(WASHINGTON) — Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and new GOP presidential candidate, this week accused President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of thinking America is racist, echoing past attack lines that Biden and Harris have dismissed.
“Every day we’re told America is flawed, rotten and full of hate. Joe and Kamala even say America is racist. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Haley, whose parents emigrated from India, said during her campaign launch speech on Wednesday. “The American people know better. My immigrant parents know better. And take it from me, the first minority female governor in history, America is not a racist country.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday declined to discuss Haley’s campaign launch when asked about her proposal for all politicians over 75 years old to take a mental acuity test, citing a law barring government employees from commenting on campaigns in their official capacities.
Citing a law barring government employees from commenting on campaigns while in their official capacities, Jean-Pierre said she couldn’t respond to anything Haley said.
“I’m going to be very careful as I am speaking about a candidate — she’s currently, as you well know, a candidate for 2024. So, I am covered by the Hatch Act. So, I am not going to speak to her directly and her comments specifically,” Jean-Pierre said.
Lines like Haley’s have been used to put Democrats on defense and to criticize what Republicans call a culture of needless racial division.
Haley has long pushed back on what she said in 2020 was the “lie” from Democrats that the U.S. is racist.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the only Black Republican in the Senate who is also thought to be mulling a presidential campaign, said in his 2021 speech in response to Biden’s State of the Union address that year that “America is not a racist country.”
“Today, kids are being taught that the color of their skin defines them again. … It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination,” Scott said then, “and it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.”
However, Biden and Harris have both said they don’t believe America is racist while noting the country’s history, which encompasses centuries of slavery and legalized racial discrimination.
“No, I don’t think the American people are racist,” Biden told NBC News in 2021 after Scott’s response to his State of the Union. “But I think after 400 years, African Americans have been left in the position where they are so far behind the eight ball in terms of education, health, in terms of opportunity. I think the overhang from all of the Jim Crow and, before that, slavery have had a cost and we have to deal with it.”
Harris, in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in 2021, also said that she agreed with Scott’s view — to a point.
“First of all, no, I don’t think America is a racist country,” she said. “But we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today.”
ABC News’ Chris Donovan contributed to this report.
Belinda Carlisle is heading out on the road this summer. The Go-Go’s singer just announced a set of North American dates for her Decades tour, which is currently in the United Kingdom.
The tour kicks off July 1 in Peachtree City, Georgia, hitting such cities as New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Anaheim. The tour wraps August 27 in Los Angeles, California.
“I’m halfway through my ‘Decades’ UK tour as I write this and I’m having the best time playing these songs from my back catalogue for all my fans,” Belinda shares. “I can’t wait to come and do the same thing across the US this summer and I really hope to see some of you there.”
Rolling Stone has shared some new advice from the late David Crosby, culled from his final “Ask Croz” session, which took place in the summer of 2021. The singer, who passed away in January, offers advice on talking to teenage daughters about sex, finding love again after a spouse dies and more. He even tries to set the record straight about his former group.
When asked, “Settle an argument: Who is better, CSN or CSNY?” Crosby would not definitively say whether the group was better with Neil Young.
“I don’t think ‘better’ really applies. They were two completely different bands,” he says. “Chemistries between human beings are [as] individual as snowflakes — very delicate and very complex. The chemistry between the three of us in Crosby, Stills, and Nash was organic. It came there of its own will.”
As for Young, Croz says he “did add something and he did bring some good songs. He’s an exciting guitar player, and an exciting artist. He’s always pushing the limit, and that’s good.”
Crosby maintains “both bands made really excellent music”: “What counts is the songs, and both bands generated great songs.”
The mag says Crosby “absolutely loved helping out strangers with their problems,” and he reiterated the same feeling in an interview with ABC Audio prior to his death. “I like the hell out of it. I have a lot of fun with it,” he said, while suggesting it was ridiculous folks seemed to be helped by his advice. But, Croz said, “I’m all about fun, man … be(ing) opinionated is absolutely fun.”
Michael Douglas added some Oscar cred to the Marvel Cinematic Universe when he was cast as Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, in the size-shifting hero’s first movie in 2015. Two films later, he says he’s still having a blast.
Pym takes a more central role in Friday’s release, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The movie sees Pym and his wife, Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), sucked into the tiny titular Quantum Realm, along with Paul Rudd‘s Scott Lang/Ant-Man, Evangeline Lilly‘s Hope van Dyne/The Wasp and Scott’s daughter, Cassie (Kathryn Newton).
The fact that the adventure is a family affair is one of the appeals of the trilogy, Douglas opined at a recent press event. “I think the Ant-Man pictures refer to family a lot. It brings a vulnerability to these superpower characters that we see in a lot of Marvel films. There’s a certain vulnerability and a sense of humor that exists. I think that is really a pleasure.”
The 78-year-old Wall Street star says his corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe appeals to “all different ages,” explaining, “Someone like myself who’s mostly referenced to R-rated movies, this has really been a pleasure to have a younger kids coming up and enjoying it.”
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania puts the Pym and Lang gang toe-to-toe with Jonathan Majors‘ Kang the Conqueror, a powerful being the heroes must stop from destroying the multiverse.
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
(MIAMI) — A Miami, Florida, preschool is under fire after photos appeared to show children in one class in blackface during Black History Month.
The children can be seen dressed up in costumes based on different professions – including police officers and construction workers. Their faces appeared to be painted black, a photo of the incident shows.
The owner of the Studio Kids’ Little River preschool where it allegedly occurred, Patricia Vitale, declined to comment to ABC News.
However, in messages to parents, shared with ABC News, the owner said “we have not intended to offend anyone, and we are very sorry about any inconvenience.”
The owner added that teachers and staff attended a meeting about “ethical and multicultural education points” in response to the incident.
Courtney Politis, whose child attended the preschool, told ABC News she found out about the alleged blackface incident through a friend whose child was in the class that day on Feb. 3. Then, Politis said, photos of the incident began to circulate in a school-based messaging app.
“I was like, ‘This can’t be real in 2023,'” Politis told ABC News in an interview. “[Blackface] was just made to make fun and dehumanize Black people. It was made to say that we were lazy and incompetent and it’s just, it’s just not right. It’s disrespectful.”
Politis said she has pulled her two children from Studio Kids preschools, which has several locations in the area. Her children were not in the class where the alleged blackface occurred.
Politis claims several other parents have pulled their children from the school as well.
“As an educator, know better and do better for our children and for the future,” Politis said.
The Miami-Dade branch of the civil rights organization NAACP slammed the preschool.
“The use of blackface at anytime is insensitive and offensive. We stand ready to provide resources on authentic #BlackHistoryMonth lessons,” the organization said in a tweet.
(NEW YORK) — For years, Daniel Levin and Felicia Rosario suffered cruel physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the hands of Lawrence Ray – much of the terror disturbingly recorded by Ray or at his behest.
Ray was sentenced to 60 years in prison in January for manipulating Levin, Rosario and a group of their friends in a New York home they shared, and exploiting them for extortion, sex trafficking and forced labor. Levin and Rosario said they can now rebuild their lives with the knowledge that justice has been served.
“I was just reeling, taking it in that I live in a world where my abuser is no longer a threat,” Levin, who left Ray in 2013, told ABC News’ Linsey Davis.
Levin and Rosario spoke candidly with “Impact x Nightline” for an episode now streaming on Hulu and shared details about their abuse and how they mustered the courage to speak out against him. Their stories also documented in the new Hulu series “Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence.”
Levin was starting his sophomore year at Sarah Lawrence College in 2010 when his roommate Talia Ray introduced him to her father. Talia had mentioned Ray to Levin and their group of friends before, saying he was leaving prison soon after being wrongfully imprisoned and needed a place to stay. Levin would later learn that Ray had been sentenced for security fraud.
When Ray first moved into his daughter’s dorm house, the friends thought he was odd but harmless. But slowly, he grew close to some of them, often spending all night speaking with them and offering advice. Levin eventually sought Ray out at the end of his sophomore year to talk about his fracturing relationship with a girlfriend.
“He seemed to understand the things I struggled with, that I was insecure about my body, that I was unsure about my sexuality,” Levin said.
Not only did Levin appreciate the conversation at the time, he says Ray also offered him a free place to stay in the city during the summer. Soon he was living in a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side with Ray and four friends. The group celebrating birthdays and the holidays together.
More friends would move in with the housemates including Felicia Rosario, the older sister of one of Levin’s college housemates, who was living in Los Angeles completing a psychiatry residency after graduating Harvard and Columbia Med School.
Rosario was visiting her brother Santos at that Upper East Side apartment, and told “Impact” that she was immediately taken in by Ray’s charm. The two started a long-distance relationship that initially seemed to be full of love. But soon Ray was manipulating Rosario, convincing her that people were coming after her and that she would only be safe living with him in New York.
That kind of coercion was only the tip of the iceberg. For years, the friends were violently abused mentally, physically and sexually, and constantly threatened by Ray.
“He wouldn’t let me sleep. He controlled what I was eating. He would yell at me. He would beat me,” Rosario said. “He took away everything that made me and this was the most painful part of all is really the hold he had on my siblings and my family. I knew that if I left him, he would just come after all of us harder.”
Ray went as far as to force one of the roommates into prostitution and raked in nearly $2.5 million for her escort services, according to investigators. He also coerced Rosario’s brother to pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars for supposed damage to property, much of the payments coming from Rosario’s parents.
Levin stayed with Larry for two years before making the decision to leave.
“It reached a point where I did feel as if I stay any longer, I think I might die. It starts to feel like this might be a mortal threat. Whether that’s because he will kill me or I will kill myself,” he said.
“Just something in me felt like if I want to live, I need to leave. And I did…I just stopped answering calls– and just hoped that they wouldn’t pursue me.”
But even after he left, Levin said he was still living in Ray’s shadow.
“I was in a constant state of disassociation. I felt like the world was gray,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ray brought the roommates to North Carolina and then New Jersey where he continued his abuse. And rumors started swirling among other Sarah Lawrence students about what was happening, prompting two New York Magazine reporters to reach out to Levin about his experience.
“I was thinking about my friends who were still being abused and what effect it would have,” Levin said. “What it became for me was, they needed to get it right, because if they got it wrong, it would cause the most possible harm.”
In 2019, the magazine published an expose using interviews with Levin and others. Rosario and one other friend were still living with Ray at the time and also met the reporters after Ray wanted his side told.
Rosario said Ray was furious over the piece, even though she knew it was telling the truth.
The article triggered an official investigation into Ray, and in 2020 the FBI arrested Ray.
Rosario at first defended Ray, but began to reconsider after she lived in their home without his presence and eventually moved out.
“It took them coming to get him for me to be able to even consider having– a life again,” Rosario said.
“I had to sit alone and I didn’t have him yelling at me every day. It kind of just clicked that this is horrible and I need to do something.”
Ray went on trial in 2022 for 15 counts including sex trafficking, extortion and forced labor. Last month, the 63-year-old was sentenced to 60 years in prison. Levin and Rosario both gave victim impact statements to the judge, never looking at Larry in the courthouse
“I try not to waste too much energy on imagining the interior of Lawrence Ray’s mind. But I suspect that he is not capable of feeling bad about anything he’s done,” Levin said.
At the time Ray was arrested in 2020, Sarah Lawrence College issued a statement.
“It appears that for some part of the fall semester in 2010, this parent stayed in his daughter’s on-campus apartment, in a clear violation of the College’s written policy” Cristle Collins Judd, the school’s president, said and added that school officials at the time didn’t know the situation was taking place.
“The crimes for which this man has been indicted did not occur at Sarah Lawrence, even though he appears to have met certain of his victims while they were students here,” she wrote.
The school put out another statement following Ray’s sentencing, stating the judge’s ruling was “the final stage of holding him accountable for his crimes.”
“We hope this reckoning brings some sense of closure to his victims,” the school said.
Levin and Rosario said they are feeling more confident that they can live enriched full lives that won’t be defined by their trauma. In 2021, Levin published a memoir “Slonim Woods 9” named after the dorm where he met Ray. And he now lives in Los Angeles where he teaches writing.
Rosario, who is only a few years into her healing journey, also hopes to accomplish her delayed dreams and become a forensic psychiatrist.
“Watching Daniel’s recovery and success really gives me hope for my life and my future and my dreams, the dreams that were stolen from me. And I think I’m going to do them,” Rosario said.
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(RIVERSIDE, Calif.) — Newly released footage shows the dramatic freeway chase and shootout late last year between law enforcement and a suspect accused of killing a California sheriff’s deputy hours earlier.
The suspect was wanted for the murder of Riverside County sheriff’s deputy Isaiah Cordero, 32, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Jurupa Valley on Dec. 29. Authorities said the suspect should have been incarcerated under the state’s “three strikes” sentencing law but instead was out on bond at the time of the shooting.
The suspect, identified as 44-year-old William Shae McKay, allegedly fled the scene of the shooting in his black pickup truck and a manhunt ensued.
During a pursuit on several freeways in the area, law enforcement deployed a tire deflation device and armored vehicle, which made multiple attempts to execute a PIT maneuver, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said in a video released on Wednesday showing the helicopter and body-worn camera footage from the pursuit.
Due to a “mechanical malfunction,” McKay’s truck eventually veered across multiple lanes of traffic before coming to a stop on the shoulder of Interstate 15 in Norco, Bianco said.
The suspect was cornered by a BearCat vehicle and fired several rounds at deputies before he was killed by deputies’ responding gunfire, authorities said.
Body-worn camera footage from the scene showed the shootout under an overpass on the highway.
When members of the sheriff’s department’s SWAT team approached, they found McKay dead in his vehicle with a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol that had no serial number, according to the sheriff.
The incident remains under investigation by the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, Bianco said. The sheriff’s department is also reviewing the actions taken by deputies in the shooting, he said.
“We take each use of force seriously, and make every effort to de-escalate these situations whenever possible,” Bianco said.
Following the incident, Bianco criticized the actions of a San Bernardino County Superior Court judge that led to McKay being out on bond, despite being convicted on multiple felony charges in November 2021, marking his “third strike.”
Based on the state’s sentencing law regarding repeat felony convictions, he should have automatically been sentenced to 25 years to life, the sheriff said. However, San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Cara Hutson reduced his bail from $950,000 to $500,000, which he posted in March 2022 and was released while his sentencing was continued, according to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case and requested no bail at the time.
Court records show that on Nov. 8, 2021, McKay was found guilty of false imprisonment, evading a peace officer, criminal threats likely to result in death or great bodily injury and receiving stolen property. He was acquitted of more serious charges of kidnapping and kidnapping to commit robbery or rape in that case. He failed to appear for a court appearance in October 2022 and a warrant was issued for his arrest, court records show.
ABC News was unable to reach McKay’s attorneys in the case for comment.
Cordero’s mother, Rebecca Cordero, called for the judge’s resignation during her son’s funeral last month. The Chino City Council, in San Bernardino County, has also criticized the judge’s actions.
Hutson has not commented publicly on the case. ABC News has reached out to San Bernardino County Superior Court for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Lindsey Graham and Sheldon Whitehouse on Thursday called for Congress to have the Russian-backed paramilitary Wagner group formally labeled as terrorists.
The bipartisan trio want to pass the HARM Act ahead of next week’s one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they said during a joint press conference.
The bill, if passed, would direct Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate Wagner as a “foreign terrorist organization” under U.S. law — which would enable a number of punishments.
“This means people associated with the group can be expelled from the United States, denied admission, people assisting with the Wagner group in any fashion subject to sanctions,” Graham, R-S.C., said. “And we’re putting you on the baddest list we know how to put any organization.”
Under the HARM Act, Blinken would also be instructed to send reports to Congress each year on Wagner’s activities.
“Talk is cheap,” said Blumenthal, D-Conn. “We need to put our money where our mouth is, our military where our mouth is.”
The Wagner group reportedly first emerged around 2014, toward the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine.
The private military organization is run by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin with tens of thousands of fighters, U.S. officials have said, and it has also operated in Syria and in various African countries.
The HARM Act notes that Wagner fighters have been “have committed, or are credibly accused of committing, terrorist activity” including “massacres, rape, and torture of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine” as well as “massacres in Moura, Mali” and the “kidnapping of children in the Central African Republic,” among other incidents.
Whitehouse, D-R.I., said Thursday that he wants to pass the HARM Act “to mark the anniversary of Russia’s treachery and brutality with a response to the Wagner group that is their mercenary co-conspirator.”
The senators also highlighted the bipartisan support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
Whitehouse said Congress has good communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, citing how at one point Zelenskyy called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to urge him to get an amendment through an omnibus funding bill regarding seized Russian assets.
The group of senators who spoke Thursday — whom Graham referred to as the “Three Amigos” — will next travel to the annual Munich Security Conference for several days. They’ll meet with European allies and discuss the war in Ukraine.
Graham said the conference is an important way to keep European allies close.
“I find it very ironic that as we go into this Munich Security Conference, the map of Europe is put in doubt by force of arms,” he said. “Everything we’ve said since World War II about the world as it should be will ring hollow — and just talk — If Putin gets away with this.”
The U.S. delegation to the conference also includes Vice President Kamala Harris and Blinken.
(WASHINGTON) — Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman on Wednesday checked himself into a Washington hospital “to receive treatment for clinical depression,” his chief of staff said on Thursday.
“While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks,” Adam Jentleson said in a statement.
Jentleson said that Fetterman was evaluated on Monday by Congress’ attending physician, Dr. Brian P. Monahan, who “recommended inpatient care” at Walter Reed hospital. “John agreed, and he is receiving treatment on a voluntary basis.”
“After examining John, the doctors at Walter Reed told us that John is getting the care he needs, and will soon be back to himself,” Jentleson said.
Fetterman, a Democrat, won his seat in the November midterms. He suffered a stroke during the campaign, which his doctors said was the result of irregular heart rhythm that led to a clot.
He recovered before the election and returned to the trail, albeit with limited appearances. After the stroke, he worked with a speech therapist and also has had auditory processing issues that required the use of closed-captioning devices.
“He has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office,” his doctor said, via his campaign, in October.
Last week, Fetterman was hospitalized for several days of observation after feeling lightheaded, though his aides said testing had ruled out seizures or another stroke.
A source close to Fetterman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told ABC News that his current hospitalization has no direct connection to the stroke he survived. However, this source said, it could be related to the separate incident last week.
He hasn’t been eating regularly and “he’s been doing his job, but he just seems off,” the source said.
“This is an ailment — it’s a different ailment,” the source said. After the stroke, Fetterman “was still himself. The last couple of weeks, he hasn’t been himself.”
Fetterman’s family has no timeline for inpatient or outpatient care but believe it’s “weeks, not months — and not days” that he will likely be away from the Senate.
“Depression is very treatable. A lot of people don’t seek treatment because of the stigma. … What John Fetterman is doing right now is exactly what people should do when experiencing mental health challenges,” the source said.
Fetterman’s wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, wrote on Twitter that “this is a difficult time for our family, so please respect our privacy. For us, the kids come first.” She and the senator share three children.
“Take care of yourselves. Hold your loved ones close, you are not alone,” she wrote, while praising her husband for “asking for help and getting the care he needs.”
“After what he’s been through in the past year, there’s probably no one who wanted to talk about his own health less than John,” she wrote. “I’m so proud of him.”
ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Allison Pecorin, Trish Turner and Alisa Wiersema contributed to this report.
Halestorm, Five Finger Death Punch and Alter Bridge have joined the lineup for the United Kingdom’s 2023 Download Festival, taking place June 8-11.
Other new additions include Mammoth WVH, Coheed and Cambria, Ice Nine Kills, Bad Wolves, The Hu, Avatar, Palaye Royale, Jinjer and Taipei Houston.
As previously reported, Download 2023 will be headlined by Metallica, Slipknot and Bring Me the Horizon and also features Evanescence, Ghost, Disturbed, I Prevail and Parkway Drive, among many others. Metallica will headline two of the festival’s four days and will play two distinct sets without any repeating songs.
