(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday are expected to announce a new migration deal as part of Biden’s first visit to America’s northern neighbor.
The two leaders will hold a joint news conference after Biden addresses the Canadian Parliament.
The new agreement will allow Canada to send more migrants who cross at unofficial ports of entry of America’s northern border back to the U.S., according to a senior U.S. official and another person familiar with the deal.
In return, Canada has agreed to allow 15,000 more people from the Western Hemisphere to migrate to Canada legally.
Ahead of Biden’s visit, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters the administration was “committed” to working with Canada to address the increase in migration going north but declined to confirm the deal.
The Bidens arrived in Canada on Thursday, and were welcomed by Trudeau and his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau at their residence in Ottawa.
The U.S.-Canada relationship was strained during the previous administration as Trudeau and former President Donald Trump clashed on a number of issues, including trade and immigration. But the alliance has since mended under Biden.
“We have no greater friend and ally than the United States,” Trudeau said after he and Biden sat down for a bilateral meeting on Friday morning.
Biden began the day on Parliament Hill for an official welcome and meetings with Trudeau, Canada’s Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and others.
Trudeau said they’ve been “working closely together over the past few years” on the economy, climate change, geopolitical security and standing up for values around the world.
Biden remarked that the U.S. is lucky to have Canada as a neighboring ally.
“All the values are the same, we disagree and agree on things occasionally but there’s no fundamental difference in the democratic values we share,” Biden said.
In addition to immigration, Trudeau and Biden are expected to discuss a range of economic and security issues.
In the evening, Biden and first lady Jill Biden will attend a gala dinner hosted by the Trudeaus at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa before departing for Wilmington, Delaware.
(NEW YORK) — Public health departments across the United States have expressed concern about the spread of a potentially deadly fungus after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported cases have spiked.
Candida auris, or C. aurisis, is increasing at an “alarming” rate with cases doubling in 2021, the CDC said.
Now, with infections reported around the country, health officials are working to prevent the drug-resistant yeast from spreading further.
Two cases were recently reported to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The agency told local ABC affiliate Denver 7 that the patients had been receiving care in facilities out of state and were transferred to Colorado for additional care.
On its website, CPDPHE said it was concerned about C. auris because it is often multi-drug resistant, can be difficult to identify and can cause outbreaks in health care settings.
Additionally, the Indiana State Department of Health said it is monitoring 87 cases of C. auris, according to local affiliate WRTV.
The fungus “presents a serious global health threat,” the department said on its website. “Outbreaks of this organism have occurred in healthcare settings, so early identification and communication about cases are essential to awareness and prevention.”
What’s more, Austin Public Health recently told KXAN that the spread was “very concerning” and that it is a “top threat” to the agency.
While most healthy people are not at risk, vulnerable populations — including those with weakened immune systems — are prone to drug-resistant infections.
In addition, nursing home patients or hospital patients who have or have had lines and tubes in their body — such as a catheter or a breathing tube — are also at high risk.
Doctors previously told ABC News they are concerned because C. auris can spread either from person to person or by coming into contact with contaminated surfaces.
Although several strains of C. auris are multi-drug resistant, there is a class of antifungal drugs called echinocandins that can be used and are given intravenously.
According to the National Institutes of Health, echinocandins prevent a key enzyme needed to maintain the cell wall of the fungus.
In some cases, when the infection is resistant to all three main classes of drugs, multiple high doses may be required, the CDC said.
According to the CDC, studies on mortality related to C. auris are limited but anywhere between 30% and 60% of people with C. auris infections have died.
The federal health agency, however, noted many of these patients also had other serious illnesses that increased their risk of death.
James Taylor has shared another classic performance with fans. The latest release from Taylor’s vault is a “recently re-discovered and restored” performance of “Sunny Skies,” from his November 16, 1970, BBC concert special. He was just 22 when the performance was broadcast.
The clip is one of many Taylor has been sharing on his YouTube channel. He also posted a classic performance of “Sweet Baby James” from the same concert, as well as archival performances of “You’ve Got A Friend,” “Fire and Rain” and more.
And fans will be able to see the 75-year-old Taylor perform these classic songs and many others on the road this summer. He’s due to kick off a new tour on May 25 in Woodinville, Washington. A complete list of James Taylor tour dates can be found at jamestaylor.com.
(MONTICELLO, Minn.) — A Minnesota nuclear plant where 400,000 gallons of radioactive water leaked last year is temporarily shutting down after discovering a smaller leak this week.
Xcel Energy said it will begin powering down its plant in Monticello on Friday to expedite repairs needed to permanently resolve a leak of tritium-contaminated water. The length of the shutdown has not yet been determined but should not impact customers’ electric service, the Minneapolis-based utility company said.
Xcel Energy and state agencies publicly announced last week the initial leak of roughly 400,000 gallons of water containing tritium — a byproduct of the production of electricity by nuclear power plants that emits low levels of radiation.
The initial leak was detected in late November through routine groundwater monitoring systems and occurred in a water pipe that runs between two buildings at the plant, which is located along the Mississippi River about 40 miles northwest of Minneapolis.
The leak does not pose any health and safety risk to the local community or the environment and the tritium levels are below Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety thresholds, Xcel Energy said. State officials monitoring the cleanup of the water also said the leak had not reached the Mississippi River or contaminated drinking water sources.
Xcel Energy said it had been capturing the water from the leaking pipe and rerouting it back into the plant for re-use until it could install a replacement pipe in mid-April. Though on Wednesday, monitoring equipment indicated that over the past two days “a small amount of new water from the original leak had reached the groundwater,” the company said in a press release on Thursday.
The new leakage is estimated to be in the “hundreds of gallons” and “will not materially increase the amount of tritium the company is working to recover and does not pose any risk to health or the environment,” Xcel Energy said.
Continued monitoring has determined that the leaked water “remains fully contained on-site and has not been detected beyond the facility or in any local drinking water,” the company said.
“While the leak continues to pose no risk to the public or the environment, we determined the best course of action is to power down the plant and perform the permanent repairs immediately,” Chris Clark, president of Xcel Energy–Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, said in a statement. “We are continuing to work with and inform our state, federal, city and county leaders in the process.”
The company reported to state officials on Thursday that the new leak was still ongoing, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which is overseeing the cleanup of the impacted groundwater along with the Minnesota Department of Health.
The agencies said they are “encouraged” by the “immediate action” taken by Xcel Energy to address the leak.
“State agencies have no evidence at this point to indicate a current or imminent risk to the public and will continue to monitor groundwater samples. Should an imminent risk arise, we will inform the public promptly,” the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said in a statement Thursday.
So far about 32% of the released tritium has been recovered, Xcel Energy said Thursday.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has rejected former President Donald Trump’s claims of executive privilege and has ordered Mark Meadows and other former top aides to testify before a federal grand jury investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the election leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, was subpoenaed along with the other former aides by Special counsel Jack Smith for testimony and documents related to the probe.
Trump’s legal team had challenged the subpoenas by asserting executive privilege, which is the right of a president to keep confidential the communications he has with advisers.
In a sealed order last week, Judge Beryl Howell rejected Trump’s claim of executive privilege for Meadows and a number of others, including Trump’s former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, his former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, former top aide Stephen Miller, and former deputy chief of staff and social media director Dan Scavino, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Former Trump aides Nick Luna and John McEntee, along with former top Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli, were also included in the order, the sources said.
Trump is likely to appeal the ruling, according to sources briefed on the matter.
“The DOJ is continuously stepping far outside the standard norms in attempting to destroy the long accepted, long held, Constitutionally based standards of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege,” a Trump spokesperson said in a statement. “There is no factual or legal basis or substance to any case against President Trump. The deranged Democrats and their comrades in the mainstream media are corrupting the legal process and weaponizing the justice system in order to manipulate public opinion, because they are clearly losing the political battle.”
Meadows did not respond to ABC’s request for comment and neither did an attorney representing him. Ratcliffe, O’Brien, Miller, Luna, McEntee and Cuccinelli did not respond to ABC’s request for comment. An attorney representing Scavino also did not respond.
Some of the aides that have been ordered to testify have already appeared before the grand jury but did not answer some questions related to interactions with the former president, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News, and thus would now be required to return for additional testimony. The grand jury proceedings are being held under seal.
It’s not clear the amount of information each of them would have, or the scope of what prosecutors want to question them on, the sources said.
ABC News previously reported that in February, prosecutors investigating Jan. 6 moved to compel testimony from a number of top Trump aides, including Meadows, Ratcliffe and O’Brien.
Previously, Judge Howell had rejected Trump’s claim of executive privilege to block the testimony of two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence, Greg Jacob and Marc Short. In rejecting Trump’s motion to block the testimony of Jacob and Short, the judge ruled that it is up to the current president to assert executive privilege, not a former president, according to sources familiar with the proceedings.
The judge also previously ruled that former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, along with his deputy Pat Philbin, also had to return to the grand jury to answer additional questions after Trump previously argued they were protected by privilege.
Howell is being succeeded by a new chief judge on the D.C. district court, who will now oversee grand jury matters related to the special counsel’s probes.
Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor and former head of the Justice Department’s public integrity section, was tapped in November by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election and Trump’s handling of classified materials after leaving office.
Meadows, who according to sources was subpoenaed in January, was one of the only aides around Trump on Jan. 6 as the attack unfolded. He was also party to the infamous January 2021 phone call that Trump had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” him enough votes to win the state.
On Sunday, Kiefer Sutherland returns to TV with Paramount+’s new thriller series Rabbit Hole. The 24 veteran executive produces and stars as John Weir, an expert in corporate espionage, who takes on a routine job that lands him in the middle of a deadly conspiracy.
The show touches on some ripped-from-the-headlines topics, from fragile digital banking systems to an omnipresent security state and deepfake tech. Sutherland tells ABC Audio, “It’s alarming. But the truth is we’re in the middle of a technological revolution … our capabilities of manipulating information, manipulating other people’s images and voice imaging is changing dynamically by the week.”
He adds, “And, you know, and some of it can be used for good and some of it can be used for bad. We do a bit of both in the context of our show.”
His character is a master of this bleeding edge tech and its uses, but Sutherland explains even he gets in over his head. “The duality of that is what really attracted me to the character. He’s incredibly smart, easy, he’s sophisticated, he’s witty … he’s got a sense of humor, but he’s also incredibly vulnerable.”
Kiefer continues, “With every gift comes, you know, your Achilles heel. And he has a … finite gift with numbers where he can use numbers very fast in his brain to predict probabilities and likely outcomes. But if he runs into a situation that’s so complicated that he can’t round out that number, he starts to go down what we call the proverbial rabbit hole and starts to emotionally come undone.”
(WASHINGTON) — House Republicans narrowly passed H.R. 5, the Parents Bill of Rights Act on Friday, sending the proposal along to the Senate, where it is likely to fail.
The House bill, which has few champions among Democrats and advocacy groups, passed in a 213-208 vote Friday morning. Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., the bill’s sponsor, shook hands and fist bumped rejoicing members upon the bill’s passage.
“Today was a win for every mother or father, but most importantly for every student in America,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy said at a press conference following the vote, noting thousands of parents signed on to the bill.
Backers of the bill say H.R. 5 has five core principles: Parents have the right to know what their children are being taught, to be heard, to see the school budget and spending, to protect their children’s privacy and to keep their children safe.
“It is not an attempt to have Congress dictate their [schools] curriculum, or determine the books in the library,” Letlow explained. “Instead, this bill aims to bring more transparency and accountability to education, allowing parents to be informed and when they have questions and concerns to lawfully bring to their local school board.”
Letlow, a former educator, had over 70 co-sponsors originally, including McCarthy.
“I couldn’t imagine someone would oppose a Parents Bill of Rights,” McCarthy, who called education the great equalizer, told ABC News.
House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., has been a vocal advocate for the issue since gaveling in her first hearing in February. More recently, Foxx, who said the proposal “will help parents steer the educations of their children back onto the correct path where they can learn the skills they need for a lifetime of success,” said she feels good about the bill despite Democrats’ stated opposition.
“It had a good response in the Rules Committee [despite] the Democrats trying to demonize the bill saying it’s ‘banning books,'” Foxx told ABC News. “It has nothing to do with that, so, no, I feel really good about it.”
Parents who support the bill suggest the legislation was needed in response to widespread virtual instruction amid pandemic-fueled school closures.
“Parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children. This includes their education, medical care, morality and religion,” Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, said at a House subcommittee hearing. “I want to be clear: These are inherent natural rights. Parental rights do not stop at the classroom door.”
But the bill was criticized by Democratic leadership.
“Their educational agenda is pretty simple: They want to ban books, they want to bully the LGBTQ+ community [and] they want to bring guns into classrooms, kindergarten and above,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said after the bill passed.
Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said he respects parents’ voices but worries Republicans’ H.R. 5 has become a “highly partisan” issue.
“They [Republicans] want to bring, you know, partisan rhetoric and fighting into the classroom,” Aguilar said. “We don’t think that’s right. We think that they continue to put politics over parents and that that is the focus of this bill and this piece of legislation.”
National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues led a coalition of nearly 50 parent protesters to Washington this week. Her organization traversed the halls of Congress, knocking on members’ doors to make their voices heard in opposition to the bill.
“It [H.R. 5] has made a mockery out of what we are trying to do for our children,” Rodrigues said. “None of our priorities have been reflected in H.R. 5 because they’re attempting to do this to us without us.”
Rodrigues’ top educational priorities include making sure children are safe at school amid the threats of gun violence, bullying and mental health struggles.
“H.R. 5 is a bill that has been created by politicians in Washington instead of parents that it says they’re here to protect,” Rodrigues said, donning the group’s signature “Nothing About Us Without Us” shirts. “So, again, you’re trying to do something to us without our input. We’re saying, ‘No, thanks.'”
Meanwhile, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., has also proposed a countermeasure to the GOP bill. Her Bill of Rights for Students and Parents has several sponsors from leading members of the House’s education committee and dozens of advocacy groups.
Neither bill seems to have drawn interest from the Senate, and Republicans on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee told ABC News it’s not on the agenda.
“The House Republicans’ school control bill is Orwellian to the core,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “It will not see the light of day here in the Senate.”
(WASHINGTON) — Republican members of the House Oversight Committee, including chairman James Comer, say they plan to tour a Washington, D.C., jail on Friday where some Jan. 6 defendants are being held.
The congressional delegation is being led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., one of the most vocal critics of the detainment of individuals charged in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Speaking with ABC News earlier this week, Greene said the visit would focus on the conditions of those being jailed, including what Greene claimed to be “reports of abuse.”
Greene claimed those being held pretrial are “not allowed to see their families, many times are not allowed to see their attorneys” and that “the food has been a major complaint. There’s been complaints of it tasting like cleaner.”
GOP members of the panel are expected to hold a news conference following the tour.
Two Democrats on the panel are expected to join 14 Republican members on the tour, according to a list of participants provided by Greene’s office: Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania and Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas.
Crockett framed her participation as a check on her Republican colleagues in a series of Twitter posts on Friday morning.
“Today, I will visit the jail where insurrectionists are being held as a member of the Oversight committee to ensure that the Truth is told & not another revisionist alternative reality. As a former PD & civil rights lawyer, I’ve seen inhumane conditions,” she wrote. “It’s important we don’t conflate their less than 5 star stay w/ the truly inhumane conditions that mostly black & brown folk have suffered through for decades.”
Most people charged with a crime in relation to the Jan. 6 attack have been released as they await trial. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. told ABC News earlier this month that there were “approximately two dozen defendants” in pre-trial detention and nearly all of them were charged with assaultive conduct.
Comer, R-Ky., told reporters on Wednesday members are “gonna try and see what it looks like” inside the facility.
“That’s part of what the Oversight Committee does with everything pertaining to the federal government, so we have some members that are going to hopefully tour that prison,” he said.
Greene and Comer sent a letter to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser pressing her for documents and communications regarding Jan. 6 detainees’ complaints.
The jail tour comes amid a wave of activity from House Republicans regarding Jan. 6 since they took over the chamber in January. They’ve created a committee to investigate alleged security failures and the previous House Jan. 6 committee’s work.
Nothing More has premiered a new version of “Best Times,” a track off the band’s latest album, Spirits.
The updated recording features guest vocals by Flyleaf‘s Lacey Sturm. You can listen to it now via digital outlets and watch its accompanying video streaming now on YouTube.
“[Sturm’s] been a shining light and is one of those singers that makes you feel and believe every word out of her mouth whether you agree with it or not,” says Nothing More frontman Jonny Hawkins. “We knew her voice would take [‘Best Times’] over the top … and that’s exactly what she did!”
Spirits was released last October. It also includes the singles “Tired of Winning” and “You Don’t Know What Love Means.”
Nothing More will launch a U.S. tour in support of Spirits March 31 in Richmond, Virginia. The outing’s stop in New York City on April 9 will stream live online via the platform Veeps.
Sturm, meanwhile, reunited with Flyleaf last year after previously leaving the group in 2012.
