(NEW YORK) — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg agreed Friday night to dismiss his appeal of a ruling that allowed a subpoena for testimony about the criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump by the Republican-led committee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan.
The two sides came to an agreement allowing former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to be deposed next month with a representative from the district attorney’s office to be present.
“Our successful stay of this subpoena blocked the immediate deposition and afforded us the time necessary to coordinate with the House Judiciary Committee on an agreement that protects the District Attorney’s privileges and interests. We are pleased with this resolution, which ensures any questioning of our former employee will take place in the presence of our General Counsel on a reasonable, agreed upon timeframe,” a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney said.
A spokesperson for Jordan also confirmed the resolution.
“This evening, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office withdrew its appeal in Bragg v. Jordan. Mr. Pomerantz’s deposition will go forward on May 12, and we look forward to his appearance,” Russell Dye, a spokesperson for Jordan, said in a statement.
A federal appeals court on Thursday issued an administrative stay temporarily blocking the deposition of Pomerantz by the House Judiciary Committee less than two hours before it was set to begin.
Bragg had sought to block the congressional subpoena, but on Wednesday a federal judge denied his request — marking a win for Jordan.
(VERMONT) — Authorities have locked down a Vermont community as they search for a 24-year-old man they say exchanged fire with an officer responding to a domestic disturbance call in the village of Morrisville.
Henry Lovell allegedly fled the scene on foot before 9 p.m. on Thursday night, shotgun in hand, and entered a nearby Veterans of Foreign Wars post, where a patron wrestled the weapon from him, the Vermont State Police said Friday afternoon in a release.
Lovell is still at large, police said.
Authorities asked residents Friday morning to avoid the area around Morrisville, a village of roughly 2,000 people tucked among the mountains of northern Vermont, and requested that anyone who was on two nearby trails on Friday to call police if they saw anyone suspicious.
Area schools were closed Friday, State Police said.
Lovell is considered “potentially armed and dangerous,” though authorities have “accounted for all the firearms Lovell might have had access to.”
The search has expanded beyond the village, but “it is a possibility that he is still in the area,” Maj. David Petersen of the State Police said at a press conference Friday evening.
Adam Silverman, a spokesman for the agency, told ABC News in an email earlier Friday that there is “no evidence that Lovell has access to a vehicle.”
Police said Lovell faces multiple pending charges in unrelated cases including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, lewd and lascivious conduct and resisting arrest.
The officer Lovell allegedly shot, whom authorities have not yet named, “responded to a reported kidnapping and domestic disturbance involving Henry Lovell, a family and another individual,” according to the release, which noted that the officer “recognized Lovell from previous interactions.”
The officer sustained minor injuries and was treated and released from a hospital, police said.
In an interview with the News & Citizen, a local paper, Dorick Tallman described stripping Lovell of his shotgun when the suspect entered the bar area of the Morrisville Veterans of Foreign Wars building Thursday night.
“We cornered him by one of the offices, and I was like, ‘dude, just give me the gun.’ He sort of handed it to me and as soon as I grabbed it, he realized that he didn’t want me to have it,” said Tallman, who said a scuffle ensued.
“My thought was just public safety,” he told the outlet. “There were teenagers and a bunch of girls and whatnot in the dance hall, and I just didn’t want it to turn into a hostile situation or anybody else to get hurt.”
(NEW YORK) — A Canadian health official said on Friday Americans could access an abortion drug up north if a ban is upheld in the United States.
In an April 7 decision, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas ruled in favor of Alliance Defending Freedom — a conservative Christian legal advocacy group — and reversed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone.
After appeals, the case worked its way up the Supreme Court, which issued an administrative stay that gives the justices more time to consider the issue. The stay will be in place until the end of day Friday.
Philippe-Alexandre Langlois, press secretary to Canada’s Families Minister Karina Gould, said non-Canadians — including Americans — are welcome to obtain an abortion in Canada.
“Our government has and will always defend a woman’s right to choose. We have taken action to not only protect, but also improve access to reproductive health services, including abortion,” he told ABC News in a statement.
“In Canada, there is no prohibition on the provision of health care services to citizens of other countries,” the statement continued. “Non-Canadians are able to receive necessary medical services here, provided they can access and pay for them.”
The statement comes after Gould told CTV News Thursday that when it comes to access to the abortion pill, Canada would “work to provide that for American women.”
Mifepristone is a drug typically used in combination with another drug, misoprostol, to induce an abortion or to help manage an early miscarriage.
The medication works by blocking progesterone, a hormone that the body needs to continue a pregnancy.
This causes the uterine lining to stop thickening and to break down, detaching the embryo. The second drug, misoprostol, taken 24 to 48 hours later, causes the uterus to contract and dilates the cervix, which will expel the embryo.
The FDA authorized mifepristone for medication abortion in September 2000 for up to seven weeks’ gestation, which was then extended to 10 weeks’ gestation in 2016.
However, the World Health Organization says the two drug-regiment can be taken up until the 12-week mark of pregnancy.
Medication abortion now accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute.
In its lawsuit, Alliance Defending Freedom, the advocacy group, claimed that mifepristone is not safe, and that the FDA didn’t study it closely enough before it was approved.
However, OBGYNs have previously told ABC News that countless studies have shown mifepristone to be safe and effectives.
“We stand in solidarity with American women standing up for their rights to access reproductive and sexual healthcare, including their access to abortion,” Langlois’s statement said.
The statement continued, “We have discussed what Canada’s support for American women in need might be, and those discussions are still ongoing…We will continue to monitor closely the situation in the United States.”
If mifepristone is banned, misoprostol would still be available for both abortions and miscarriages on its own, but as an off-label use.
Data from around the world shows misoprostol is safe and effective — and that they’re ready to provide misoprostol-only abortions — but that the two-dose regimen is more effective and has fewer side effects.
ABC News’ Katie Kindelan contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — COVID-19 deaths hit a new low this week, reaching levels not seen since late March 2020, when the pandemic was just beginning.
An estimated 1,160 Americans died from the virus this week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The next lowest point was the week of March 18, 2020, with 169 deaths.
Over 1 million people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic.
“It’s very unlikely that COVID deaths will go to zero, because we have a virus that is now here to stay and, in all likelihood, will constantly evolve to outpace our immunity,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an ABC News contributor and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Cases have also significantly declined, with less than 100,000 people testing positive this week. Experts have warned that case counts may be a gross underestimate due to the widespread availability of at-home tests.
The new XBB.1.16 omicron subvariant may be responsible for a recent surge of cases in India.
It now makes up nearly 10% of new cases in the U.S. but does not appear to be more severe than similar subvariants, experts say.
“We’re still constantly concerned about some new variant, and this is why surveillance and public health action is so important, but at the individual level I think we can now rest assured that we’re in an absolutely better place,” Brownstein said.
More than 50 million Americans have received the most updated COVID bivalent vaccine, CDC data shows.
Uptake has been slowing down since the beginning of the year, with only 5 million people getting the shot in the past few months.
The FDA also recently announced a new simplified vaccination schedule for COVID vaccines.
Those over the age of 65 are now eligible for a second bivalent shot four months after their first. Immunocompromised patients can also receive another booster two months after their first and may be eligible for additional doses under the discretion of their provider.
“We don’t know what a fall surge can bring but given the rapidly declining numbers of deaths and hospitalizations over time, even with new variants emerging, this is a really positive outlook for the future,” Brownstein said.
(CALIFORNIA) — The city of Antioch, California, and at least 9 police officers are facing a lawsuit over alleged civil rights violations by the officers and their alleged involvement in racist, homophobic and sexually explicit text messages.
Civil rights attorney John Burris announced the lawsuit Thursday at a press conference attended by alleged victims of the officers and their families.
“Exactly everything that I was voicing, but you don’t have a voice when you deal with a system like this,” Adam Carpenter, one of the alleged victims named in the lawsuit, said referring to accusations he made about the police.
The Contra Costa district attorney’s office and the FBI have been engaged in a joint federal and state criminal investigation of Antioch and Pittsburg, California, police officers for a “broad range” of crimes over moral turpitude, according to documents obtained by ABC News from the DA’s office.
The two police departments and eight officers are being investigated by the FBI and DA, according to Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe. The FBI didn’t immediately return ABC News’ request for a statement.
Text messages between Antioch police officers from 2019 to 2022 were released on April 13 by the DA in a 21-page report. The DA’s office released a 14-page report with more text messages on Monday.
“I’ve never seen the pervasive form of racial bigotry that was communicated amongst these officers as if it were a cup of coffee,” Burris said. “Knowing what I know now, this community probably should have been more afraid of the police than the gangsters or the criminal that were in their communities.”
Burris said the words were more than just locker room talk, they were a “state of mind.”
Community organizer Shagoofa Khan is a plaintiff in the lawsuit in which she alleges being the subject of offensive text messages sent by one of the accused officers.
When Khan saw the disclosed texts, she said “it was extremely traumatizing, not just for myself, but the entire community of Antioch. I dropped my phone reading those text messages. They were so vile and disgusting.”
“There were different variations of the N word. Even old southern ways of referring to Black women,” Burris said.
In one set of documents from the DA’s office obtained by ABC News, one officer is shown on text talking about kicking a suspect in the head.
The officer says, “We managed to set up a perimeter and he got his a– whooped in the back yard and I field goal kicked his head.”
Someone responds, “I thought that was a no no.”
The first officer replies, “No we can do that just no chokes … I tried to knock him unconscious.”
Devon Wenger, an officer named in the DA’s 21-page report, told ABC News in a statement that there is much that the public is unaware of concerning the FBI and DA’s joint investigation. According to Wenger, the investigation has been corrupted by the FBI, DA, police administration and Mayor Thorpe.
“Out of both released reports, the initial 21-page report and the secondary 14 page report, I just simply said I do not like body cams,” Wenger told ABC News in the statement. “To put it bluntly, that’s not racist.”
Documents sent to ABC News from the DA’s office show the message which Wenger is referring to.
A police officer in the text message exchange says, “If Pitt didn’t have all those body cams and that was us…we would have f—– him up more. He didn’t get what he deserved.”
Wenger replies, “I agree. That’s why I don’t like body cams.”
The Antioch police told ABC News that they would not be releasing a statement at this time.
“We understand the public scrutiny of police officers throughout the nation, and acknowledge that revelations of text messaging such as that reported in this case can provoke emotional and even sometimes hateful responses,” Michael Rains, an attorney who represents many but not all of the officers, told ABC News through a statement. “Nevertheless, police officers, even when accused of potential misconduct, should be afforded basic and fundamental rights of due process.”
Mayor Thorpe told ABC News the city is preparing to launch its own investigation of the police department. According to Thorpe, before a reporter first revealed the content in the texts to him, he didn’t expect them to be so vile. After the reporter read the eighth or ninth text, he said he asked her to stop. He told ABC News he doesn’t intend to ever read those text messages.
“There are people in those text messages, who didn’t respond and didn’t say anything who I know who I thought were some of our best officers,” Thorpe said. “They may have looked at those text messages and said, ‘This is wrong. But I can’t say anything because I know what will happen to my career.’ That’s a cultural problem.”
(NEW YORK) — Employees and the owner of an upstate New York midwife practice are facing federal charges due to allegedly running a fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination clinic.
Licensed midwife Kelly McDermott, 61, who owns Sage-Femme Midwifery, located in Albany, as well employee Kathleen Breault, 65, another midwife, have been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States.
According to a grand jury indictment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of New York, McDermott and Breault enrolled Sage-Femme as an authorized COVID-19 vaccine administration site with the state Department of Health.
On the outside, Sage Femme looked like one of “the busiest vaccination sites in New York State, outpacing large, state-run vaccination sites,” federal officials wrote in a case summary.
However, between June 2021 and March 2022, Sage Femme created more than 2,600 false entries in the state’s vaccination database and distributed fake COVID-19 vaccination cards from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to people who were not vaccinated, including individuals living in Brooklyn and Staten Island, according to court documents.
Additionally, some of the people who allegedly received vaccination cards were minors who had not yet been made eligible by the state officials to be vaccinated and those who aren’t citizens of the U.S. and and lacked the immigration documents necessary to enter the country, according to prosecutors.
These fake vaccinations were then entered into the New York State Information System, a vaccination database run by the NYDOH, according to court documents.
McDermott, Breault and unnamed conspirators allegedly destroyed vials of COVID-19 vaccines that they had received.
The defendants allegedly kept up the façade by holding “vaccination clinic days,” during which patients would be scheduled for COVID-19 vaccination appointments, but not actually receive the shot.
The alleged scheme allowed residents, such as those in New York City, to evade rules that had been set up that only allowed people who were vaccinated to dine indoor, visit entertainment venues and exercise in fitness and recreations centers.
Federal officials also said the conspiracy interfered with efforts made by the CDC and the U.S. Department Health and Human Services to document vaccination efforts.
“The defendants in these cases used the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to engage in fraud, including faking vaccine cards and stealing vital funds designed to keep struggling businesses afloat,” United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said in a statement.
No attorneys were listed for McDermott or Breault. Sage-Femme Midwifery did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Meanwhile, another employee of Sage Femme, licensed practical nurse, Sherilyn Pellitteri, 41, of Somerset, Kentucky, previously pleaded guilty in connection with the same conspiracy.
Conspiracy to defraud the U.S. carries a penalty of a fine and/or up to five years in prison.
The charges are among a recent series of 18 cases brought against people across the U.S. who allegedly committed fraud during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among them are two people in Florida charged with conspiracy to defraud due to an alleged plan to illegally purchase Medicare beneficiary ID numbers so they could bill Medicare for “over the counter COVID-19 test kits that were ineligible for reimbursement,” according to a case summary.
Two men in Utah were also charged with fraud after allegedly manufacturing and selling about 120,000 fake COVID-19 vaccination record cards online.
“Today’s announcement marks the largest-ever coordinated law enforcement action in the United States targeting health care fraud schemes that exploit the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — Attorneys for President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, are expected to meet next week with federal prosecutors in Delaware to discuss the status of the criminal investigation into the younger Biden, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
Hunter Biden has been under investigation for possible tax-related offenses.
The meeting comes amid a complaint to Congress, filed by an IRS employee seeking whistleblower status, that alleges the case has been mishandled.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Delaware declined ABC News’ request for comment regarding the meeting.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden were not immediately available for comment.
News of the meeting was first reported by CNN.
U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump-era appointee, has led an investigation into the president’s son since 2018, ABC News has previously reported. The case centers on whether Hunter Biden paid adequate taxes on millions of dollars in income from multiple overseas business ventures.
(NEW YORK) — Republican candidates running for president are struggling with how to address abortion in a post-Roe America.
Most are choosing their words carefully — or not commenting directly at all — as restricting what women can do when it comes to reproductive rights has shown to be unpopular with many of the voters they’ll need to win the White House.
With the Supreme Court potentially weighing in on Friday on a Texas judge’s unprecedented decision to revoke FDA approval of mifepristone, a medication used in about half of abortions nationwide, Americans may wonder where those running to be president stand in the abortion debate.
“Before the Dobbs decision, Republicans could sort of say whatever they wanted to on the issue, and it didn’t really matter, because they didn’t necessarily think that the Supreme Court was ever going to overturn Roe. It was always in theory,” said Doug Heye, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee. “Now it’s real. And they’re seeing that there are real electoral consequences.”
Since the Supreme Court overturned 50 years of abortion precedent last June, the issue has hurt Republicans in elections. Kansas voters were the first to decide post-Dobbs to keep abortion legal. In the midterms, candidates who were painted as extreme on abortion also appeared extreme on other issues, Heye said, resulting in GOP losses. Most recently in Wisconsin, a liberal judge flipped that state’s supreme court’s ideological majority in a race largely focused on future access to abortion.
“There was a through line and lesson to be learned with the 2022 midterms and the WI SC [Wisconsin Supreme Court] race – when candidates don’t define their stance on abortion, they lose,” said E.V. Osment, vice president of communications for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
“In the 2022 midterms, governors who signed ambitious pro-life legislation into law and never flinched politically, despite running in competitive states, came out on top,” she told ABC News, citing wins by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who have signed legislation restricting abortion. “There are also examples of candidates who were not prepared and took the ostrich strategy: burying their heads in the sand and running from the issue, allowing their opponents to define them,” she added, naming Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania.
“The losing ostrich strategy has been pushed by the inside-the-beltway consultant/strategist class who urge candidates to totally ignore abortion and hope it goes away,” Osment added. “It’s not going away.”
“But there are two sets of electoral consequences,” Heye told ABC News. “There’s the primary, which you got to get through, and then there’s the general where Republicans obviously had problems last year, in part because of the Dobbs decision.”
While polls show a majority of Americans want abortion to be legal under certain circumstances, there’s been somewhat of a race among GOP-led legislatures to pass anti-abortion rights legislation (one even before the Supreme Court took up Dobbs with so-called trigger laws). With a patchwork of state laws now dictating the nation’s landscape, the competition among red states has become a problem for Republican candidates facing the first presidential election post-Dobbs.
“If there are six people on a debate stage come August, you can see where it’s almost like a Name That Tune: ‘I can ban abortion in eight weeks.’ ‘Well, I can ban abortion in seven weeks.’ And that number keeps going lower and lower and lower until it’s zero. It’s become competitive,” Heye added.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina predicted losses in 2024 if Republicans don’t find a “middle ground” on the issue.
“I have a great pro-life voting record but some of the stances we’ve taken, especially when it comes to rape and incest, protecting the life of a mother, it’s so extreme, the middle — the independent voters, right of center, left of center, they cannot support us,” Mace said on Fox News Sunday. “I saw the tide change after Roe was overturned. We went mildly pro-choice to being a vast majority of voters being pro-choice after Roe v. Wade. It changed the entire electoral environment in ’22.”
“We have not learned our lesson from the midterm election,” she added. “We’re afraid of the issue because we’re afraid of our base.”Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action, an anti-abortion rights group, said any Republican candidate who avoids talking about abortion in 2024 will “do so at their own electoral peril.”
“They should address the life issue with all the passion that they give to every other issue. Whether they like it or not, abortion is still a political issue at the state, local, and federal level. If you want to run for a federal office, you should discuss your federal options for abortion policy,” Hawkins told ABC News.
Here are 10 Republicans either running for president — or who have indicated an interest in running — who ABC News reached out to for comment — and what they’ve said — or avoided saying — recently on abortion as the Supreme Court weighs access to mifepristone:
Donald Trump
Former President Donald Trump is one of those who has largely avoided talking about abortion — though he could arguably tout what he calls a “pro-life” stance having appointed three of the five justices who voted to overrule Roe.
“I think he sees that electorally this, this is a problem,” Heye said.
Trump kicked off the year by saying he was not to blame for GOP losses in the midterms, but that, “It was the ’abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters.”
“President Donald J. Trump believes that the Supreme Court, led by the three Justices which he supported, got it right when they ruled this is an issue that should be decided at the State level,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement to the Washington Post this week. “Republicans have been trying to get this done for 50 years, but were unable to do so. President Trump, who is considered the most pro-life President in history, got it done. He will continue these policies when reelected to the White House. Like President Reagan before him, President Trump supports exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”
Anti-abortion rights groups have since blasted what they called Trump’s “states only” approach — with Hawkins casting Trump’s “failure to understand a way forward on abortion” as a “troubling sign.”
“Former President Trump seems determined to write a new book, How to Kill a Deal, as he signals to those who once supported him that he may not be up to the task of protecting all American lives in law and in service,” she said in a release. “Trump still wants the votes of the Pro-Life Generation, but it’s hard to see what he brings to the table given his waiving support defending innocent life at every level of government.”
Trump nominated the Texas federal judge who halted FDA approval of mifepristone, setting off a legal firestorm, but the former president has been mostly quiet on the case.
Nikki Haley
Former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the only woman officially running for the GOP nomination, was careful not to put off any voters over the issue at a “Women for Nikki” initiative in Des Moines last week.
Edging both sides, she said that while she is “pro-life” she understands abortion “is a personal issue for women and for men.”
“It needs to be treated with the respect that it should. I don’t want unelected judges deciding something this personal,” she told voters, according to the Des Moines Register.
“Let’s let the states work this out. If Congress decides to do it — but don’t get in that game of them saying ‘how many weeks, how many’ — no. Let’s first figure out what we agree on and then move forward. This is about saving as many babies as we can. This is about supporting as many moms as we can.”
Haley is scheduled to give a “major policy speech on abortion” on April 26 in Arlington, her campaign said.
Asa Hutchinson
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who signed a near-total abortion ban in his state ahead of the Supreme Court overruling Roe, has said he “personally” believes abortion bans should have exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the mother.
But when it comes to mifepristone, he’s largely punted to the court and states without disclosing his personal view.
“Ultimately, I think this is an issue that while the courts will rule on it, the states are going to determine whether it’s permissible or not, regardless of what the courts say,” he said last week, according to the Iowa Capitol Dispatch.
“If you believe in the state’s prerogative, which the Dobbs decision gave us, then each state’s going to make their decision as to how they’re going to approach [abortion], which is the right way under our system of federalism,” he said.
Hutchinson has said on more than one occasion that if he were elected president and was sent a nationwide abortion ban bill, he “would want to look at the bill to see exactly what it does.”
Vivek Ramaswamy
Vivek Ramaswamy, a 37-year-old biotech entrepreneur who compares himself to Trump in that he’s a newcomer to the political scene, has suggested he would not support further restrictions on abortion, and neither should the Republican Party.
When asked about federal abortion bans, Ramaswamy has said abortion is an issue for state governments and that the federal government should only concern itself with items dictated in the Constitution.
Tim Scott
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, shortly after launching a presidential exploratory committee, stumbled to answer where he stood on abortion, but has since vowed to sign “literally sign the most conservative pro-life legislation that they can get through Congress.”
Scott previously said he would support a nationwide abortion ban after 20 weeks but declined to take a stance on mifepristone.
“The courts are on their way to solving the problem,” he told reporters last week.
Part of the reason Scott stumbled on this issue, Heye said, is because it’s “fast-moving” in the Republican Party after Dobbs.
“The Dobbs decision put [abortion] in the Wild West, and again, everybody’s sort of competing against each other. They’re in that reality, where you’re not on firm ground — the sand is shifting beneath you every day — and it’s difficult to find a firm place to be,” he said.
Mike Pence
Pence, also not formally in the race but weighing a run, has said there is “no greater cause than the cause of life.” He supports the Texas judge’s ruling to invalidate FDA approval of mifepristone and has indicated he’d support a nationwide ban of the medication altogether.
“Life won again today,” he said in a statement reacting to the Texas decision. “When it approved chemical abortions on demand, the FDA acted carelessly and with blatant disregard for human life and the wellbeing of American women, and today’s ruling fixed a 20 year wrong.”
Pence would be unlikely to veto anti-abortion legislation and, vice versa, would be likely to veto anything sympathetic to abortion rights causes if elected president.
While Pence is praising judicial action now, he praised the court for “returning the question of abortion to the states and to the people” in the wake of the Dobbs decision.
Ron DeSantis
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s 15-week abortion ban into law last year, he held the event with fanfare. Last week, he signed the six-week ban in his office close to midnight, with critics saying he did so in preparation for a presidential bid.
It’s not an issue he wants to go big on, Heye said, but one where the state legislature may have just forced his hand.
“DeSantis was not at a six-week ban until his state legislature passed the bill. So that’s now his position, whether he wanted it to be that or not, and clearly, he felt compelled to do so,” Heye said.
Hawkins, who criticized Trump punting the issue to a “states only” approach, hailed DeSantis and Pence as “leaders in policy and in use of the bully pulpit.”
“Gov. DeSantis just signed heartbeat legislation, while Pence is discussing the need for Chemical Abortion Pill policy. The Pro-Life Generation is looking for people who have specific plans to act, not just talking points. The rest could learn from their example,” she told ABC News in a statement.
While visiting New Hampshire, where abortion is allowed up to 24 weeks in most cases, DeSantis did not mention the six-week ban he had just signed, but on Friday he did tout the signing while speaking outside Washington at the Heritage Foundation 50th Anniversary Summit, before a highly-conservative audience.
Chris Sununu
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a self-described “pro-choice” Republican leading what many consider to be a blue state, believes if the Supreme Court were to uphold a ban on mifepristone, it would “absolutely” further hurt Republicans with swing voters.
“It’s been around for 20 years…it’s about these massive changes in precedent,” he said. “Roe v. Wade, whether you agreed with or not, there was a 50-year precedent there. There’s a 20-year precedent with [mifepristone]. So now to the American public, it looks like Republicans are coming in and trying to massively change and blow up the system.”
He said it will “be interesting to see” how 2024 candidates navigate the issue, he says, the party is losing on.
“My issue is I think it’s a terrible message for the Republican primary. I think it hurts us in the general election,” he said on Fox News. “There are much more pressing issues.”
And without naming him directly, Sununu called Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., proposing a 15-week abortion ban three weeks before last year’s midterms “the dumbest thing you could possibly do.”
Steve Laffey
Steve Laffey, a former mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, identifies as “pro-life” but has not directly addressed his views of mifepristone.
“I am happy that Roe vs Wade has been overturned and the issue of abortion has been returned to the states, where it has always belonged,” Laffey said in a statement to ABC News. “Let’s leave all of these abortion questions to the individual states and let the various courts properly handle all of these issues.”
Perry Johnson
Perry Johnson, a Michigan businessman who failed to capture the GOP nomination for Michigan governor last year, faced backlash when he declined to rule out banning abortion for sexual assault survivors.
“I will tell you this: Two wrongs don’t make a right. I am pro-life,” Johnson told reporters at the time.
ABC News’ Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Facebook users who had an account at any time from May 2007 to the end of last year can now apply for their share of a $725 million privacy settlement that the platform’s parent company, Meta, agreed to last December.
In a 2018 lawsuit, Facebook was accused of improperly sharing the personal information of 87 million users with third-party advertisers, including Cambridge Analytica, the data firm linked to then-candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Meta denies any liability or wrongdoing, but is agreeing to pay out the large settlement to users whose information may have been comprised during that time. ABC News Radio anchor Michelle Franzen spoke to ABC News correspondent Alexis Christoforous on START HERE to discuss the case’s background and how people can apply for their claim online at facebookuserprivacysettlement.com.
MICHELLE FRANZEN: Alexis, first of all, jog our collective memories on this lawsuit and how it impacted Facebook users at the time.
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: So, you know, Michelle, this was quite a few years ago now. This lawsuit was filed in 2018 after Facebook disclosed that the information of 87 million users was improperly shared with third-party advertisers, data brokers, namely Cambridge Analytica. That is the political consultant that was used by the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, among others. So in coming to this settlement, you know, Meta, which is the Facebook parent company, denies any liability or wrongdoing, but they are agreeing to pay out $725 million to users whose information may have been compromised during that time.
FRANZEN: So how much money could users receive and what do you have to do if you were a Facebook user to see if you’re due some sort of settlement money?
CHRISTOFOROUS: Well, I think we all hear $725 million and our ears perk up because that sounds like a lot of money. But the fact is, when you divvy it up amongst millions and millions of people, it’s not that much money anymore. So the amount of money that you might get from this claim is still unknown, because it’s going to depend on a couple of things: How many people actually submit a claim and then how long you had your Facebook account for given the years that, you know, make you eligible.
So I guess we should let folks know that you’re only eligible if you had an active Facebook account sometime between May of 2007 and December of 2022. You don’t have to have had it for all that time, just some of that time. You have until August 25 to submit a claim. You can do that right online. You have to go to a website. It’s facebookuserprivacysettlement.com. It’s long. You have to write it all out. Again, don’t expect the money super soon. It has to get final approval from a judge in early September. But at some point at the end of this year or next, your money should be coming to you.
FRANZEN: That span of time listed was during the height of Facebook, right?
CHRISTOFOROUS: It was, so, I mean, you would imagine that, you know, many, many millions of people, tens of millions of people. I mean, according to Facebook, its 87 million users had their information improperly shared with these third parties. So many millions of people could claim this money. And so the more people that tried to claim it, the less amount you would get. I mean, if all 87 million people tried to get a piece of the pie, you know, you’d probably walk away with about $8. But you know what, Michelle? That’s $8 you wouldn’t have had if you didn’t file the claim. That’s how I look at it.
FRANZEN: Exactly. That’s what Twitter is asking for for a month.
CHRISTOFOROUS: Exactly, exactly. So, you know, it’s also, I think the principle of the thing for lots of folks, they feel like, you know, you can’t just go willy-nilly and use my information without my consent, and these are privacy violations and so I want what’s coming to me.
FRANZEN: And those privacy violations that resulted in the CEO and the founder of Facebook and Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, having to go to Congress and testify.
CHRISTOFOROUS: That’s right. That was quite the media circus when Zuckerberg went before lawmakers to really defend his company. But, you know, again, with this settlement, they’re not admitting any wrongdoing, but it is their way to sort of, I guess, put a period at the end of this scandalous time for Facebook.
FRANZEN: And Alexis, this is a pretty big settlement, nearly as big as the $787.5 million dollars that Fox News just agreed to settle in a lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems. Of course, Dominion alleging Fox knowingly pushed false claims about its voting machines during the 2020 election. What do these settlements signal as we turn the corner to the next general election?
CHRISTOFOROUS: Well, I think it tells us that, you know, people are a lot smarter this time around. I think they are much more careful about their personal information and they’re much more caged about how they’re going to let other entities use their personal information.
For companies like Meta, for companies like Fox, I mean, these sound like huge numbers, but when you look at the revenue that flows into these companies, I would imagine for them and their legal teams, they think that this is, you know, sort of the most prudent thing they can do is to settle for what seems like eye-popping amounts of money.
But for sure, I mean, I think privacy, integrity, I mean, these are going to be things that are going to be top of mind for voters in the upcoming election.
(WASHINGTON) — A toddler has been hospitalized after police found them in critical condition from a gunshot wound in a Washington state firehouse Friday morning, according to investigators.
Officers in Tukwila, Washington, responded to several 911 calls from the Allentown neighborhood in which a female could be heard screaming on the phone, investigators said.
Officers went to the vicinity of a fire station and saw a vehicle flee and a toddler, who was wounded by a gunshot, left behind, according to the police. The unidentified child was in critical condition and rushed to a hospital, police said.
“The status of the victim is unknown at this time,” the police said in a statement Friday afternoon.
