Black Adam, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the titular super-powered villain, debuted with an estimated $67 million. Add the latest film in the extended DC Universe’s estimated $73 million overseas haul, and that brings its total first weekend earnings to $140 million.
The Julia Roberts–George Clooney reunion rom-com Ticket to Paradise also had a solid debut, beating expectations with an estimated $16.3 million second-place opening. The film, which bowed overseas in September, had already collected roughly $75 million, to bring its global tally to $96 million.
Smile took third place, delivering an estimated $8.4 million in its fourth week of release. The horror movie has racked up $84 million domestically to go along with $81.9 million internationally.
Last week’s box office champ, Halloween Ends, fell to fourth place in its second week of release with an estimated $8 million weekend. However, it should be noted that the supposed series finale, which has also been available for streaming on Peacock, grossed $82 million worldwide, versus a $30 million budget.
Rounding out the top five was Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile with an estimated $4.2 million during its third weekend. Overseas, the live-action-CGI comedy has grossed $8.4 million.
Elsewhere, Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin, starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, grabbed an estimated $181 thousand from just four theaters, with an impressive $45,000 per-theater average. The film is set to expand to about a dozen theaters next weekend and 600-800 the following weekend.
(NEW YORK) — President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of martial law on Wednesday officially imposed it only in four occupied regions of Ukraine. But many experts said in reality Putin appeared to have laid the groundwork to apply a form of martial law across the whole of Russia, just under another name.
In his public address, Putin portrayed the martial law declaration as a technicality, limited to the Ukrainian regions he illegally annexed last month. But a second decree, published at the same time, also placed all of Russia’s other regions into various levels of increased “readiness.”
Under those readiness levels, powers were granted to local authorities that closely resemble some of those under martial law. It was still unclear how the powers will be applied in practice, but some experts said it meant Putin had imposed a form of martial law across all Russia.
“It creates legal basis to impose martial law across the country or parts of the country without actually declaring it,” Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace, told ABC News.
The most severe form outside the Ukrainian regions is in eight Russian regions neighboring Ukraine, where local administrations are granted powers to impose curfews, restrict movement, take over factories and transport, potentially apply censorship as well as order the temporary resettlement of people.
The regions are under a “form of martial lite,” Mark Galeotti, a veteran Russia analyst, wrote in the Spectator Magazine. “Vladimir Putin has just moved Russia one step closer to totalitarianism.”
Russia’s southern and central regions, including Moscow, have slightly fewer powers and the rest of the country marginally less.
The decrees grant governors the power to take any measures directed toward supporting Russia’s war effort, in theory giving them almost unlimited authority.
“What’s been declared is the right of the government to take any decision that seems to them necessary. Wherever, for whatever reason,” Gleb Pavlovsky, a former political advisor to Putin and now a political analyst, said in a recent interview.
For now, many regions have sought to reassure citizens the measures will not affect daily life. And most experts said it remained to be seen how they would be applied in practice.
But the move appeared to be an attempt by Putin to rescue his invasion in Ukraine after presenting it as a limited “Special Military Operation.”
The decrees’ primary goal, experts said, was to allow Russian authorities to mobilize resources needed to support the mass troop mobilization.
“I was waiting for this announcement. Their system can’t mobilize this many people without mobilizing state resources too. The state needs more resources directed to the military,” Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at RAND Corporation, wrote on Twitter.
The move also appeared to re-direct Russia’s economy toward supporting the war effort. It suggested the Kremlin is trying to ready Russia for a long war while also bracing for possible shocks to the political system coming from the battlefield, such as the likely loss of Kherson, Gabuev said.
“It looks like the Kremlin sees serious sources of worry,” he said. “Here the government really wants to be prepared.”
He added, “It’s significant and it shows the change in the estimate of how the war is going and what kind of mobilization internally first and foremost will be needed to kind of toughen it out and then ultimately win this war by the Kremlin’s definition.”
(KYIV, Ukraine) — The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces General Oleksandr Syrskiy, in an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Chief Foreign Correspondent Ian Pannell, said the world should be worried about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons.
Late last month, Putin issued a thinly veiled threat that Russia would resort to using nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine following a series of setbacks for Moscow on the battlefield.
“We are and should be worried,” Syrskiy told ABC News.
You can watch more of Ian Pannell’s full interview with General Oleksandr Syrskiy on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday.
The Ukrainian general is confident that his country is winning the fight against Russia, despite the challenges of war.
“Of course, I think we are winning. Because first and foremost, we are winning the psychological battle,” Syrskiy said. “We have success on the battleground, but the war is difficult.”
Syrskiy, the commander of the Army of the Armed Forced of Ukraine, won the battle of Kyiv in the spring and the battle of Kharkiv in September. The successful surprise counteroffensive rapidly liberated thousands of square miles of occupied territory, forcing the Russians back towards their border.
Last month, Putin accused Ukraine of terrorism after an explosion destroyed parts of a bridge connecting occupied Crimea to Russia, a vital supply route for Russian forces.
“There hasn’t been any wars at that scale in Europe, or elsewhere in the world, since the Second World War. And we understand that this war is about the survival of our people and our state and this is why we have no other option but to win,” Syrskiy said.
(DALLAS) — A 30-year-old man recently paroled after serving a sentence for robbery, is facing capital murder charges stemming from a shooting at a Dallas medical center on Saturday that left two employees dead, including a nurse, officials said Sunday.
A suspect in the double homicide at Methodist Hospital in Dallas on Saturday was identified as Nestor Hernandez, law enforcement officials told ABC affiliate station WFAA in Dallas.
Hernandez was paroled on Oct. 20, 2021, after serving a prison sentence for aggravated robbery, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice told ABC News.
“He was on parole with a special condition of electronic monitoring,” the spokesperson said.
Hernandez was granted permission to be at the hospital to be with his significant other during the delivery of their baby, the spokesperson said, adding that the state Office of Inspector General is working with Dallas Police as they investigate.
Police with the Methodist Health System and Dallas Police Department responded to reports of an active shooter at Methodist Dallas Medical Center around 11 a.m. Saturday.
A Methodist Health System police officer “confronted the suspect, and fired his weapon at the suspect, injuring him,” the hospital said in a statement. “The suspect was detained, stabilized, and taken to another local hospital.”
The names of the victims were not immediately released.
The shooting occurred near the medical center’s labor and delivery area, according to police.
A motive for the shooting has yet to be disclosed.
“The Methodist Health System family is heartbroken at the loss of two of our beloved team members,” Methodist Health System said in a statement. “Our entire organization is grieving this unimaginable tragedy.”
The investigation is ongoing, with Dallas police assisting the Methodist Health System police, the hospital confirmed.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia slammed the “broken” justice system for allowing the suspect out on the streets, where he could allegedly obtain a gun.
“I’m outraged along with our community, at the lack of accountability, and the travesty of the fact that under this broken system, we give violent criminals more chances than our victims.The pendulum has swung too far,” Garcia said in a statement he posted on Twitter.
Dr. Serena Bumpus, CEO of the Texas Nurses Association, issued a statement calling the shooting “unacceptable.”
“No person should fear for their life for merely going to work, especially a nurse or healthcare worker whose passion is to help others heal,” Bumpus said in statement. “We hope our legislators understand that we need to protect our healthcare workers.”
Bumpus also released statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing workplace violence has increased during the pandemic, and the risk to nurses was three times greater than “all other professions.”
ABC News’ Lisa Sivertsen contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — In an interview on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake would not explicitly commit to accepting the outcome of her upcoming election if she loses to her Democratic opponent.
“Let me ask you why it is that you have not said — or maybe you’ll do it now — you have not said that you will accept the certified results of this election, even if you lose this election?” ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl asked Lake in the interview.
“I will accept the results of this election if we have a fair, honest and transparent election. Absolutely, 100%,” said Lake, a former TV anchor who has become one of the Republican Party’s most prominent election deniers this cycle. “As long as it’s fair, honest and transparent.”
In a previous interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Lake only said she would accept the results if she won, after being asked three times whether she would accept the election’s outcome.
“If you lose, will you accept that?” Bash ultimately asked, to which Lake replied again: “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result.”
Lake has frequently campaigned on the false claims that the 2020 presidential race was fraudulent — at times wielding a sledgehammer, claiming it’s for suspect electronic voting machines. She raised the subject of the 2020 race in her interview with Karl, wrongly alleging that “2,000 mail-in ballots were accepted by Maricopa County after Election Day in 2020, after Election Day.”
Maricopa County election officials told ABC News that no ballots were accepted after the deadline on Election Day in 2020. Some ballots that were scanned the next morning — giving them a post-election timestamp — were turned in to the office on Election Day, the officials said.
In her interview, Lake offered other unsubstantiated and disproven claims about Arizona’s 2020 race. At one point Lake said she wanted to discuss other topics, but Karl noted she was the one who raised the previous election.
“We’ve been talking about a whole bunch of other things,” Karl said, later adding: “I didn’t ask you about 2020, you brought it up.”
Despite the litany of allegations, no evidence of widespread fraud was found in the state that now-President Joe Biden won by 10,457 votes.
Biden’s national victory over Donald Trump was likewise confirmed by multiple audits and hand recounts; judges and local officials from both parties said they found no notable issues.
A comprehensive investigation by Maricopa County in Arizona found “100 potentially questionable ballots cast out 2.1 million” — hardly enough to change the results.
“Just to be clear, the Republicans on the Board of Supervisors, the Republican governor, now the Republican candidate for Senate running along with you [Blake Masters], the Republican attorney general under Donald Trump, Bill Barr, all said that … the election was not stolen,” Karl told Lake, who blamed baseless “corruption.”
He pressed her on her attacks on the past ballots, asking if she would take sweeping action to reject voters in her state.
“You said something last week, you said that there were 740,000 ballots with no chain of custody, those ballots shouldn’t have been counted,” Karl said to Lake, asking, “Are you really saying you would throw out the ballots of 740,000 — nearly three-quarter of a million Arizonans?”
“740,000 ballots violated chain of custody requirements in Maricopa County,” Lake answered, repeating a claim made in her interview with CNN.
Maricopa County election officials refuted Lake’s allegations and referred ABC News to a May statement where the office said the county always had control of the ballots, adding they “were sealed in envelopes that, in turn, were sealed in boxes that the couriers were prohibited from opening.”
As Lake has been particularly critical of early mail-in voting, Karl asked if she would seek to change the Arizona election laws, specifically early voting and mail-in voting, if she is elected governor over Democrat Katie Hobbs, who is currently the secretary of state.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer told ABC News that 85% of voting in the August primary was by early voting and in 2020, it was 91%.
“I don’t know exactly how we’ll do it, but we will secure our elections, restore faith in our elections, make sure our elections are honest and transparent,” Lake answered.
Karl asked again if she would seek to limit early voting. “There’s a lot of it in this state,” he said.
“Going back to when I first started voting back in the ’80s, we had Election Day. Our Constitution says Election Day,” Lake replied. “It doesn’t say election season, election month … And the longer you drag that out, the more fraught with problems there are.”
Hobbs, Lake’s rival, revealed last week that a voter registration error caused up to 6,000 Arizona voters to get mail ballots with only federal races and not local races. In her interview on “This Week,” Lake pivoted to blaming Hobbs for that error, calling her “incompetent.”
“She was the one who pointed this out and said she’s correcting it,” Karl said.
Hobbs’ office is working to address the issue and released a statement Wednesday saying that the problem affected less than a quarter of 1% of voters.
Hobbs will be the one to certify the upcoming elections, given her role as secretary of state. She has not stepped aside from those duties, though Lake has said that she should.
In a separate interview this week, Karl spoke with Hobbs, pressing her on that: “Will you recuse yourself from the certification process?”
Hobbs wouldn’t answer the question directly but said she was “having these discussions right now” and didn’t “want to talk about a hypothetical” with the outcome of the election being unknown.
She diverted to attacking Lake’s election denialism. “What I think is really important here is that Kari Lake has based her whole campaign on these election lies, continues to say that Donald Trump won in 2020,” Hobbs said, adding that her office “is going to be up against a barrage of legal challenges” from Lake should she win the governorship.
Polls show Hobbs and Lake are locked in a tight race, with much of their messages focused on immigration and the southern border; abortion access and extremism; the economy and public safety.
Speaking with Lake, now a rising star in her party, Karl asked if she would consider joining Trump as the running mate on a 2024 presidential ticket. Calling herself “the fake news’ worst nightmare,” Lake vowed to serve two full terms if elected.
(WASHINGTON) — New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of House Democrats’ campaign arm, insisted on Sunday that his party will buck both history and the current polling in November’s midterm elections.
In a lively interview with ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, Maloney pointed to special election wins in Alaska and New York, where Democrats won in tough areas, to suggest that the party remains well situated heading into Election Day.
“You guys have been writing us off for two years, and we just went to work fixing people’s problems,” he said. “We know it’s going to be hard,” he continued. “My mom used to say, ‘Everything good in life is hard. You’ve got to go work.’ That’s what we’re going to do.”
Despite that optimism, the GOP is favored to win control of the House this midterm cycle, according to FiveThirtyEight’s analysis, in part because of voter concerns on the economy, inflation and crime and the edge they give to Republicans on those issues. Also working against them is President Joe Biden’s low approval rating, hovering just above 41%.
But Maloney said on “This Week” that the election wins this summer, Democrats’ legislative successes on health care costs and other issues and the public’s backlash to the overturning of Roe v. Wade showed his party remained competitive.
“What do you say we let the voters speak? Because when they have spoken, it turns out they care that this MAGA crowd has taken away 50 years of reproductive freedom, all of the privacy rights we used to take for granted,” Maloney argued. “It turns out they care that we’re making progress on the problems, and we have a plan to bring down your costs to help our seniors, to help our veterans, to bring jobs back to the United States.”
Karl pressed Maloney on the extent to which Biden hasn’t campaigned for swing-state Democrats, compared to the numerous rallies and trail appearances made by Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump in past midterms.
Maloney noted that in those election cycles, in 2010 and 2018, their parties went on to lose dozens of seats in Congress.
“Is that what you’re worried [would] happen?” Karl followed up.
“I guess we’ve got a strategy that might work out better than those,” Maloney said.
Biden has made relatively few trips to battlegrounds this year, though he was in Pennsylvania for Senate nominee John Fetterman last week and will headline a rally with Democratic candidates in South Florida on Nov. 1.
Karl pointed back to Maloney’s vow, in late 2020, that Democrats would pick up seats this cycle. “We’re going to break that curse … Write it down,” Maloney said then.
“As you can see, we wrote it down. You still think you are going to win seats — pick up seats in the House?” Karl asked.
“Well, why not?” Maloney contended. He also projected confidence about his own chances for reelection despite a House GOP-leadership aligned super PAC pouring millions into the race.
“They’re gonna lose this seat and wish they had the $7 million in other races,” Maloney said.
But Democrats are facing serious political headwinds, with surveys repeatedly showing Republicans running ahead of them on some of the key issues that Americans say will decide their vote, such as high inflation.
A new ABC News/Ipsos poll showed conservatives had solidified that advantage on being trusted more — by double digits — on the economy, gas prices and crime. The GOP has blamed Democrats’ control of Washington for such problems.
Maloney pushed back on Sunday.
“They have no plan to fix your economy,” he said. “They have no plan to make our streets safer. We know what they’re going to do to our reproductive freedoms and they look the other way when our democracy, our voting rights, our very Capitol is attacked.”
(NEW YORK) — More than six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion into neighboring Ukraine, the two countries are engaged in a struggle for control of areas throughout eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose forces began an offensive in August, has vowed to take back all Russian-occupied territory. But Putin in September announced a mobilization of reservists, which is expected to call up as many as 300,000 additional troops.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 23, 4:11 PM EDT
Russian Defense Minister claims Ukrainians planning ‘dirty bomb’ attack
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu called the defense ministers of Turkey, France and the United Kingdom on Saturday, claiming Ukraine is preparing a provocation with the use of a “dirty bomb.”
The first mention of a possible Ukrainian “dirty bomb” attack appeared Sunday in a morning message of the RIA Novosti state-owned news agency. The article, citing “credible sources in various countries, including Ukraine,” stated that “the Kiev regime is preparing a provocation on the territory of its country related to the detonation of the so-called ‘dirty bomb’ or low-power nuclear munition.”
“The purpose of the provocation is to accuse Russia of using weapons of mass destruction in the Ukrainian theater of operations and thereby launch a powerful anti-Russian campaign in the world aimed at undermining confidence in Moscow,” RIA Novosti reported.
Shoigu also had a telephone conversation with the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Sunday, during which they discussed the situation in Ukraine, according to a Pentagon official.
“Secretary Austin rejected any pretext for Russian escalation and reaffirmed the value of continued communication amid Russia’s unlawful and unjustified war against Ukraine,” said Pentagon press secretary, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder.
Oct 23, 1:20 PM EDT
Russian military jet crashes into a residential building, 2nd time in a week
A Russian Sukhoi Su fighter jet crashed into a residential building in southern Siberia on Sunday during a an apparent test flight just six days after another Russian Sukhoi Su jet slammed into an apartment block in Yeysk, Russia, near the Ukrainian border.
Two pilots were killed in Sunday’s crash in the southern Siberia town of Irkutsk, Russian officials said. The crash ignited a giant fireball when the aircraft nosedived into a two-story house, Igor Kobzev, the regional governor, said in a post on Telegram.
Kobzev confirmed two pilots were killed and said no civilian residents were injured.
The Sukhoi Su-30 jet was on a test flight when the crash occurred, according to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations.
The crash came about a week after a Russian Sukhoi Su-34 crashed into an apartment block in the southern Russian city of Yeysk, near Ukraine, killing at least 15 people.
Authorities said the initial investigation indicated a technical malfunction of the aircraft caused the crash and that the pilots eject from the jet and survived.
Oct 22, 4:39 PM EDT
33 missiles have been fired at Ukraine, air force says
Thirty-three missiles were fired at Ukraine on Saturday morning, 18 of which were shot down, the country’s air force claimed. Local officials in regions across Ukraine are reporting that the strikes were aimed at energy facilities.
More than a million people were without power as of Saturday afternoon, according to presidential adviser Kyrylo Tymoshenko.
In the southeastern city of Nikopol, local authorities warned that air raid sirens would be switched off as a result of power cuts. Instead, emergency vehicles driving around the city will warn resident of incoming aerial threats.
Oct 22, 1:45 PM EDT
Russian authorities tell civilians in annexed Kherson to leave immediately
Russian authorities in the Ukrainian city of Kherson told civilians to leave immediately on Saturday because of what they called a tense military situation as Ukrainian forces advance. Kherson was illegally annexed by Russia earlier this month.
“Take care of the safety of your family and friends! Do not forget documents, money, valuables and clothes,” Russian authorities said.
At Oleshky on the opposite bank of the Dnipro, the agencies caught up with people arriving by river boat from Kherson, loaded with boxes, bags and pets, according to an article in Russian News Agency Interfax.
One woman carried a toddler under one arm and a dog under the other. Some boats were loaded with vegetables and pallets of food. Staff from Russia’s emergency ministry carried elderly people and children in prams from the vessels. Families then waited to board buses to the Russian-annexed city of Crimea, according to Interfax.
Meanwhile, in a briefing on Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had repelled a Ukrainian attempt to break through its line of control in the Kherson region.
Oct 21, 3:36 PM EDT
Ukraine accuses Russia of delaying passage of 150 grain ships
Russia is deliberately delaying the passage of ships carrying grain exports under a U.N.-brokered deal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged in his evening address Friday.
Zelenskyy said the delay meant that Ukraine grain exports were short 3 million tons, which he said is enough to feed 10 million people.
“The enemy is doing everything to slow down our food exports … as of today, more than 150 ships are queuing to fulfill contractual obligations on the delivery of our agricultural products,” Zelenskyy said.
“This is an artificial queue. It only arose because Russia is deliberately delaying the passage of the ships,” he said.
-ABC News’ Jason Volack
Oct 21, 1:24 PM EDT
Russia has hit 30% to 40% of Ukraine’s overall power infrastructure, Ukrainian official tells Reuters
Russian attacks have hit 30% to 40% of Ukraine’s overall national power infrastructure, Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko told Reuters in an interview.
“We see that they targeted a number of new [facilities], but also they shelled [facilities] which had been already shelled before to destroy them absolutely,” Halushchenko said.
Asked about the scale of the damage, Halushchenko said Russian attacks have hit at least half of Ukraine’s thermal generation capacity and caused billions of dollars worth of damage.
Halushchenko said electricity imports could be one of the options Ukraine pursues to get through the crisis.
-ABC News’ Jason Volack
Oct 21, 11:03 AM EDT
Austin speaks with Russian defense minister about Ukraine
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Russian counterpart, Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu, for the second time since the invasion of Ukraine on Friday.
“Secretary Austin emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid the ongoing war against Ukraine,” the Pentagon said in a brief statement.
The first call between the two was in May and lasted an hour. Officials did not say how long the Friday call was.
Oct 20, 4:33 PM EDT
US believes Iranians are on the ground assisting Russian drone attacks in Ukraine
The U.S. believes Iranians are “on the ground” in Ukraine to assist Russia with its drone operations, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday.
“We can confirm that Russian military personnel that are based in Crimea have been piloting Iranian [drones] and using them to conduct strikes across Ukraine, including strikes against Kiev in just recent days. We assess that Iranian military personnel were on the ground in Crimea and assisted Russia in these operations,” Kirby told reporters.
Kirby did not know how many Iranians are in Crimea, but said the U.S. knows it is “a relatively small number.”
Kirby specified that the Iranians “have put trainers and tech support in Crimea, but it’s the Russians who are doing the piloting.”
“We’re going to continue to vigorously enforce all U.S. sanctions on both the Russian and Iranian arms trade. We’re going to make it harder for Iran to sell these weapons to Russia. We’re going to help the Ukrainians have what they need to defend themselves against these threats.”
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Oct 20, 2:53 PM EDT
DOJ says it will continue to be “relentless” in efforts to hold people responsible for war crimes accountable
The Justice Department will “continue” to be “relentless” in its pursuit to hold those responsible for war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine accountable, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday, while sitting next to his German counterpart, Minister of Justice Christine Lambrecht.
“We are committed to finding ways to expand our cooperation with our German partners in these efforts,” Garland said.
Garland also thanked Germany for its help in apprehending a suspect accused of getting sensitive technologies to Russia as part of an indictment announced Wednesday.
The Justice Department charged five individuals including Yury Orekhov, the alleged mastermind behind the plot. Orekhov was arrested in Germany as part of the Justice Department’s task force KleptoCapture, which is cracking down on Russian-related crimes as the war in Ukraine continues.
Asked if any U.S. intelligence was compromised after Germany replaced its head of cybersecurity over alleged ties to Russia, Garland didn’t answer, saying intelligence sharing is what makes the relationship with Germany so strong.
-ABC News’ Luke Barr
Oct 20, 6:56 AM EDT
US will ‘not hesitate’ to sanction Iran over drone sales, official says
The United States is committed to stopping Russia from obtaining foreign weapons, including Iran-made drones, a State Department official said.
Officials from the United States, United Kingdom and France on Thursday raised the issue during a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
“The United States began warning in July that Iran was planning to transfer UAVs to Russia for use in Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, and we now have abundant evidence that these UAVs are being used to strike Ukrainian civilians and critical civilian infrastructure,” Price said. “As Iran continues to lie and deny providing weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, we are committed to working with allies and partners to prevent the transfer of dangerous weaponry to Russia.”
He added, “We will not hesitate to use our sanctions and other appropriate tools on all involved in these transfers.”
Oct 19, 8:08 PM EDT
Putin’s martial law declaration ‘speaks to his desperation’: Blinken
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC News’ Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos in a new interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of martial law in illegally annexed parts of Ukraine “speaks to his desperation” as Ukrainian forces continue to make progress in rebuffing the invasion.
“Just in the last few weeks, he’s tried to mobilize more forces. He’s gone through with this sham annexation of Ukrainian territory,” Blinken said in a preview from the sit-down, which will air Thursday on Good Morning America.
Oct 19, 3:34 PM EDT
Ukraine to restrict electrical supply after Russia knocks out power plants
Ukraine will start restricting electricity supplies across the country on Thursday after Russia knocked out more power plants, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said on Wednesday.
“From 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., it is necessary to minimize the use of electricity … if this is not done, you should prepare for temporary blackouts,” Tymoshenko wrote in a Telegram post.
-ABC News’ Jason Volack
Oct 19, 2:26 PM EDT
Biden says Putin imposing martial law may be ‘his only tool available’ to brutalize Ukrainians
President Joe Biden reacted to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to impose martial law in illegally annexed Ukrainian areas, telling reporters it may be his only tool available.
“I think that Vladimir Putin finds himself in an incredibly difficult position. And what it reflects to me is it seems his only tool available to him is to brutalize individual citizens, in Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens to try to intimidate them into capitulating,” Biden said Wednesday.
“They’re not gonna do that,” he added
-ABC News’ Molly Nagle
Oct 19, 8:31 AM EDT
Putin announces he is imposing martial law in four occupied Ukrainian territories
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he will impose martial law in four Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian forces — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye. All four regions were illegally annexed by Putin last month.
Marital law grants Russia’s authorities huge powers over the civilian population in the regions it is imposed. Martial law is set to go into effect on Thursday.
The decree, which Putin announced during a televised meeting with his security council, will now be sent to be rubber stamped by Russia’s upper chamber of parliament, the Federation Council.
Putin has also granted new powers to governors in several regions bordering Ukraine.
Putin’s decree includes other points ordering the rest of Russia itself put into various levels of “readiness.”
The decree puts eight regions bordering Ukraine into a state of “moderate level of response,” but also imposes a “level of heightened readiness” in the southern and central regions that include Moscow. All other Russians regions are put on a “basic level of readiness.”
The decree says these statuses grant special powers to local authorities that are similar to martial law and includes points imposing increased security at key facilities, puts transport and communications into a special regime and also envisages the creation of “territorial defense headquarters” in some regions.
Oct 19, 7:35 AM EDT
Russian civilians to evacuate Kherson
Russia has announced the mass evacuation of civilians from the key city of Kherson, as well as all of its civilian occupation administration there.
Russia’s newly appointed overall commander for its war in Ukraine, Gen. Sergey Surovikin, said on Tuesday that “difficult decisions” may have to be made in the near future regarding Russia’s position in Kherson. In his first public remarks since his appointment, he said the situation around Kherson was already “extremely difficult.”
The evacuation combined with Surovikin’s comments has fueled speculation that Russia may be preparing to retreat from the city in the face of a Ukrainian offensive, in what would be a major defeat for President Vladimir Putin.
Other Russian officials though have suggested the evacuation is in preparation of Russian defense of the city. Kherson’s Russian-appointed governor on Wednesday denied Russia was planning to “give up” the city.
Another senior occupation official has said the battle for Kherson will begin in the “very near future.”
Kherson is the only regional capital Russia managed to seize in its invasion and is a capital of one of the regions Putin annexed last month.
The city is located on the western side of the Dnieper river and Russian forces’ position there has become increasingly difficult, after Ukraine succeeded in destroying the bridges needed to supply it.
With the bridges destroyed, thousands of Russian troops risk becoming surrounded in Kherson city and cut off from any supplies.
Russia has already begun evacuating civilians to the eastern side of the Dneipr river. Independent military researchers said Russia has quickly built a pontoon bridge near Kherson that could be used for evacuation or re-supplies.
The Russian-appointed governor said around 60,000 civilians will be evacuated, over the course of seven days.
Oct 18, 5:14 PM EDT
Russia trying to make Ukrainians ‘suffer,’ US officials say
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian power stations shows Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to make Ukrainians “suffer” with deliberate attacks, speaking of attacks on Ukrainian power stations.
“He is trying to make sure that the Ukrainian people suffer,” Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing on Tuesday. “He’s making it very difficult for them.”
Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder echoed those comments, saying Russia is trying to “inflict pain” on Ukrainian civilians with its strikes on population centers and infrastructure.
“We do continue to see them target, among other things, civilian infrastructure, to include energy related targets — power grids, for example,” Ryder said.
He added, “In terms of why we think they’re targeting those areas, I think obviously trying to inflict pain on the civilian society as well as try to have an impact on Ukrainian forces.”
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson and Matt Seyler
Oct 18, 4:59 PM EDT
UN commission releases detailed report on war crimes in Ukraine
The United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has released its first in-depth, written report on what it calls “an array of war crimes, violations of human rights and international humanitarian law” committed in the country during the first weeks of Russia’s brutal invasion.
The report outlines what investigators say are “documented patterns of summary executions, unlawful confinement, torture, ill-treatment, rape and other sexual violence.”
The inquiry zeroed in on four regions of Ukraine– Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy–and focused on incidents that took place following Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 through the end of March.
Investigators traveled to 27 cities and towns, conducted nearly 200 interviews and “inspected sites of destruction, graves, places of detention and torture, as well as weapon remnants, and consulted a large number of documents and reports.”
Due to the sheer number of allegations, the commission could not investigate all the claims it received. The commission said it intends to “gradually devote more of its resources” to a broader investigation within the country, according to the report.
ABC News’ Shannon Crawford
Oct 18, 2:25 PM EDT
NATO to send Ukraine anti-drone systems: NATO Secretary General
Ukraine will receive anti-drone systems from NATO in the coming days according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“The most important thing we can do is deliver on what allies have promised, to step up and deliver even more air defense systems,” Stoltenberg said, according to Reuters.
He added, “NATO will in the coming days deliver counter-drone systems to counter the specific threat of drones, including those from Iran.”
ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Oct 18, 7:00 AM EDT
30% of Ukraine’s power stations destroyed
About a third of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed by Russian attacks in the last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.
“Since Oct. 10, 30% of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed, causing massive blackouts across the country,” he said on Twitter. “No space left for negotiations with Putin’s regime.”
(FREMONT, Mich.) — Michigan police announced they found the family of four who had been missing since Oct. 16 after the father exhibited “paranoid behaviors” last weekend, authorities said.
“The Fremont Police Department would like to thank you for all the helping locating the Cirigliano Family,” the department said in a statement on Sunday. “They family was successfully located in Wisconsin.”
Sunday’s news follows a confirmed sighting that last placed them in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula earlier this week, though police said they have no indication of where they might be traveling.
The family — Anthony “Tony” John Cirigliano, 51, his wife Suzette Lee Cirigliano, 51, as well as their two sons, Brandon Michael Cirigliano, 19, and Noah Alexander Cirigliano, 15 — “unexpectedly” left their house in Fremont, about 45 miles north of Grand Rapids, on Oct. 16, police said. The sons both have autism, authorities said.
The family’s cellphones have all been turned off and they left behind their pets as well as Suzette’s elderly mother, who has dementia and requires full-time care, police said. The grandmother, who lives with them, was found disoriented in the neighborhood on Oct. 17 and police were unable to reunite her with the family. She is now being cared for by other relatives, according to Fremont Police Chief Tim Rodwell.
“They’re all very concerned that Tony and Suzette and the boys have not been in contact with anyone,” Rodwell told Grand Rapids ABC affiliate WZZM.
Since announcing their search for the missing family, police have received over a dozen tips, Rodwell told reporters Friday. That includes a confirmed sighting at a gas station in Gulliver on Oct. 17, he said. The gas station manager contacted police saying she believed she had seen the family, which was corroborated by surveillance footage, Rodwell said.
The footage captured the four family members in the station buying food and fuel for the minivan shortly before 11 a.m. local time, police said. There was no indication where they might have been traveling, Rodwell said.
The search comes after police responded to the Ciriglianos’ home shortly after midnight on Oct. 16 after Tony called 911 expressing concern about information he said he had about the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, according to Rodwell.
“My officers talked with him at length and just were concerned about his mental well-being,” he said. “They made contact with Suzette and looked at the two boys to make sure they were OK.”
Tony, who is self-employed, has no known mental health issues and police didn’t find any signs of foul play, struggle or violence inside the home to indicate a suspicious disappearance, according to Rodwell, who told WZZM that he is worried about the family.
“Everyone describes [Tony] as an extremely loving father, dedicated to his family,” the police chief added. “It’s really been an all-hands-on-deck for the officers in Fremont.”
Rodwell said the Ciriglianos do not have a history of run-ins with police, apart from an issue involving Brandon that occurred last summer in downtown Fremont. But Rodwell said the family was “very cooperative” and the matter was settled “amicably.”
“My officers found Tony to be, again, very loving and caring and worried about his kid,” he noted.
Both police and neighbors described the Ciriglianos’ disappearance as “uncharacteristic” because the family is known to spend a lot of time at home and typically don’t travel far when they do leave.
One neighbor, Sue Schondelmeyer, told WZZM that the Ciriglianos moved to the neighborhood about five years ago. Previously, the family lived in North Carolina, according to Rodwell.
“They were always friendly,” Schondelmeyer said. “When I moved in, they brought me cookies.”
“When my power was out, [Tony] helped with the generator to boost my power, my refrigeration and wouldn’t even take money for the gas,” she added.
Schondelmeyer told WZZM that she would always see the Ciriglianos out walking. Her grandchildren would often hang out with Brandon and Noah whenever they were visiting, she said.
“I realized I hadn’t seen them this week,” she added. “It is kind of scary to think that a whole family can just disappear with nothing.”
As for the minivan the Ciriglianos are believed to be traveling in, Schondelmeyer said she only saw the vehicle for the first time a couple weeks ago. She recalled Tony had driven it home and Brandon and Noah were checking it out.
“That was the first and only time I’ve ever seen it,” she told WZZM. “They usually had just plain cars, not a van.”
Another neighbor, Josh Brinkman, told WZZM his family is friends with the Ciriglianos and that he goes to school with the two boys, whom he described as having “high-functioning autism.” Brinkman said he hasn’t hung out with Brandon or Noah in a while and that the last time he did, about two months ago, everything seemed “normal.”
As for the boys’ father, Brinkman said Tony is a “good guy” and has never shown any strange behavior, despite losing his job a few years ago. When asked if he has a message for the Ciriglianos, he urged them to “stay safe” and let their family and friends know if they’re OK.
(LEAVENWORTH, Wash.) — A woman suffered “significant” injuries Saturday after being charged by a black bear near her home in Washington state, authorities said.
The incident occurred before 7 a.m. in Leavenworth, in central Washington, while the woman was walking her dog, police said.
“The woman had let her dog out that morning when she was charged by an adult female black bear,” the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police said in a statement.
The victim sustained “significant” injuries, according to the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office, which responded to the scene and called in Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officers to assist.
She is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries at a local hospital, authorities said.
Using a Karelian bear dog, officers located and “lethally removed” an adult female black bear near where the incident occurred later that morning, police said. Two approximately 9-month-old cubs were also captured and transported to a wildlife rehabilitation facility, police said.
“We are extremely thankful that the victim is receiving medical care from this unfortunate encounter,” Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police Captain Mike Jewell said in a statement. “Public safety is our priority; our officers and staff were quick to mobilize to locate the animal and secure the scene.”
Please be advised, we are asking the public to avoid the area of Enchantment Park Way off of Commercial Street in Leavenworth due to a recent bear attack. A female was attacked within the last hour. Fish & Wildlife is being called in to assist and for further guidance. pic.twitter.com/OS0g7Mp8fe
The sheriff’s office had warned residents to avoid the area following the bear attack.
Since 1970, Washington state authorities have recorded 20 human-black bear encounters that resulted in a documented injury, including one fatal attack.
(NEW YORK) — A surge in pediatric patients with respiratory illnesses is overwhelming hospitals across the United States, as experts warn of a potentially severe flu season in the coming months.
Pediatric bed capacity in hospitals is the highest it has been in two years. Around the country, hospitals are being inundated with pediatric patients sick with respiratory illnesses filling up to 71% of the estimated 40,000 available hospital beds, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports.
“[Various respiratory] viruses are all in play on top of SARS-CoV-2, and now the increasing amounts of influenza, which we had feared was coming in like a lion this year, has arrived,” Dr. Charlotte Hobbs, professor of pediatric infectious disease and microbiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), Children’s of Mississippi, told ABC News.
Dr. Michael Koster, the director of pediatric infectious diseases at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, says from mid-September to mid-October the number of young patients admitted into the hospital with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a common respiratory virus that usually causes cold-like symptoms, doubled.
“We are seeing patients coming from over 100 miles away, because their local pediatric hospital is full or has closed,” Koster told ABC News, referencing the recent closing of several pediatric hospitals in New England.
Lynnette Brammer, an epidemiologist in the influenza division at the CDC, says the national public health agency is monitoring the influx of respiratory viruses circulating.
The CDC is reporting early increases in seasonal influenza activity in most of the United States, with the southeast and south-central areas of the country reporting the highest levels of activity.
Experts say that the rise may be fueled, in part, by the softening of COVID restrictions, leaving many vulnerable to sickness as a potentially severe flu season approaches.
“We’ve had reasonably quiet years as a result of all the efforts to control COVID. It means that there is a resurgence of some of these viruses that we have annually, but in a more significant way,” said John Brownstein, Ph.D., an ABC News medical contributor and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital.
The transition to the winter months also typically sees an uptake in illnesses.
“As the weather becomes drier, people return inside, spend more time inside. And you layer that with a lot of population mobility, especially as the holidays come up, that becomes a real, perfect storm for the spread of flu,” Brownstein said.
Just last week, 1,674 patients were admitted to the hospital with flu complications, according to the CDC. This increased from 1,332 the week prior, the agency says.
Brownstein notes that we see a lot of variability year-to-year, but that this current flu season has been a very rapid rise and hasn’t peaked yet.
“Usually, we see increases in flu start maybe in November or December. Normally, the peak happens in February, but we went into October already seeing increases in influenza activity,” Brammer said.
Visits to health care providers are currently concentrated in younger people with the greatest percentage of visits for flu-like illness are for those under 5 years old at more than 10%, CDC data shows. The next highest percentage is 5 to 24-year-olds, at 5% of visits.
“A lot of years you do have influenza activity, start in children and then spread to the other age groups,” Brammer said.
Puerto Rico, Louisiana, and Alabama joined New York, Washington, D.C., Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina in reporting high levels of flu-like illness last week, according to the CDC. At this time last year, Texas, Georgia and D.C were the only states to report similar levels.
“CDC is following our surveillance data so that we can keep people informed about influenza activity, promoting [the] influenza vaccine, and letting people know that this is the time of year to go ahead and get your flu vaccine,” Brammer said.
Brammer notes the importance of antivirals to combat flu. However, “those medications really need to be taken in the first couple of days of illness. So, you need to see your doctor quickly,” she adds.
The CDC recommends that everyone ages 6 months and older get a flu vaccine to help prevent infection and severe illness.
“It’s really simple. We have a safe and effective vaccine. If you haven’t gotten that vaccine yet, it’s time to do so. You really want to get it ahead of Halloween,” Brownstein said.
“Of course, it’s never too late to do so. But the sooner the better,” he adds.
