, also weakens the power of unions to negotiate with employers.
Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter told ABC News that the possible scenario of a convention in Georgia would make it difficult for Democratic delegates who are also part of labor groups to attend in a spirited way.
“It’ll be one of those things where, you know, folks will fly in and out to attend the convention but [regarding] the engagement around it, there’ll be a lot of hand wringing [about] even sitting in Atlanta … it’s not going to be something that’ll necessarily inspire anybody to get fired up and go, at least from our side of the fence,” Reiter said in an interview.
His concern leans on the president’s own expressed priority of pro-union labor, which also has battleground symbolism. After reiterating his belief in building a “blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America” during this year’s State of the Union address, Biden traveled to a union training center in Wisconsin the following day.
Although New York City is not historically a competitive presidential battleground, advocates for the nation’s biggest city, including Mayor Eric Adams, are also casting its vast labor force as a major facet of its convention bid.
“The Democratic Party is the party of labor and there’s no greater union town than NYC,” Adams tweeted this week while also calling out a joint effort with the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, a local union, to promote New York City as a top DNC pick in a recently produced television ad.
“We’re a union town, labor strong and worker proud. Like New York, like the Democratic Party, we are diverse but not divided,” the ad boasts.
Despite efforts by two of the three cities in consideration to put a spotlight on labor, in defense of Atlanta, Jones said the goal is not to “pit labor against labor by any stretch.”
“You go where you want to promote your presence, and the Democratic Party will always promote organized labor and we can promote it in Georgia just like we can anywhere else,” the former senator said.
(WASHINGTON) — Like other Republican governors, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is making school choice a high-profile political issue, declaring education reform her “top priority” and first big legislative play since taking office in January.
It’s facing pushback from public school educators and some parents — but Sanders is relishing the fight.
Thirteen days after painting her plan with broad strokes in the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union, Sanders unveiled the text of her much-touted omnibus education reform bill this week. While supporters applaud Republican lawmakers for quickly taking it up, critics are concerned the bill — carrying massive implications on the state’s education system — is being “ramrodded” through the legislature, despite students’ best interests.
“This will be the biggest overhaul in education, I think, anywhere in the country — certainly in my home state of Arkansas — and we look forward to setting the standard on how this can be done right and being a blueprint for other states across the country to follow,” Sanders said in an interview Tuesday on Fox News, dismissing opposition as “the left mad that they’re losing control of the system.”
Two Republican state lawmakers on Monday filed the text of a 144-page bill, Arkansas LEARNS, just before close of business. By Wednesday, it had passed out of a Senate Education Committee, despite public opposition and bipartisan support for amendments, and by Thursday, the full Senate.
“I do probably like 60 to 70% of it,” said State Sen. Greg Leding, Democratic minority leader, in Wednesday’s hearing. “But as I’ve told a lot of people, if the last 30% of the cheeseburger is poison, it’s still a pretty lousy cheeseburger.”
More red states expand school choice
The bill lumps together dozens of policy changes, such as lifting teachers’ starting salaries from the lowest to among the highest in the nation, banning teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity before fifth grade, as well as Critical Race Theory at all levels, and includes an ambitious proposal to install a universal school voucher program in Arkansas within three years — a move advocates hail and critics warn against.
If the legislation is passed and signed, Arkansas could be the fifth state — following Arizona, West Virginia, Iowa and Utah — to enact universal school choice, as more Republican-led legislatures prioritize taking up school choice policies.
School choice — or the distribution of school vouchers or scholarships — essentially reallocates state funding to individual families that sign up, allowing their children to leave the public school system for any reason and use the money budgeted for them on private or home school instead. That will be around $7,500 in an “Education Freedom Account” for each Arkansas student, according to the proposed legislation and current funding.
“Arkansas, in passing this, would be the latest state to join the universal school choice revolution,” said Corey DeAngelis, a prominent school choice advocate and senior fellow at the American Federation for Children. “The dominoes are falling and there’s nothing the government school monopoly can do about it.”
But more than a dozen Arkansans with ties to public education told ABC News they were concerned about the changes and the speed with which they’re happening.
“With a bill of this size that fundamentally changes the entire public school system in Arkansas, to give less than 48 hours for the public to review it before brought to the Senate Education Committee for testimony is not fair to the taxpayers of this state,” said Veronica Paulson, a parent of two public school children in Little Rock.
Stacey McAdoo, the state’s “Teacher of the Year” in 2019, questioned whether Arkansas teachers were involved in writing the legislation.
“People need time to digest it. I’m still processing everything, ” McAdoo told ABC News. “I don’t think that I’ve had adequate time to be as prepared and comfortable with what exactly this is and what it means.”
Asked about the two-day turnaround from filing to committee approval, Sanders’ office dismissed the concerns raised by ABC News that there wasn’t ample time to read the text.
“Arkansas LEARNS is something the Governor spoke about enacting for two years while she was campaigning,” said spokesperson Alexa Henning. “The details of this legislation, which have been developed in collaboration with elected legislators for months, are not secret and have been available since the Governor announced the legislation on February 8. We welcome the conversation about how Arkansas LEARNS will give every child access to a quality education and set them on a path to success.”
Paulson, who did not vote for Sanders, was among a dozen protesters who gathered outside the governor’s mansion in Little Rock on Sunday night — anticipating the bill’s release — with signs reading “public $ for public schools” and “teacher over vouchers.”
“I’m very concerned about taxpayer dollars going to private schools that can discriminate against children,” Paulson told ABC News. “Saying the money should follow the student makes children compete for an education, which should never be the case.”
“I personally feel like this bill is an attack on public education,” said Latoya Morgan, a librarian at Carver Elementary School in Little Rock. “I understand everybody wants what’s best for their kids, right? But what if that’s taking away from somebody else’s child?”
Morgan argued vouchers would help families already paying for private school and hurt public school students in Arkansas, particularly those in rural areas who don’t have many alternative options available to them.
Private schools aren’t required to meet the same accountability standards as public schools, Morgan added, like providing transportation to all students or accepting those with behavioral issues. And vouchers don’t always cover the full tuition of a private school, making the switch unattainable for some low-income families, forced to stay in a school with now-diminishing resources.
“Because if I’m in rural Arkansas, what other option do I have? What private choices do I have?” Morgan said. “And then if I have a behavior issue, because private schools can be selective about who they allow in, how will those kids be serviced by this system? Why are we not prioritizing a plan to invest in building a public education system that we can all be proud of in the state of Arkansas?”
Supporters of vouchers say they encourage competition among schools and allow parents the power to decide which schools work for their kids — to “fund students, not systems.”
“Maybe government schools would do a better job if they operated more like businesses and had incentives to cater to the needs of their customers,” DeAngelis said.
State Rep. Tippi McCullough, a Democrat and former private school educator in Little Rock, told ABC News late Thursday she hopes there will be time for amendments in the House before the bill heads to Sanders’ desk for signing.
“This complex bill has been rushed, but after only two days of bipartisan questioning that pointed out serious problems, sponsors promise they are open to amendments,” she said. “Even though Democrats and educators haven’t been included in the process up to this point, in the spirit of the collaboration that the sponsors continue to tout, it is our hope that there will be a robust process to accept our clarifying and substantive amendments.”
‘This will devastate Arkansas’
An hour’s drive away from Little Rock, in Rosebud, a town with a population of less than 500, Steve Grappe, chair of the Rural Caucus of Arkansas, organized an emergency Zoom meeting Sunday night, where he and 40 other participants crafted a “mobilization plan” to defeat the bill.
“We’re trying to get in front of as many people as we can to let them know the dangers of what’s happening,” Grappe told ABC News. “What we think is going to happen is they’re going to drop this bill and ramrod it through as fast as they can – and not give the people of Arkansas even a chance to digest what is in this and make a decision. So what we’re trying to do is get people organized right now.”
Grappe, a Democrat, shared the same concerns about how vouchers would impact rural areas which dominate the state’s landscape.
“In many of our small towns, the school is the lifeblood of the town. It’s the only thing keeping the town together,” Grappe said. “Because rural Arkansas has been leaking population over the last two decades, this will devastate it. Try to get people to move into a town that doesn’t even have a school, and you got to send your kids 30 miles to school. We’re never going to recruit new business and new people and these talents are going to dry up.”
Grappe said Sanders isn’t necessarily thinking about what’s best for Arkansas but what’s best for her resume. (Sanders’ office said, “The only people talking about ‘national ambitions’ is the media,” when asked about the criticism.)
“School choice is a national Republican ambition, and I think that Sarah Huckabee Sanders has higher ambitions than a governor. She’s trying to prove that Arkansas is the most conservative MAGA state in the country. And I don’t think it has anything to do with the welfare of our citizens,” he said.
He called efforts to slow or stop the legislation a “long shot” but “our only shot — because this is going to devastate the state of Arkansas.”
In this screen grab from a video, law enforcement officers are shown at the scene of a shooting in Philadelphia, Feb. 23, 2023. — WPVI
(PHILADELPHIA) — Seven people were shot, six of them children, in a shooting that took place at a schoolyard in Philadelphia Thursday evening, according to the Philadelphia Police Department.
Police found multiple shooting victims at a schoolyard of the James G. Blaine School, located in Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion section, at about 5:52 p.m. Thursday. Authorities then transported six people to area hospitals, five of them children, and one being a 31-year-old woman who was shot twice and is in stable condition.
A 2-year-old girl, 13-year-old boy, 15-year-old boy, and two 16-year-old boys were shot at the schoolyard. All are in stable condition and are seeking treatment at area hospitals, police said.
A 17-year-old boy was also grazed by a bullet and was transported by Uber to a local hospital. He is listed in stable condition, according to police.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
