Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” hit number one on the Billboard singles chart, where it spent four weeks. The tune is the band’s first and only U.S. number-one single.
Written by Roger Waters, “Another Brick in the Wall” was a three-part composition that appeared on the band’s 1979 rock opera The Wall. “Part 2,” the only portion that was released as a single, was a protest song against corporal punishment at schools.
The tune featured a chorus of school children, who were compensated at the time for their contribution with concert tickets, an album and a single. In 2004, however, they successfully sued for royalties.
“Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” went on to sell over a million copies and also topped the charts in the U.K., Austria, Canada, Finland, Germany and elsewhere.
Kacen Bayless/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — South Carolina authorities have confirmed they are investigating the death of Stephen Smith as a homicide, nearly eight years after the 19-year-old was found dead in the middle of a rural road from what was ruled to be a hit-and-run.
State police reopened Stephen Smith’s case in June 2021 after discovering new evidence during the investigation into the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, a mother and son who were found fatally shot at the prominent legal family’s South Carolina hunting estate that month.
Stephen Smith’s death was determined to be highway vehicular manslaughter and no suspects were ever apprehended. His mother has long asked for the unsolved case to be re-examined.
Lawyers representing his mother announced that the death is now being considered a homicide Tuesday night, citing a phone call with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED).
“SLED is publicly supporting us, Sandy Smith, and her efforts to find out what really happened to her son,” Ronnie Richter, with the Bland Richter Law Firm, said in a statement.
A SLED spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that the case is being investigated as a homicide.
“It’s a day that I have been waiting for. The best news I’ve heard in eight years,” Sandy Smith told ABC News.
“Stephen was an amazing kid and he didn’t deserve to die this way,” she added. “And I know somebody did it, and whoever did it needs to come forward and bring peace to this family.”
Lawyers representing Stephen Smith’s mother have said they do not believe the evidence maintains that he was hit by a car, but rather may have been killed somewhere else and then placed on the road. His mother has raised more than $80,000 to exhume her son’s body to conduct an independent autopsy.
“A fresh set of eyes and a new autopsy may yield a different conclusion that Stephen was not killed on Sandy Run Road in Bamberg County, that maybe he was killed somewhere else,” her attorney, Eric Bland, told reporters this week.
The mother’s attorneys said they are petitioning a judge to allow them to exhume the body. SLED officials will “be present and participate in any exhumation of Stephen’s body to gather more evidence,” Bland and Richter said Tuesday.
“SLED officials have revealed that they did not need to exhume Stephen Smith’s body to convince them that his death was a homicide,” they added.
Stephen Smith was a former classmate of Buster Murdaugh, whose father, Alex Murdaugh, was convicted earlier this month in the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. The disgraced former attorney was sentenced to life in prison for the 2021 killing of his wife and younger son.
SLED officials reportedly were waiting until the high-profile Murdaugh trial was over before announcing developments in the Stephen Smith case “out of concern that witnesses would not be as forthcoming under the Murdaugh sphere of influence,” Bland and Richter said.
“Since the conclusion of the Murdaugh trial, more resources have been devoted and will be devoted to Stephen Smith’s case,” the law firm added.
Buster Murdaugh spoke out this week against what he called “baseless rumors” alleging his involvement in Stephen Smith’s death.
“Before, during and since my father’s trial, I have been targeted and harassed by the media and followers of this story. This has gone on far too long,” he said in a statement on Monday. “These baseless rumors of my involvement with Stephen and his death are false. I unequivocally deny any involvement in his death, and my heart goes out to the Smith family.”
ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
We’re about to learn a lot more about Devo: a new documentary on the band is currently in the works.
Devo is described as the “first-ever fully authorized film” on the band, who formed in 1973 in the aftermath of the Kent State massacre and went on to have a huge hit in 1980 with “Whip It.” It’s directed by Chris Smith, who previously directed the Netflix docs Frye and Tiger King.
The film will include archival footage and interviews, in order to tell the story of the band’s “evolution from hippie artistes to art-rockers with a message, to their unexpected mainstream success as a hit rock band and the pioneers of the MTV age.”
“DEVO was a huge influence on me,” Smith shares. “Their approach to music, film, video and art was something I had never seen before and was one of the truly formative artistic influences that showed me there were entirely new ways to look at things.”
So far there’s no word on when Devo will be released.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea fired multiple cruise missiles toward the East Sea Wednesday, the latest show of its military capabilities during the 11-days-long joint drills between the U.S. and South Korea.
The U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise is expected to wrap up Thursday morning local time.
“South Korea’s military detected several cruise missiles fired at 10:15 a.m. from South Hamgyong province towards the East Sea,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff told ABC News.
North Korea’s military provocation took place just as the Amphibious Assault Ship USS Makin Island arrived in South Korea to join the large-scale landing exercises for the joint drills.
Pyongyang relentlessly fired various types of missiles the last 10 days, consistent with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister’s vow on March 7 to “take appropriate, quick and overwhelming actions” to the joint military exercise North Korea has always complained about.
Starting with two submarine-launched cruise missiles on March 12, North Korea gradually raised the level of provocation by launching two short range ballistic missiles last Tuesday, a suspected Intercontinental ballistic missile last Thursday, and a short-range ballistic missile on Sunday.
North Korea’s state media KCNA explicitly referred to Sunday’s launch as a “drill to send a stronger warning to the enemy who expanded their war drills for aggression.” Their reporting included a picture of Kim Jong Un overseeing the test with his daughter.
“We should look at how North Korean media keeps using the term ‘combat arrangement’ in recent reports about their missiles,” Park Wongon, professor of North Korean Studies at Ewha Womans University, told ABC News. “The regime wants to show off that their weapons are far past the experimental stage and ready for the actual battlefield.”
North Korea’s cruise missiles don’t violate the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and are considered not as threatening as the ballistic missiles, but cannot be overlooked in the region for they are not easy to detect and intercept when flying at a low altitude.
(SUMTER, S.C.) — Three children and one man were killed in an apparent domestic mass shooting in South Carolina, authorities said.
A second man, who authorities believe was the shooter, was also found dead at the scene Tuesday night, the Sumter Police Department said.
Additional information was not immediately available. Police in Sumter, about 45 miles east of Columbia, said they didn’t believe there’s a threat to the public.
(NEW YORK) — More than a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, the countries are fighting for control of areas in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops have liberated nearly 30,000 square miles of their territory from Russian forces since the invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, but Putin appeared to be preparing for a long and bloody war.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 22, 9:34 AM EDT
Zelenskyy visits troops after night of Russian strikes
Chinese President Xi Jinping hadn’t even left Moscow when the drones started exploding. It came a matter of hours after Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed they were the ones who wanted to make “peace” in Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials say 21 lethal attack drones were launched overnight and into this morning by Russia, with 16 shot down by the Ukrainians.
An apartment block was hit in a town southeast of Kyiv, killing at least four people and injuring others, officials said. Russian officials claim Ukrainian soldiers were based there. The Ukrainians are calling it a “civilian” building.
Russian missiles later hit an apartment block in the heart of the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia.
And in an apparent repost to the geopolitical theatrics in Moscow, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited his troops on Wednesday in the eastern Donbas, not far from the embattled city of Bakhmut, according to his officials.
Bakhmut has become a potent symbol of Ukrainian resistance and sacrifice and, despite being surrounded on three sides, Ukrainian forces inside the city are, after months of fighting there, still holding on.
Zelenskyy’s office released video of him addressing troops and also visiting injured soldiers in a military medical facility in the region. He told troops their “destiny was difficult but important” because they were fighting to save the motherland.
Mar 22, 8:32 AM EDT
Missile strikes residential building in Ukraine
A Russian missile struck an apartment building in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Wednesday, injuring at least 18 people, officials said.
“This must not become ‘just another day’ in” Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Twitter.
“The world needs greater unity and determination to defeat Russian terror faster and protect lives,” he said.
The victims included two children, secretary of the City Council Anatoly Kurtev said. Eleven adults were hospitalized, with four in serious condition, he said.
Mar 21, 6:09 PM EDT
Explosions reported in several Ukrainian cities
Explosions were heard and felt in the cities of Odesa and Kherson and the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk on Tuesday evening, officials and people on the ground in Ukraine reported on social media channels.
During the attack on Odesa, Ukraine’s air defense shot down two X-59 guided missiles launched by Russian fighter jets, the Ukrainian Air Force said on its Telegram channel.
Russia fired four missiles at Odesa, Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential office, said on his Telegram channel. Two rockets were shot down by Ukrainian air defense, and two rockets hit the city, he said.
Three people were wounded, and a three-story building on the complex of a monastery was damaged, Yermak said.
Three people were killed, and four were wounded as a result of Russian shelling in the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General reported on Facebook.
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman
Mar 21, 4:29 PM EDT
Ukrainian Patriot missile training at Fort Sill nearly complete
The Patriot missile training for Ukrainian troops at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, is wrapping up soon, an Army spokesman said Tuesday.
Sixty-five Ukrainian soldiers have been training at Fort Sill since mid-January in an expedited training cycle on using the Patriots — training that typically can last up to a year.
The Ukrainians will depart the Army post in the coming days for Europe, where they will receive additional training, before heading back to Ukraine “in the coming weeks,” Col. Marty O’Donnell of U.S. Army Europe/Africa told ABC News.
“In Europe, the Ukrainians training here will meet up with Ukrainians training in Europe, and with U.S., German, and Dutch equipment donations to validate the systems and ensure interoperability,” O’Donnell said.
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez
Mar 21, 12:48 PM EDT
US to speed up delivery of Abrams tanks to Ukraine
The United States is going to speed up the manufacture and delivery of the 31 Abrams tanks President Joe Biden approved sending to Ukraine, a U.S. official confirmed Tuesday.
Instead of making new tanks from scratch, the Department of Defense will now refurbish the hulls of several older models that will be equipped with more modern equipment, according to the official.
The new delivery target date is fall 2023, the official said; previously the anticipated delivery time was believed to be mid-2024.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby hinted at the accelerated timeline on Tuesday.
“We’re working on that,” Kirby said on MSNBC. “There’s some changes that you can make to the process to sort of speed that up.”
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez and Teresa Mettela
Mar 21, 11:49 AM EDT
Japanese PM visits Ukraine for 1st time during war
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Ukraine on Tuesday for the first time since the start of Russia’s invasion.
In Kyiv, Kishida laid a wreath at the memorial for fallen Ukrainian soldiers. In Bucha, where Ukrainian officials said more than 400 civilians were killed last year by Russian forces, he laid a wreath outside a church before observing a moment of silence and bowing.
“The world was astonished to see innocent civilians in Bucha killed one year ago,” Kishida said. “I really feel great anger for all the atrocious acts.”
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman
Mar 20, 6:33 PM EDT
Ukraine claims it destroyed Russian cruise missiles in Crimea drone attack
Ukrainian forces destroyed Russian Kalibr-NK cruise missiles in a drone strike in Crimea as the weapons were being transported by rail, the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate said on their official Telegram channel Monday.
Sergey Aksyonov, an adviser to the head of the Republic of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, confirmed a drone attack on his official Telegram channel.
Debris from the aerial object damaged a household and a shop and one person was injured from the explosions, Aksyonov said.
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman
Mar 19, 6:44 PM EDT
Indications China could be supplying electrical components to Russia military use, senior Ukrainian official says
Ukraine has been monitoring multiple flights between Russian and Chinese cities during which the aircrafts’ transponders are temporarily switched off, according to a senior Ukrainian official, who called it a cause for concern.
The official said the belief is that China could be supplying Russia with electrical components that Moscow needs for military equipment, thus diminishing the impact of Western sanctions.
The senior official, who spoke exclusively to ABC News on the condition of anonymity, added that Ukraine currently has “no proof” that China is supplying weaponry or ammunition to Ukraine.
The official also dismissed the notion of a Chinese-brokered peace plan in the near future and said Ukraine is focused on retaking more land from Russia and is preparing for a fresh offensive “in the spring or early summer.”
-ABC News’ Tom Burridge
Mar 19, 1:13 AM EDT
Putin arrives in Mariupol, marking first visit to newly annexed territories
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Mariupol to inspect a number of locations in the city and talk to local residents, the Kremlin press service said on Sunday.
Putin travelled by helicopter to the Ukrainian city, which has been occupied since last year by Russians. He drove a vehicle along the city’s streets, making stops at several locations.
The visit was Putin’s first to newly annexed territories.
Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin reported to Putin about construction and restoration work. In the Nevsky area, a newly built residential area, Putin talked with residents. He went inside a home at the invitation of one of the families.
Putin also inspected the coastline of the city in the area of a yacht club, a theater building that was heavily bombed with civilians sheltering inside and other memorable places of the city.
-ABC News’ Tanya Stukalova
Mar 18, 11:04 AM EDT
Putin visits Crimea on anniversary of annexation
Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine on Saturday, one day after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader accusing him of war crimes.
Putin visited an art school and a children’s center.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world denounced as illegal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has demanded that Russia withdraw from the peninsula as well as the areas it has occupied since last year.
Putin has shown no intention of relinquishing the Kremlin’s gains. Instead, he stressed Friday the importance of holding Crimea. “Obviously, security issues take top priority for Crimea and Sevastopol now,” he said, referring to Crimea’s largest city. “We will do everything needed to fend off any threats.”
President Joe Biden called the arrest warrant issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday by the International Criminal Court “justified,” though acknowledged it might not have strong teeth.
“Well, I think it’s justified,” Biden told reporters Friday evening. “But the question — it’s not recognized internationally, by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point.”
In a earlier statement on the warrant, the White House said it supports “accountability for perpetrators of war crimes.”
“There is no doubt that Russia is committing war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine, and we have been clear that those responsible must be held accountable,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in the statement.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Davone Morales
Mar 17, 2:35 PM EDT
Turkey agrees to start ratifying Finland’s NATO bid
Turkey is beginning the process of ratifying Finland’s application to join NATO, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday, 10 months after both Finland and Sweden applied to become NATO members in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“At a critical time for our security, this will make our alliance stronger and safer,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.
The breakthrough came as Finnish President Sauli Niinisto was in Ankara, Turkey, to meet with Erdogan.
Erdogan said Finland fulfilled its part of the agreements and therefore he saw no reason to further delay the ratification process. Erdogan did not provide an update on Sweden’s bid.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement, “We encourage Türkiye to quickly ratify Sweden’s accession protocols as well. In addition, we urge Hungary to conclude its ratification process for both Finland and Sweden without delay. … The United States believes that both countries should become members of NATO as soon as possible.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Mar 17, 11:54 AM EDT
ICC issues arrest warrant for Putin
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying in a statement Friday that Putin is “allegedly responsible for the war crime of” unlawfully deporting children from occupied areas of Ukraine and bringing them to Russia.
The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights, alleging she carried out the same war crime.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement that the arrest warrants “have no meaning for the Russian Federation” and “are legally null and void.”
Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, tweeted that the arrest warrants are “just the beginning.”
Mar 16, 12:15 PM EDT
Russia has committed ‘wide range of war crimes’ in Ukraine: UN-backed report
Russia has committed a “wide range of war crimes” and possible crimes against humanity in Ukraine, according to a new United Nations-backed investigation.
“The body of evidence collected shows that Russian authorities have committed a wide range of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in many regions of Ukraine and in the Russian Federation,” the human rights report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine stated. “Many of these amount to war crimes and include willful killings, attacks on civilians, unlawful confinement, torture, rape, and forced transfers and deportations of children.”
Additionally, Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy-related infrastructure and use of torture “may amount to crimes against humanity,” the report concluded.
The commission said it conducted interviews with nearly 600 people, inspected graves, destruction and detention sites and consulted satellite imagery and photographs as part of its investigation.
Mar 16, 11:51 AM EDT
Poland to deliver MiG-29 jets to Ukraine ‘in the coming days’
Poland plans to deliver four MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine “in the coming days,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said at a press conference on Thursday.
The latest news shortens the timeline announced earlier this week by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who had said they might send the Soviet-designed fighter jets to Ukraine in the next four to six weeks.
Mar 16, 11:08 AM EDT
225 Russians killed in last 24 hours in Bakhmut
Ukrainian forces have killed 225 Russian fighters and injured another 306 in the past 24 hours in the Bakhmut area, according to Serhiy Cherevaty, the spokesman for the Eastern Group of Forces of the Ukraine army.
Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a brutal battle for the city in eastern Ukraine for months, with both sides seeing high rates of casualties.
Cherevaty said that in the last day, the occupiers in the area of Bakhmut and nearby villages — including Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Bohdanivka and Ivanivskoho — tried to attack Ukrainian positions 42 times. There were 24 combat clashes in the Bakhmut area alone.
In total, in the Bakhmut direction, the occupiers shelled Ukrainian positions 256 times with various types of artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, Cherevaty said. Of them, 53 shellings were in the area of Bakhmut itself.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Mar 15, 12:08 PM EDT
Putin says effort underway to increase weapons production
Russia is working to increase its weapons production amid an “urgent” need, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.
“Prosecutors should supervise the modernization of defense industry enterprises, including building up capacities for the production of an additional volume of weapons. A lot of effort is underway here,” Putin said at a meeting of the Collegium of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation.
Putin added that the weapons, equipment and ammunition are “urgently” needed.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Mar 13, 4:04 PM EDT
White House welcomes Xi Jinping speaking to President Zelenskyy
The White House is welcoming reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to soon speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the first time since Russia’s invasion began, while cautioning that after speaking with Ukrainian counterparts, “they have not yet actually gotten any confirmation that there will be a telephone call or a video conference.”
“We hope there will be,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during a briefing on Air Force One. “That would be a good thing because it would potentially bring more balance and perspective to the way that the new PRC is approaching this, and we hope it will continue to dissuade them from choosing to provide lethal assistance to Russia.”
“We have been encouraging President Xi to reach out to President Zelenskyy because we believe that PRC and President Xi himself should hear directly the Ukrainian perspective and not just the Russian perspective on this,” Sullivan continued. “So, we have in fact, advocated to Beijing that that connection take place. We’ve done so publicly and we’ve done so privately to the PRC.”
Sullivan said the U.S. has “not yet seen the transfer of lethal assistance of weapons from China to Russia,” after previously warning it was being considered.
“It’s something that we’re vigilant about and continuing to watch carefully,” he added.
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Mar 13, 12:27 PM EDT
Russia agrees to 60-day extension of Black Sea Grain Initiative
Russia said Monday it will extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative after it expires on March 18, but only for 60 days. The announcement came after consultations between U.N. representatives in Geneva and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin.
“The Russian side, noting the package nature of the Istanbul agreements proposed by UN Secretary General António Guterres, does not object to another extension of the Black Sea initiative after the expiration of the second term on March 18, but only for 60 days,” Vershinin said, according to Russian media reports.
Russia’s consultations in Geneva on the grain deal were not easy, Vershinin said. Russia will rely on the effectiveness of the implementation of the agreement on the export of its agricultural products when deciding on a new extension of the grain deal, according to reports.
Ukraine, which is a key world exporter of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and fertilizer, had its shipments blocked in the months following the invasion by Russia, causing a worldwide spike in food prices. The first deal was brokered last July.
Mar 12, 4:13 PM EDT
More than 1,100 Russians dead in less than a week, Zelenskyy says
Russian forces suffered more than 1,100 dead in less than a week during battles near the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the focal point of fighting in eastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.
During his nightly address, Zelenskyy described the battles as “Russia’s irreversible loss.”
Russian forces also sustained about 1,500 “sanitary losses,” meaning soldiers were wounded badly enough to keep them out of further action, Zelenskyy said.
Dozens of pieces of enemy equipment were destroyed, as were more than 10 Russian ammunition depots, Zelenskyy said.
-ABC News’ Edward Seekers
Mar 10, 3:17 PM EST
Russia says Nord Stream explosion investigation should be impartial
The investigation into who was behind the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline explosion should be “objective, impartial and transparent,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian news agency Interfax.
“I do not want to threaten anyone. I do not want to hint at anything either. I just know that this flagrant terror attack will not go uninvestigated,” Lavrov added.
Russia also said it will distribute its correspondence with Germany, Denmark and Sweden on the investigation of the Nord Stream explosion among the members of the United Nations Security Council soon.
Russia claimed the three countries are denying Russia access to information and participation in the investigation, first deputy permanent representative to the U.N. Dmitry Polyansky said in an interview, according to Russian news agency TASS.
-ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva and Tanya Stukalova
Mar 10, 3:03 PM EST
Russia says Nord Stream explosion investigation should be impartial
The investigation into who was behind the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline explosion should be “objective, impartial and transparent,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian news agency Interfax.
“I do not want to threaten anyone. I do not want to hint at anything either. I just know that this flagrant terror attack will not go uninvestigated,” Lavrov added.
Russia also said it will distribute its correspondence with Germany, Denmark and Sweden on the investigation of Nord Stream explosion among the members of the United Nations Security Council soon.
Russia claimed the three countries are denying Russia access to information and participation in the investigation, first deputy permanent representative to the U.N. Dmitry Polyansky said in an interview, according to Russian news agency TASS.
Mar 10, 9:46 AM EST
Zelenskyy says Ukraine had nothing to do with Nord Stream explosions
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied that Ukraine had anything to do with the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions last year.
“As for the Nord Stream, we have nothing to do with it,” Zelenskyy said Friday.
The New York Times published a report that U.S. intelligence suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group sabotaged the pipeline.
Zelenskyy also suggested that the information being spread about the involvement of pro-Ukrainian groups in the attack could be done to slow down aid to his country.
-ABC News’ Natalia Shumskaia
Mar 09, 2:45 PM EST
Power returns to Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after attacks
Electricity supply has been fully restored in Kyiv after Russia’s overnight barrage of missile attacks on Ukraine, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said in a Telegram post Thursday.
Also, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is now “receiving electricity for its own needs from the Ukrainian grid after power supply was cut,” Russian news agency Interfax reported.
-ABC News’ Tatiana Rymarenko and Natalia Shumskaia
Mar 09, 7:25 AM EST
Russia ‘brutalizing’ Ukrainian people, White House says
Russia’s overnight barrage of missiles aimed at civilian infrastructure may have knocked heat out to as much as 40% of Ukrainians, the White House said on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to “brutalize” the people of Ukraine, John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America on Thursday.
“It also appears, George, that they were definitely targeting civilian infrastructure,” Kirby said. “I would agree with the Ukrainians. He’s just trying to brutalize the Ukrainian people”
Russian forces early on Thursday launched 81 missiles from land and sea, Ukrainian officials said. Eight uncrewed drones were also launched in what officials described as a “massive” attack.
Eleven regions and cities were targeted in an attack that lasted at least seven hours, officials said.
Kirby said on Thursday that the White House expects to see more fighting on the ground in Ukraine for at least the “next four to six months.”
“We know that the Russians are attempting to conduct more offensive operations here when the weather gets better,” he said.
Mar 09, 3:59 AM EST
Zelenskyy decries Russia’s ‘miserable tactics’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday said Russian officials had returned “to their miserable tactics” as they launched at least 81 missiles at Ukrainian sites overnight.
“The occupiers can only terrorize civilians. That’s all they can do. But it won’t help them,” he said on Telegram. “They won’t avoid responsibility for everything they have done.”
He added, “We thank the guardians of our skies and everyone who helps to overcome the consequences of the occupiers’ sneaking attacks!”
Mar 09, 3:34 AM EST
81 missiles launched in ‘massive’ Russian attack, Ukraine says
Waves of missiles and a handful of drones were launched overnight by Russia, targeting energy infrastructure and cities across Ukraine, officials said.
The attack on “critical infrastructure” and civilian targets lasted throughout the night, Verkovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, said on Twitter. Energy was being gradually restored on Thursday morning, the body said.
Ukraine’s parliament and military said at least 81 missiles were fired from several bases. Eight Iranian-made drones were also launched, the military said.
Ukraine destroyed 34 cruise missiles and four drones, military officials said on Facebook.
“Russia’s threats only encourage partners to provide long-term assistance to Ukraine,” said Yehor Chernev, deputy chairman of the Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence.
Russia “will be sentenced as a terrorist state” for its attacks, Ruslan Stefanchuk, Rada’s chairperson, said on Twitter.
Mar 09, 12:35 AM EST
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant now running on diesel generators, energy minister says
The last line that fed the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been damaged following missile strikes, and the plant is now working on diesel generators, according to the Ukrainian energy minister, Herman Galushchenko.
Mar 09, 12:16 AM EST
Emergency power outages nationwide due to missile attacks, provider says
DTEK, the largest private grid operator in Ukraine, said emergency power outages are in effect due to the missile attacks in the Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv and Dnipro regions.
Mar 09, 12:27 AM EST
Multiple missile strikes reported across Ukraine
Multiple explosions have been reported in city centers all over the country, including Dnipro, Odesa, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi and Kharkiv.
Residents in multiple areas are being asked to shelter in place, and communication and electricity has been impacted.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said multiple explosions were reported in the Holosiiv district.
The governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubov, said Russia struck the city at least 15 times overnight.
The head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration said there had been no casualties and that the power supply is being restricted.
Mar 08, 2:05 PM EST
Ukraine says it was not involved in Nord Stream Pipeline bombings
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov denied Ukraine was involved in the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline, which carries natural gas from Russia to Germany. While the pipeline was not active at the time of the bombing last September, it was filled with fuel.
The denial comes after The New York Times reported that intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the Nord Stream bombings last year.
After the story broke, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned against “jumping to conclusions” about who carried out the explosion, suggesting it could have been a “false flag” operation to blame Ukraine.
German authorities were reportedly able to identify the boat used for the sabotage operation, saying a group of five men and one woman using forged passports rented a yacht from a Poland-based company owned by Ukrainian citizens. The nationalities of the perpetrators are unclear, according to a separate report by Germany’s ARD broadcaster and Zeit newspaper.
“We have to make a clear distinction whether it was a Ukrainian group, whether it may have happened at Ukrainian orders, or a pro-Ukrainian group [acting] without knowledge of the government. But I am warning against jumping to conclusions,” Pistorius said on the sidelines of a summit in Stockholm.
A Russian diplomat said Russia has no faith in the U.S.‘s “impartiality” in the conclusions made from intelligence.
(NEW YORK) — An asteroid between 140 and 310 feet in size will safely pass by Earth on Saturday, according to NASA Asteroid Watch.
An asteroid of this size only goes by Earth about once every decade, the agency said.
The asteroid, named 2023 DZ2, will be at least 100,000 miles away when it moves by Earth, according to NASA.
Astronomers “are using this close approach to learn as much as possible about 2023 DZ2 in a short time period – good practice for #PlanetaryDefense in the future if a potential asteroid threat were ever discovered,” NASA said.
(NEW YORK) — A little over two years ago, Richard Loew and his wife Donna were settling into a relaxing, new stage of their life: retirement in Florida.
But then came a government-branded letter, informing them that payments were due on nearly $100,000 of pandemic-relief loans, called Economic Injury Disaster Loans, or EIDL.
The loans were registered to the Loews’ Palm City, Florida, address. Each was for under $50,000.
One loan was under the name “Loew Farms,” while the other was simply under “Donna Farms.”
But Richard, a retired physician, and Donna, who works with a cat rescue nonprofit, had never taken out the loans, nor did they have a farm in their gated community on the Florida coast.
Still, the Small Business Administration continued to send letters with threats to garnish their wages and lower their credit scores.
“It’s scary,” Donna Loew told ABC News. “The fact that they can start taking money from us. What are we going to do? It’s the government.”
Richard Loew says he’s taken more than 200 pages of notes over the last two years, documenting dozens of calls with SBA customer service, affidavits reporting his and his wife’s identity theft with the Federal Trade Commission and local law enforcement, attempts to escalate his case to the FBI and letters written to both his local congressmen.
Still, the letters from SBA keep coming, he said.
“It makes me feel like I’m some sort of deadbeat. And the truth is, I worked hard to, you know, not be that person,” Loew said.
The Loews are just two of the thousands of Americans whose stolen identities were used to wrongly obtain COVID-19 relief money as over $5 trillion was pushed out to the American public to keep a halted economy afloat.
Three years later, watchdog groups, investigators, Congress and the White House are avidly trying to claw money back and nail down exactly how much taxpayer money was stolen.
But people like the Loews have slipped through the cracks — a major part of the problem, they say, but not a focus of the solution.
“What recourse do I have?” Loew asked.
A once-in-a-century pandemic forcing a false choice: speed over security
Michael Horowitz, chairman of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), a federal watchdog charged with tracking how much money was defrauded from the government during COVID, said the Loews’ experience is not unusual.
A recent PRAC report found that nearly 70,000 potentially suspect Social Security numbers were used to successfully apply for EIDL or Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds, totaling $5.4 billion.
Yet Horowitz reiterated that the path to recourse is challenging for those tens of thousands of Americans who could’ve had their identities stolen.
“Unfortunately, for most on the federal level, there’s very little resources available,” Horowitz told ABC News.
“What we’re seeing is the victims are often struggling out there to deal with these problems that were created by others, that the agencies didn’t do enough to protect their identities,” he said.
A major reason that those protections weren’t in place, Horowitz said, was the need for speed.
“A decision was made at the outset of the pandemic. Speed was the key. We’re going to send the money out. We’re not going to vet people,” Horowitz said.
The thinking was that “you investigators, you’ll go catch it later, go chase the fraud later. We just want to get the money out,” he said. “That was a bad choice. It was the wrong choice. It never should have happened.”
Those holes in the programs have also been documented by the inspector general for the SBA, the independent watchdog with oversight of the department, who says accounting for the fraud will continue to dog the SBA into 2023.
“I believe managing COVID-19 stimulus lending is the greatest overall challenge facing SBA, and it may likely continue to be for many years as the agency grapples with fraud in the programs,” Inspector General Hannibal Ware said in a report.
Ware noted that SBA faced unprecedented demand in 2020, processing the same amount of loans it had in the last 14 years in just 14 days. It also expanded its staff by 10 times.
Still, a review of several reports from the SBA inspector general reveals how the agency “lowered guardrails” to handle the tidal wave of pandemic relief loans in ways that “significantly increased the risk of fraud.”
And in a 2021 report, Ware also cited the specific issue facing the Loews: “At the time of our review, we found SBA did not provide status updates to those reporting COVID-19 EIDL identity theft,” Ware wrote.
“These individuals have been waiting a long time, some of them for months, for a resolution on potentially fraudulent loans in their names that could negatively affect their ability to obtain credit,” he wrote, citing 18 interviews with prospective identity theft victims.
The SBA did eventually implement a reporting process for identity theft within their programs, setting up a central email address in February 2021 where people with claims could send a set of forms outlined at sba.gov/fraud, under a section called “Report identity theft to SBA.”
About 25,000 people have reached out to report identity theft to the email address, the SBA told ABC News. Of those cases, 8,000 claims have been processed and cleared by the SBA so far, with another 5,000 still under review.
The SBA also said it’s tried to reach out to thousands more people who could be victims of identity theft but haven’t fully completed the reporting process or who might not know that their information was used for a loan.
In a statement, the department said it “has dramatically improved its technology and expanded its staff capacity” since early in the pandemic, and is “committed to assisting people and providing expeditious relief to victims of identity theft.”
The Loews, however, said they’ve followed that process outlined by the SBA, but to no avail. And their experience, over two years later, shows how complicated it can be to get relief.
Despite all of his efforts, in a phone call in mid-March shared with ABC News, an SBA customer service center loan agent told Loew his case remained under investigation, and they received another letter in the mail as recently as late February demanding repayment.
The SBA, in response to inquiries into Loew’s case from ABC News, initially said that it couldn’t confirm or deny any cases of potential identity fraud due to long standing policy. But on Monday evening, an official followed up to say that they had reached out to the Loews.
From ‘lowered guardrails’ to ‘reforms’
The SBA also told ABC News that “additional reforms” to get relief for identity theft victims within the SBA’s programs are still in the process, including using multi-factor authentication and a new process to pause billing once someone has reported identity theft, SBA spokesperson Christina Carr said in a statement.
Much of those reforms will be guided by an expected executive order from President Joe Biden, who pledged over a year ago to sign an order in the “coming weeks” that would direct “new actions to support the victims of identity fraud.”
Administration officials told ABC News that the action is still expected to come soon, though they didn’t provide concrete timing.
Biden also recently called on Congress to approve $1.6 billion to crack down on fraud, including $300 million to triple the “strike forces” within the Department of Justice investigating COVID relief fraud and $400 million to help victims.
Those efforts show the pandemic has been a wake-up call, Horowitz said.
“We’re going to keep putting out reports about this and our hope is that Congress and the executive branch take the actions that are desperately needed to fix these problems,” he said.
(LONDON) — “Let me tell you, it is a serious situation. It is a tragedy,” says Paul Turnbull, Malawi Country Director of the World Food Programme.
He is talking about the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy, one of the deadliest and long-lived tropical cyclones to have ever been recorded in Southern Africa.
In the trail of its double landfall, Cyclone Freddy has left a death toll of at least 522 people across Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar and displaced tens of thousands. Hundreds still remain missing.
“The United States expresses our deep sadness at the tragic loss of life and destruction across the Southern African region in the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy,” a USAID spokesperson told ABC News.
In Malawi — which was worst hit by Cyclone Freddy as it experienced the equivalent of six months of rainfall in just six days — President Lazarus Chakwera said almost half the nation had been damaged by Cyclone Freddy.
“The damage is across 13 districts, almost half of the country, and it is not just the numbers of our people who have lost their lives, but the damage and devastation,” Chakwera said.
Malawi’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) said in a statement that 553,614 people have been displaced in the Southern African nation with 543 camps set up nationwide to accommodate the displaced.
“We had been trying to build back from Cyclone Idai in 2019, and then the pandemic, now Freddy,” said Chakwera. “It’s not just here and there, we are at the receiving end of the worst of the climate change.”
The death toll in Malawi is expected to rise as search, rescue and recovery operations continue in Malawi’s Nsanje and Phalombe districts.
Cyclone Freddy has also left a trail of devastation in Mozambique where at least 165 people have died according to Malawi’s government, and 886,467 people have been affected.
Mozambique has experienced disruption to essential services and flooding, with damage to water and sanitation infrastructure leading experts to raise concerns over the threat of cholera. According to UNICEF, nearly 10,000 cholera cases have been reported in Mozambique, more than tripling since February.
“We are now facing a very real risk of a rapidly accelerating cholera outbreak in Mozambique, a disease which is particularly dangerous for young children, especially those who are malnourished,” said Maria Luisa Fornara, UNICEF representative to Mozambique.
The neighboring island of Madagascar, where Cyclone Freddy first made landfall on Feb. 21, was spared from the worst of the storm but the island is still rebuilding from the impacts of a previous cyclone — Cyclone Cheneso — which hit the island in January, killing 30.
At least 17 have been killed by Cyclone Freddy in Madagascar and nearly 300,000 have been affected.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) anticipates that climate change will increase the “frequency and intensity” of extreme weather and of heavy precipitation events almost everywhere in Africa and, as surface sea temperature warms, Africa has experienced four times as many storms and over double the number of cyclones since 1970.
High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens is set to shoot a travel documentary that will take her to the Philippines, her mother’s homeland.
The as-yet-untitled project, filming in Palawan and Manila later this month, will focus on the close relationship between the 34-year-old actress’ Filipino mom, Gina, and sister, Stella.
“I feel like ours is such a relatable story to so many women all over the world,” Hudgens said in a statement on Tuesday. “The more that we can share, the more we can lift each other up.”
Following her breakout role in High School Musical, Hudgens went on to star in Spring Breakers, Gimme Shelter, Bad Boys for Life, and Tick, Tick …Boom! She’s also set to reprise her role as weapons expert Kelly in Bad Boys 4, alongside Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.
