(HONG KONG) — A landmark trial of 47 Hong Kong democracy advocates charged under a national security law began on Monday.
The case — at the core of China’s crackdown in Hong Kong — comes just as the city launches a massive campaign to lure tourists back after the pandemic.
The defendants include activist Joshua Wong, as well as former lawmaker Claudia Mo and legal scholar Benny Tai. They’re accused of “conspiracy to commit subversion” for holding unofficial pre-election primaries in July 2020, in which more than 600,000 people voted. At the time, authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong condemned the poll, arguing that they were trying to win enough seats in the city’s legislature to paralyse the government.
Sixteen of the 47 had earlier said they would contest the charges. Two others changed their plea to guilty on Monday morning. All will be sentenced after the trial — which could take 90 days.
Wong, Mo and Tai are among those who pleaded guilty, hoping for a more lenient sentence. But Tai, as one of the poll’s organizers, will likely face a higher sentence anyway.
The defendants are facing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Many of them have already been held in pre-trial custody for nearly two years.
Inside the court on Monday, former lawmaker Leung “Long Hair” Kwok-hung said, “There’s no crime to answer. It is not a crime to act against a totalitarian regime.”
The judge replied by calling it a “solemn occasion” and asked for respect from the defendants.
In the times before the crackdown, it would be typical for crowds of protesters to gather outside of the courts during politically charged trials like this.
But demonstrations have all but disappeared in Hong Kong, since the national security law was introduced to stamp out dissent following the 2019 unrest.
Dozens of police were deployed to the court on Monday morning, as people queued overnight for a place in the court’s public gallery. Some of them told local reporters they didn’t even know what the trial was about.
Police pushed away members of the League of Social Democrats when they tried to arrive at court. They are one of Hong Kong’s last active pro-democracy groups.
Two people carried a banner reading “crackdown is shameless.”
(NEW YORK) — A senior Russian army lieutenant who fled Russia told ABC News he witnessed his country’s troops torture prisoners in Ukraine, including beating and threats to rape them.
Konstantin Yefremov, the most senior Russian soldier to defect and speak out openly against the war, is now in hiding and spoke to ABC News from Mexico. He is currently seeking to apply for political asylum in the United States.
“I want that what I saw, what I was witness to, becomes known to society. So that the truth is uncovered,” Yefremov said.
“I know that at home there only awaits me, in the best case, a lengthy prison term and, in the worst, they’ll simply execute me,” he said. “But to hide at home and wait for them to come for you, that’s humiliating. And I can’t be silent any longer. I don’t want to be silent.”
Yefremov, 33, spent three months as an officer in areas of Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region that were occupied by Russian forces in the first phase of the war. During that time, he said he personally witnessed the torture of Ukrainian prisoners during interrogations, including the shooting of one POW in the arms and legs and threats of rape.
Yefremov has provided ABC News with documents confirming his identity as well as photos and videos that ABC has verified show him in southern Ukraine during the period he describes.
His unit, the 42nd Motorised Rifles Division — usually based in Chechnya — entered Ukraine from Crimea in the first days of the invasion, according to Yefremov.
Up until then, he said his commanders had told the troops they were to take part in exercises and that he, like most of his comrades, had not believed there would be war. The men only understood they really were going into Ukraine on the morning of the invasion when they heard the sound of artillery, he said.
Yefremov, who had served for nine years in the military, said he was appalled and claims that he tried to quit the military shortly after the invasion began. He said he left his unit and got in a taxi to drive him out of Crimea but, after he was threatened with imprisonment for desertion, he said he decided to return to his unit — something he said he now regrets.
Once in Ukraine, he said he was assigned to a squad guarding an artillery position close to the Ukrainian city of Melitopol and then later his division’s rear headquarters.
It was there — the division’s rear headquarters — where he alleges he saw the brutal mistreatment of Ukrainian prisoners.
Yefremov said he was present when a drunken colonel began interrogating a young Ukrainian soldier who had admitted to being a sniper.
“They broke that prisoner’s nose, they knocked out his teeth,” said Yefremov. For more than a week, he said, the colonel tortured the Ukrainian POW everyday, subjecting him to a mock execution and threatening to rape him.
The colonel would “pull down his trousers and say to the other soldiers, ‘Bring a mop — now I’m going to put this mop into your rear. I’ll video it and send it to your girlfriend,'” Yefremov recalled.
At one point, Yefremov said the colonel shot the prisoner in the arm and leg, breaking the bone.
“They bandaged him up, stopped the bleeding. Took him back to the garage with the other prisoners,” Yefremov said.
Yefremov said he and other Russian officers secretly moved the injured Ukrainian to a Russian military hospital, dressing him up in a Russian army uniform because they feared doctors there would refuse to treat him or that wounded Russian soldiers might even kill him.
The prisoner was returned some days later wearing a cast.
“After that, the colonel, for several days, beat him again,” Yefremov said.
Yefremov said three Ukrainian POWs captured were kept in a garage and made to sleep on the ground. He said the Russian troops were ordered not to feed the men anything other than crackers and water and that the prisoners were routinely beaten.
Yefremov said he and some other Russian soldiers tried to help the POWs as best they could, sneaking them food and cigarettes.
“I’m not trying to excuse myself. Or show how humane I was — I understand I shouldn’t have been there at all,” he said.
ABC News is unable to independently verify Yefremov’s torture allegations, but they resemble similar accounts of torture and abuse of prisoners by Russian forces widely documented in Ukraine.
Yefremov painted a picture of his own army plagued by ill-discipline and poor supplies. He said the men at the artillery unit he was guarding almost immediately ran short of food and water, reduced to hunting for hares and pheasants to feed themselves.
“We weren’t supplied with anything. No tents, there wasn’t enough basic food. We were occupied not so much with any military operations, as with our own survival,” he said.
He said he also witnessed many incidents of Russian troops looting — even taking things like lawnmowers, musical instruments and buckets.
Yefremov said most Russian troops had little motivation to fight and that the majority did not believe the Kremlin’s justifications for the war, such as its claim to be “de-Nazifying” Ukraine.
“70% of the Russian Armed Forces don’t believe in that. They understand that it’s a pretext for invasion, a pretext for a crazy dictator to realize his ideas with their hands,” he said.
He said many other soldiers had believed the war would end quickly and they would avoid heavy fighting but harsh new laws penalizing refusal to fight means it is now too late to resign.
“A Russian soldier … has been put in the position that either he goes fight or he sits in prison. They’ve said to him, ‘Go and kill or we’ll jail you,'” he said.
Yefremov said when he was rotated home to Chechnya in May, he decided he would not return to Ukraine. He refused an order to re-deploy and was accused of insubordination, after which he was discharged from the military in October.
But after president Vladimir Putin ordered a mobilization last fall, he said he realized his experience meant he would likely be called up. He said he went into hiding in Chechnya and then contacted a human rights group, Gulagu.net, to help him escape Russia.
Yefremov’s account is supported by military documents detailing the insubordination case against him, that record him refusing to deploy to Ukraine in June.
For the past month he said he has been trying to apply for asylum in the U.S., but so far has been unable to meet with any American diplomatic staff. He said had been attempting to apply through the Customs & Border Protection’s One app, a mobile phone application that the U.S. government requires asylum seekers trying to cross the border from Mexico to first submit their applications through.
Yefremov was the lead officer of a mine-clearing unit and he said previously he had worked on demining areas of Chechnya. He said he hadn’t participated in Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and covert invasion of Donbas — or its operation in Syria — saying he had avoided those tours out of a personal conviction that they were wrong.
He said he fully supports Ukraine’s efforts to liberate its territory and that he believes Russia now has no hope of winning the war.
He also called on his fellow soldiers to find ways to leave and “to not participate in that insanity,” saying they were being exploited by the Russian leadership.
“A lie can’t win,” he said. “They are free people defending their land.”
“I gave an oath by which I swore to protect my people. And so did all Russian military personnel. But the whole Russian army has broken that oath. They have all become Putin’s private military company,” he said.
Despite opposing the war, he said he could not excuse himself for taking part.
“I, in no way, am justifying myself. I’m guilty before the Ukrainian people that I came with a weapon in my hands as an uninvited guest. As long as I live I will feel that guilt,” he said.
(HOUSTON) — A fire Sunday morning in a laundry room at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a 90-minute ground stop on all United Airlines flights to Houston, officials said.
The FAA issued the ground stop shortly before 5:30 a.m. local time and lifted it about 7 a.m., officials told ABC Houston station KTRK.
The fire broke out around 4 a.m. in the airport’s Terminal C in an employee laundry room, airport officials said on Twitter. The FAA issued the ground at the request of United Airlines, the agency said in a statement.
All United Airlines flights to Houston, a major hub for the airline were held at their departure cities due to the fire, authorities said.
Houston Fire Department firefighters quickly responded to the laundry room blaze, evacuated all employees and put out the fire.
“There’s a whole lot of damage from the smoke and the heat. There’s not a whole lot of fire damage because it seemed like a small fire that spread over time,” Brian Cresswell, a spokesman for the Houston Fire Department.
No one was injured in the fire and no damage was reported to Terminal C, officials said.
“There still might be a lingering smell of smoke. United Airlines passengers might be delayed as ops return to normal this morning,” airport officials said in a statement posted on Twitter at 8:23 a.m. local time.
(WASHINGTON) — Four in 10 Americans say they’ve gotten worse off financially since Joe Biden became president, the most in ABC News/Washington Post polls dating back 37 years. Political fallout includes poor performance ratings for Biden and a tight hypothetical Biden/Trump rematch next year.
Given disaffection with both leaders, a rerun of the 2020 presidential election is hardly enticing: Nearly six in 10 Democratic-aligned adults don’t want to see Biden nominated again for the job, and half on the Republican side would rather not see Donald Trump as their party’s nominee.
If those were the choices and the election were today, the poll suggests it could be close: Among all adults, 48 percent support Donald Trump and 44 percent are for Biden; it’s a similar 48-45 percent among registered voters. The differences are within the poll’s margin of sampling error.
The big hit on Biden is the economy: With inflation moderating but still high, 41 percent say they’re not as well off financially as they were when Biden took office, the most in nearly three dozen ABC/Post polls to ask the question since 1986, when Ronald Reagan, who popularized the “better off” phrase, held office. Just 16 percent in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, say they’re better off.
By contrast, nearly two years into Trump’s presidency, far fewer – 13 percent – said they’d gotten worse off; more, 25 percent, were in better shape financially.
Biden’s overall job performance rating, 42-53 percent, approve-disapprove, has been under water, and steadily so, since September 2021. On issues, Biden has just 37 percent approval for handling the economy, 38 percent on the war in Ukraine and 28 percent on the immigration situation at the Mexican border.
Biden’s approval rating after two years in office is well below average compared with the previous 13 presidents. Three have been in about the same boat at this point (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan) and one has been lower – Trump, at 37 percent, in polling by ABC/Post and previously Gallup. The pre-Biden average is 56 percent.
EMOTIONS – Underscoring Biden’s challenges, many more Americans have a negative rather than positive emotional response to the prospect of his winning a second term: The public by a broad 62-36 percent would be disappointed or even angry if he were re-elected, rather than enthusiastic or satisfied.
Responses to a hypothetical Trump victory also are negative overall, but less so, 56-43 percent. Part of the reason is that Biden loses slightly more of his base – 26 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents would be unhappy if he were re-elected, compared with 20 percent of Republicans and GOP leaners who’d feel that way about a Trump win.
Trump occupies somewhat more space at the emotional extremes. Seventeen percent would be enthusiastic about his winning another term; 36 percent would be angry about it. Given a Biden re-election, fewer would be enthusiastic – 7 percent – but also fewer would be angry, 30 percent.
DOCUMENTGATE – For all his woes, Biden outpoints Trump on another measure – their apparent mishandling of classified government documents. Forty-five percent of adults think Trump intentionally did something illegal in his handling of classified documents after he left office as president. Many fewer, 27 percent, say the same about Biden after his vice presidency.
That doesn’t mean Biden is fully off the hook in terms of public attitudes on the issue. Forty-eight percent think he acted wrongly, but not intentionally, in handling classified documents. Just 16 percent think he did nothing wrong. Twenty-nine percent think Trump was unintentionally wrong; 20 percent see no wrongdoing on his part.
BETTER OFF? – Inflation peaked at 9.1 percent in last June, a 40-year high; it’s eased since but remained a still-high 6.5 percent in December. That’s produced widespread economic pain. Nearly two years into Trump’s presidency, 25 percent of Americans said they’d gotten better off since he took office. As noted, fewer, 16 percent, now say the same about life under Biden.
After Trump’s first year, just 13 percent felt worse off financially. That spiked to 35 percent under Biden a year ago, and its level now, 41 percent, is the most measured in 33 ABC/Post polls since September 1986. The previous high was 36 percent among registered voters in September 2011, amid a plethora of economic troubles including 9 percent unemployment.
Economic sentiment is subject to partisan influence; 72 percent of Republicans say they’ve gotten worse off under Biden (more than any other group), while just 12 percent of Democrats say the same. The trouble for Biden is that it’s 39 percent among independents, vs. 11 percent worse off among independents in 2018.
Biden’s approval rating is vastly lower among worse-off Americans than others – unsurprising given the disproportionate number of Republicans in their ranks. Perhaps more telling, given independents’ usual swing-voter role, is this: Among worse-off independents, Biden has a mere 12 percent approval rating and Trump leads him in vote preference by 82-8 percent. Among independents who are in the same shape or better off financially as when he took office, by contrast, Biden’s approval vaults to 67 percent and he leads Trump by 62-29 percent.
Worse-off independents disproportionately lean Republican and better/same independents largely lean Democratic. Nonetheless, because independents are less firmly rooted in partisan predispositions, they can be movable – making their economic sentiment a measure to watch as the 2024 campaign heats up.
NOMINATION NATION – Just 31 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the party should nominate Biden for re-election; 58 percent say it should pick someone else. That’s no better than it was for Biden last September, 35-56 percent.
Two Democratic groups stand out as most opposed to Biden for the nomination – younger adults and Democratic-leaning independents. Among 18- to 39-year-olds, 69 percent would like to see the party choose someone other than Biden, who already is the nation’s oldest president. Anti-Biden sentiment on this measure reaches 72 percent among independents.
Still, even among mainline Democrats, just 39 percent would like to see Biden as the nominee; 50 percent think not. Indeed, the only group in which he’s even numerically above water in support for the nomination is Black Democrats, who divide 47-41 percent on the question. The sample size for that group is small and the difference is within the margin of error.
On the Republican side, overall 44 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents would like to see Trump as the party’s nominee, similar to 47 percent in September; these compare with 67 percent support for him to be the nominee heading into the 2020 contest. Forty-nine percent now would like to see the party pick a different candidate.
The most pro-Trump group among Republicans and GOP leaners is those who call themselves very conservative – 55 percent back him for the nomination, the only group to do so by a statistically significant margin. His other best groups, at 52 percent support, are non-college graduates, rural residents and those with lower household incomes. Most opposed to Trump in the GOP ranks are college graduates (67 percent), people with higher incomes (66 percent), GOP-leaning independents (61 percent) and moderates (56 percent).
APPROVAL and VOTE – Among other results, Biden’s approval rating remains highly polarized; 81 percent of Democrats approve of his work, compared with 6 percent of Republicans; it’s 45 percent among independents. Compare to Trump at this point in his presidency – 78 percent from Republicans, 12 percent among Democrats.
A key difference is independents, who gave Trump a 32 percent approval rating, 13 percentage points lower than Biden’s from independents now.
That said – and while it’s very early in the cycle – independents today support Trump over Biden by 50-40 percent, a slight difference, meaning it’s significant at the 90 percent confidence level rather than the customary 95 percent confidence. There are miles to go before November 2024, but it’s worth keeping in mind that in nine of the last 12 elections, whoever won independents won the presidency.
METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Jan. 27-Feb. 1, 2023, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,003 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 26-25-40 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Md. See details on the survey’s methodology here.
(NEW YORK) — Government officials closely tracked a massive surveillance balloon believed to be from China as it traveled across the U.S. for several days.
The white balloon, which China’s foreign ministry has claimed to be used for meteorological purposes, traveled at an altitude of around 60,000 feet with a vessel described as the size of three buses, officials said. It was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean Saturday afternoon.
Here is a timeline of where the balloon was spotted in the U.S.:
Jan. 28
The balloon entered U.S. airspace on Jan. 28 north of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, according to a senior military official.
Jan. 30
It then entered Canadian airspace over the Northwest Territories on Jan. 30, the senior military official said.
Jan. 31
The balloon then traveled south and reentered U.S. airspace over northern Idaho on Jan. 31, according to a senior military official.
Feb. 1
4:21 p.m. ET: One of the earliest sightings confirmed by ABC News was Wednesday in Reed Point, Montana.
6:46 p.m. ET: More than two hours later, it was filmed east of Reed Point, in Billings, Montana. Other footage captured it over Billings over the next hour, as civilians wondered what the object was.
From Montana, the balloon traveled southeast through South Dakota and Nebraska, according to U.S. officials.
Feb. 3
9:41 a.m. ET: Social media sightings popped up as the balloon moved southeastwardly across the continental U.S. ABC News confirmed another sighting of the balloon around 9:41 a.m. ET on Friday, when it was filmed over Sabetha, Kansas.
11 a.m. ET: Over an hour later, it appeared farther east over Saint Joseph, Missouri, where it was filmed.
Between 11:56 a.m. and 12:28 p.m. ET: Video footage captured the balloon farther east, over Cameron, Missouri.
About 30 minutes later: It was seen farther south within the Kansas City metro area, in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.
The balloon appeared to be heading toward North Carolina, according to a senior U.S. official familiar with the situation.
Feb. 4
ABC News confirmed several sightings of the balloon in North Carolina by Saturday morning.
8:40 a.m. ET: The balloon was filmed over Biltmore Park in Asheville, North Carolina.
10:22 a.m. ET: The balloon continued to move southeastwardly, with sightings over the Hendersonville and Saluda areas, before being captured over the Eagle Lake neighborhood in Charlotte.
11:15 a.m. ET: The balloon was captured over South Carolina, in Lancaster, as it continued moving southeastward toward the coast.
1:30 p.m. ET: The balloon was seen over the coastal city of Myrtle, along with U.S. fighter aircraft close by.
2:39 p.m. ET: Its voyage came to an end. Footage captured the balloon being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina.
The balloon was ultimately downed in U.S. airspace over U.S. territorial waters by fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command, according to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
The balloon was struck by an F-22 firing a missile roughly six nautical miles off the South Carolina coast, according to a senior U.S. defense official.
ABC News’ Victoria Beaule, Layla Ferris, Cheryl Gendron, Julia Jacobo, Kerem Inal, Chris Looft, Josh Margolin and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The hit HBO series “The Last Of Us” describes a post-pandemic world devastated by a mass outbreak of a “zombie fungus” that infects and takes over the mind of its hosts. Originally a video game, the popular show was recently renewed for a second season.
Although its premise is science fiction, the fungus in the show is actually based in scientific reality.
Is the ‘zombie’ fungus real?
Cordyceps – the so-called “zombie fungus” – is a real fungus and is sometimes used in treatments and therapeutics in Chinese herbal medicine.
Although cordyceps does not infect humans, it does infect a wide range of insects.
In ants, cordyceps slowly infects its victims by mind-controlling the host to migrate to a humid climate where the conditions are perfect for its growth. Once a suitable environment has been found, the ant will dig its jaws into a plant and await death.
The fungus will then slowly consume the ant while eventually sending out its own spores – a sort of antenna to enthrall and trap future victims.
Could the ‘zombie fungus’ threaten human health?
There are thousands of species of cordyceps each designed to infect a particular species – luckily, humans aren’t one of them. The human body’s immune system is more advanced than that of an ant and has a higher internal temperature, which would protect it from cordyceps infection.
However, other fungi have made their presence known throughout human history. Ergot poisoning, also dubbed “St. Anthony’s Fire,” is caused by the contamination of grain and has been attributed to mass hysteria events such as the Salem Witch trials in the 17th century, Matthew Fisher, Ph.D., a professor of fungal disease epidemiology at the Imperial College School of Public Health, said.
While some fungi have been known to cause hallucinations on very rare occasions, “a human manipulating cordyceps is vanishingly unlikely,” Fisher said.
Scientists said that while there are approximately 150,000 species of fungi – with a few million yet to be discovered – only about 200 are known to infect humans.
How do fungi currently affect human health?
Fungal infections are responsible for over 150 million severe cases and an estimated 1.7 million deaths per year worldwide, according to one study.
Researchers estimate that nearly a billion people have skin, nail and hair fungal infections annually. More serious fungal infections usually appear in people with other underlying health problems such as asthma, AIDS, cancer, organ transplant recipients and those on corticosteroid therapies.
In a detailed report, the World Health Organization warned in October, 2022, of 19 fungal pathogens representing the greatest threat to public health.
Yet, fungal infections receive less than 1.5% of infectious disease funding while killing more people than tuberculosis – a leading infectious disease killer worldwide.
“It’s really shocking that research on fungal pathogens is so underfunded. Biohazardous threats are much broader than just bacteria and viruses,” Jessica Malaty Rivera, infectious disease epidemiologist and research fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital and The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told ABC News.
Will there be a pandemic caused by fungal infections?
While some fungi can be transmitted from person to person, they generally do not spread as easily or quickly as viruses. Additionally, the human body’s immune response and the availability of antifungal medications make it less likely that a fungus would be able to cause a global outbreak.
It is unlikely that a single fungus would cause a global pandemic on the same scale that we’ve seen with COVID-19. Viruses typically spread through respiratory droplets whereas fungal infections spread through direct skin-to-skin contact or from sharing items.
Despite a low possibility of spurring a worldwide pandemic, the global burden of fungal infections remains high. “Many of these infections can be incredibly difficult to treat and have high mortality rates,” Rivera said.
Is climate change making things worse?
While it is highly unlikely climate change would lead to a zombie-like apocalypse according to experts, the warming of the globe continues to pose a threat to global health.
Research has shown that global pandemics from infectious diseases may become more common as habitats continue to bleed into one another and animals are exposed to species they have never interacted with before, while the space between humans and the natural world shrinks.
A new study also found that when scientists increased the temperature of a particular fungus was exposed to, the pathogen could adapt with certain genetic changes.
“These mobile elements are likely to contribute to adaptation in the environment and during an infection,” postdoctoral researcher Asiya Gusa Ph.D. of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology in the Duke School of Medicine said in a press release accompanied with the study. The research may suggest that pathogenic fungi can adapt to the planet’s warmer temperatures as well – highlighting the danger of global warming.
“It is clear that in a warmer wetter world, we are going to be exposed to more [fungi] than ever before – signs of this were seen during Hurricane Katrina – and this is going to pose an increased public health stress,” Fisher said.
“If we are going to really tackle climate change, we have to get more specific about the impact it has on public health,” Rivera said.
(WASHINGTON) — The downing of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon by the U.S. military was met by lawmakers with a mix of praise for the safe and successful operation, criticism for it not happening sooner and concern over what intelligence may have been gathered and how to prevent something like this from happening again.
The balloon was shot down by a U.S. fighter aircraft off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday afternoon after traveling across the continental U.S. since Tuesday, according to officials. The Pentagon has said the high-altitude balloon was being used for surveillance, disputing China’s claim that it was a civilian aircraft used for meteorological purposes.
President Joe Biden told reporters on Saturday that he ordered the Pentagon to shoot the balloon down “as soon as possible” on Wednesday. However, the operation was held off until the balloon — carrying a payload described as being the size of three buses — was off the coast, where threats to civilians were limited.
“They decided — without doing damage to anyone on the ground — they decided that the best time to do that was when it got over water within our 12-mile limit,” Biden said. “They successfully took it down and I want to compliment our aviators who did it.”
A senior defense official told reporters there was value in waiting to shoot down the balloon aside from just the safety of people on the ground.
“The surveillance balloon’s overflight of U.S. territory was of intelligence value to us,” the official said during a briefing on Saturday. “We were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable.”
Lawmakers across the aisle applauded the military for successfully taking down the suspected surveillance balloon, though some said it took too long.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries thanked Biden and the U.S. military for “putting the safety of the American people first.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer commended Biden’s “leadership in taking down the Chinese balloon over water to ensure safety for all Americans.”
Tennessee Republican Rep. Mark Green, chair of the Homeland Security Committee, said he was “pleased” that the “espionage tool” won’t be returning to China.
At the same time, several lawmakers, including Green and fellow members of his party, reiterated criticisms that the balloon should have been brought down sooner — before it crossed the continental U.S. — and that the situation called for a more forceful response.
Green said that “damage to U.S. national security and American sovereignty was already done.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said Biden “refused to stop China,” while Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., called it a “dereliction of Biden’s duty.”
“We still don’t know what information was collected and where it was sent,” Scott tweeted.
On Sunday talk shows, Republicans kept up the questions over the timing of the military’s decision to down the balloon.
“I can assure you that if we fly a balloon over China, they’re going to shoot it down, and probably a lot sooner than we did,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“What began as spy balloon has become trial balloon, testing President Biden’s strength and resolve, and unfortunately the present failed that test,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., added on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that while he commended Biden for ordering the balloon to be shot down, “he didn’t do that until a week aft it entered U.S. airspace.”
Even Biden’s defenders among congressional Democrats said the balloon’s mere presence in the U.S. indicated broader issues in the relationship between Washington and Beijing.
“We should not have had this kind of incursion into the United States and we have a real problem with China on a number of issues, from their human rights violations to their violations of international business law to even the challenges we’ve had with them on overt spying. So I’m grateful that the military took decisive action when they and how they did, but we, obviously, have issues here,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said Sunday on “Face the Nation.”
Senior administration officials have told ABC News that shooting down the balloon safely sent the message that the U.S. protects American lives while responding “effectively” to the violation of U.S. sovereignty.
Amid the security concerns, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said the balloon didn’t pose a physical or military threat and, once it was detected, the U.S. took steps to protect against foreign intelligence collection of sensitive information.
A senior military official told reporters Saturday that the balloon was deemed unlikely to provide much more to China from flying over than could already be gained from its satellites.
“Nevertheless, this balloon was clearly crossing over sensitive sites, including sensitive military sites. And so we took additional precautions to make sure that whatever additive intel value would be minimized,” the official said.
The eventual shoot-down then served to “neutralize any intelligence value it could have produced” by preventing it from returning to China, the official said.
In the wake of what he called China’s “inexcusable” and “incompetent” spying, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said this incident will be a “major focus” of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing this week.
As the balloon debris retrieval is underway, Michigan Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin called for all Congress members to be briefed on the situation in the coming week and as more is learned, while urging stronger steps against China beyond Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponing his planned travel in the country this weekend.
“Whether through new sanctions or tighter restrictions on U.S. exports to China, the message needs to be loud and clear,” Slotkin tweeted.
Chinese surveillance balloons have previously been spotted over countries across five continents, including in East Asia, South Asia and Europe, according to a senior defense official. In the U.S., they transited the continental U.S. briefly at least three times during the Trump administration, senior administration officials said Saturday.
Following the resolution of this latest balloon, Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt said, “We need ensure that this never happens again.”
ABC News’ Justin Gomez, MaryAlice Parks and Matt Seyler contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — One hundred and twenty-eight House Republicans and nearly all Republican senators on Friday filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court opposing the Biden administration’s federal student debt cancellation plan, which has been halted as tens of millions of Americans await the justices’ ruling on its legality.
While White House officials have been adamant that the president is within his authority to wipe out hundreds of billions in government-backed loans to provide “breathing room to tens of millions of working families,” Republicans challenging it take the opposite view.
The forgiveness plan that could relieve up to $20,000 for eligible loan recipients is an unconstitutional breach of the separation of powers and a violation of the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act), according to the House GOP brief.
“The Biden administration’s student loan bailout is a political gambit engineered by special interest groups; abusing the HEROES Act for such a ploy is shameful,” House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said in a statement.
The House GOP brief included 25 members on Foxx’s committee and roughly 100 other lawmakers. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did not sign it, though Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan did.
Separately, 43 Republican senators signed their own brief in support of the challenge to the loan forgiveness program. Led by Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn, they also call the president’s plan unlawful and claim it exceeds his office.
The White House has pushed back.
“While opponents of our plan are siding with special interests and trying every which way to keep millions of middle class Americans in debt, the President and his Administration are fighting to lawfully give middle-class families some breathing room as they recover from the pandemic and prepare to resume loan payments in January,” spokesman Abdullah Hasan said in October.
However, the House Republicans say they believe Biden is exploiting the language of the HEROES Act, which the administration argues vests the education secretary with expansive authority to alleviate financial hardship for federal student loan recipients as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Indeed, the entire purpose of the HEROES Act is to authorize the Secretary to grant student-loan-related relief to at-risk borrowers because of a national emergency — precisely what the Secretary did here,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in a Supreme Court filing defending the proposed debt cancellation.
After legal challenges last year saw the forgiveness program halted by lower courts, the Supreme Court announced in December that it will hear oral arguments on the issue at the end of February.
A decision on the program is then expected by June.
The moratorium on loan repayments, which was first put in place under President Donald Trump earlier in the pandemic, is now set to expire 60 days after the decision or 60 days after June 30 — whichever date comes first.
A vocal opponent of Biden’s plan, Foxx also accused the administration of “bypassing Congress” to implement loan forgiveness.
“Congress is the only body with the authority to enact sweeping and fundamental changes of this nature, and it is ludicrous for President Biden to assume he can simply bypass the will of the American people,” she said in her statement.
Foxx told ABC News in an interview last month that she believes it is an “injustice” for taxpayers to fund the administration’s “scheme.” The plan would cost $400 billion, according to an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and its nearly half-a-trillion-dollar price tag worries Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.
Despite the White House saying the cancellation would give needed economic relief, Duncan said it would be sending the U.S. further into a “debt spiral.”
“The Court should invalidate the Secretary of Education’s sweeping student loan forgiveness program since it trespasses on Congressional authority and violates the separation of powers,” he said.
The U.S. Education Department has said the president’s decision to cancel up to $10,000 for some loan recipients — those who made less than $125,000 on their 2020 or 2021 taxes or $250,000 filing jointly — or $20,000 for low-income recipients who received Pell grants could impact roughly 43 million Americans who owe $1.6 trillion in student loans.
That was particularly important in light of how COVID-19 upended the economy, according to the White House.
“This is why we took this action — to make sure that tens of millions of Americans are able to deal with a time that was very difficult, especially in the last couple of years,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told ABC News’ Karen Travers last week. “That’s been the important priority of the president: to make sure folks … who felt the pinch if you will, who felt the hurt the most these past couple of years due to what COVID did to the economy, got a little extra help.”
After the cancellation program launched last year, 26 million people signed up online before it was halted by the courts.
Of that group, 16 million were approved before the department’s website stopped accepting applications to let the legal process play out. However, no loan forgiveness has been discharged.
Last month, over a dozen advocacy groups like the NAACP filed briefs in support of the president’s plan.
“Student loan borrowers from all walks of life suffered profound financial harms during the pandemic and their continued recovery and successful repayment hinges on the Biden Administration’s student debt relief plan,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in response to the coalition of groups joining in support of the plan. “We will continue to defend our legal authority to provide the debt relief working and middle-class families clearly need and deserve.”
(WASHINGTON) — New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said Sunday that he is considering a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
“I’m definitely thinking about it and having those conversations,” Sununu told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
The governor, who was just overwhelmingly reelected to a fourth term, said “the message is new leadership” and touted his own track record running what he called the “most efficient” state government in the U.S.
“But at the end of the day, you’re going to have a lot of Republicans that get in that race,” he said. “They’re all really good people. They’re really good candidates. … And you got to have that discussion about where we’re going to go, both as a party and make sure we’re going there as a country.”
The field of 2024 GOP contenders already includes former President Donald Trump while former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is expected to announce her own bid later this month, sources have told ABC News.
Sununu, a vocal Trump critic, is skeptical of his general election chances. “He could get the nomination, but he can’t get it done,” Sununu said.
He pointed to the 2022 midterm elections, where several major Trump-backed candidates fell short, as a sign of Trump’s electability concerns. Sununu, a self-described “free-market principled Republican,” said the party should focus on finding a conservative candidate who isn’t too divisive.
“What I’ve tried to espouse to with Republicans is, ‘Look, we want to vote for the most conservative candidate that can win in November and get stuff done in ’25,'” he said.
Sununu said that his personal vision was this: “I believe government has to get out of your way. And we’ve done it really, really well here in New Hampshire. We’re sharing that model across the country.”
Good leadership is what is lacking out of President Joe Biden’s White House, Sununu argued, faulting Biden both for his response to a Chinese reconnaissance balloon flying over the country last week and what Sununu said was a disingenuous picture of the economy.
“Go into a grocery store and just talk to people in the cereal aisle. What are they feeling? You know, do they feel confident about this leadership that the president? No,” Sununu said. He cited a new ABC News/Washington Post survey that four in 10 Americans feel financially worse off under Biden.
“The best leadership is one that looks inside, says, ‘What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong, right?’ If we don’t acknowledge the problem, we can’t fix it,” Sununu said, adding, “You need to see more of that out of Washington.”
The Biden administration’s approach to the Chinese balloon, revealing its presence days after it entered the U.S. and then shooting it down over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday, was “too little, too late,” Sununu said.
U.S. officials have said they delayed any military response to prevent hurting civilians and took steps to limit any intelligence risk.
“Again, you have to have leadership. You have to be transparent. You have to be fast-acting,” Sununu said.
When asked about Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, Sununu contended that the commander-in-chief will wrongly take credit for current economic progress as the country recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought widespread job loss.
Sununu said he expects Biden to tout the unemployment rate, at a decades-low, but “after a pandemic, that wasn’t very hard.”
Boasting about declining inflation, which is now at a year-over-year rate of 6.5%, would be similarly self-serving, Sununu said. “Inflation was at a record high — of course it’s coming down,” he said. “It couldn’t have gotten any higher.”
“The prices are not going to go back to where they were. I know the Biden administration likes to pretend that,” Sununu said, predicting that the economy would be headed for years of so-called “stagflation,” in which rising costs limit growth.
Despite his sharp criticisms of Biden, Sununu said he still doesn’t think Trump can win against him in a 2024 rematch.
“Trump is going to be seen as a very extreme candidate,” Sununu said. “The country is going to push back against it.”
(WASHINGTON) — With President Joe Biden preparing to deliver his second State of the Union address on Tuesday, a new ABC News/Washington Post shows many people feel their finances are worsening — but Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on Sunday said the president can “make the case” that the economy is back on track.
“You make that case by pointing to the reality and recognizing that the story won’t tell itself,” Buttigieg told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. He touted the latest employment numbers, including 517,000 jobs added in January, and an unemployment rate of 3.4% that is the lowest since 1969.
“What we’re seeing is extraordinary. Record job creation, as the president has pointed out, more created in two years on his watch than four years on any other president’s watch, and usually, when you have unemployment go down like this, you have inflation go up. But right now, inflation is going down as well,” the secretary said.
Buttigieg also touted Biden’s “economic track record” in creating manufacturing jobs, lowering the cost of insulin for seniors and projects that will soon be starting due to the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
The ABC News/Washington Post poll shows 41 percent of Americans say they’re not as well off financially as they were when Biden took office — the most in almost 40 years of ABC News/Washington Post polling.
Pressed by Karl on the survey showing only 16% say that they feel better off today than they were two years ago when Biden took office, Buttigieg said the country has “been through a lot” recently.
“The president and the entire administration recognize that there continue to be headwinds, challenges, problems facing this economy,” he said, invoking the COVID-19 pandemic. “After all, the president took office under some of the most challenging circumstances facing any president in modern times.”
Buttigieg highlighted rising wages and more Americans participating in the labor force as a signal of economic strength and said that “we can expect continued improvement” if the administration continues “successful policies.”
“Part of what I think you’re going to see on Tuesday when the president’s addressing the nation and the Congress in the State of the Union is a reminder that this successful approach stands in stark contrast to a strategy that would focus on things like preserving tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” Buttigieg argued.
The House’s new Republican majority, however, contends that Biden and congressional Democrats have been reckless and wasteful in their government spending, citing the national debt and historic inflation that only began to cool in recent months.
With the country approaching the deadline to increase the nation’s debt limit by June or risk defaulting on its obligations, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said there will be no default — but that the White House must negotiate on spending in exchange for a debt ceiling increase.
The White House said raising the limit, which is currently about $31.4 trillion, has long been done without preconditions under both presidents. The ceiling allows the government to borrow money to pay for debts it has already incurred rather than for new spending. Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump reportedly grew the national debt by approximately $7.8 trillion, which included an enormous government response to COVID-19.
Buttigieg on Sunday wouldn’t comment on talks between the White House and GOP but made clear that raising the debt limit was not up for debate — insisting that the administration viewed negotiating spending levels as a separate discussion with Republicans.
“The president’s been very clear that the full faith and credit of the United States is not negotiable. Remember, this is not a decision or a negotiation about how much to spend or even how much to borrow, this is about whether the United States pays its bills, and we always do,” he said.
He told Karl that there are “always negotiations going on” when it comes to spending, which House Republicans are hoping to curb now that they have control of the chamber.
But because Republicans haven’t “put pen to paper on what they want,” Buttigieg said, it makes it “hard to understand” where they want to make cuts.
Karl asked if it was then possible that there could be parallel legislation to raise the debt limit without conditions — while a second bill reflected a compromise on spending.
“Yeah, because one is not appropriate for negotiation; the other one is,” Buttigieg said.
As President Biden prepares for a likely 2024 reelection campaign, the ABC News/Washington Post poll also showed that less than a third of Democratic voters want to see him re-nominated.
Buttigieg gave no indication on when Biden could make his announcement but said he has been an “absolutely historically successful president and I want to see that continue.”
When Karl followed up to ask if Buttigieg wanted Biden to run in 2024, he said, “When I’m appearing in this capacity, I can’t talk campaigns and elections. But let me say this: I’m incredibly proud to be part of this team that he has built and to be part of the results that he is delivering.”
