(JERUSALEM) — President Biden on Thursday dodged questions about whether he would set a deadline for stalled negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program following a meeting with Israel’s prime minister, who urged the United States to put a “credible military threat” on the table against Iran.
Biden, who said in a recent interview that the U.S. would consider using military force ‘as a last resort,’ declined to elaborate on any timeline for diplomatic efforts in public after his session with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
“We’ve laid out for the people, for the leadership of Iran, what we’re willing to accept now to get back in the JCPOA,” he said about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Obama-era nuclear agreement abandoned by the Trump administration to an Israeli journalist.
“We’re waiting for the response. When that occurs, when that will come, I’m not certain. But we are not going to wait forever,” he said, after signing a joint declaration with Lapid that committed the United States to “never” allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
The document signed by both leaders also said the United States “is prepared to use all elements of its national power to ensure that outcome.”
Lapid used his opening remarks moments earlier to call on Biden to put a ‘credible’ military threat on the table against Iran, arguing that diplomacy alone would not be sufficient to bring Iran back into the nuclear deal.
“The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear program, the free world will use force,” Lapid said.
But he also attempted to minimize disagreements between the two countries over Iran’s nuclear program, on the second day of Biden’s visit focused on strengthening ties with Israel and improving the country’s relations with Arab countries that are also aligned against Iran.
“We have an open discussion about what is the best way to deal with it, but I don’t think there’s a light between us in terms of these are all means to an end,” Lapid said of Iran. “We cannot allow Iran to become nuclear.”
Lapid’s call on the U.S. follows President Biden saying the U.S. would use force against Iran’s nuclear program ‘as a last resort’ during an Israeli TV interview taped before he left Washington.
Many Israeli leaders are opposed to the Iran deal and believe diplomacy alone will not constrain Iran’s nuclear program — seen in Israel as an existential threat to the country — or its support for proxy groups such as Hezbollah that are also in conflict with Israel.
During the TV interview, the president declined to say whether Israeli leaders have committed to keeping the U.S. informed of any plans for a military strike targeting Iran’s nuclear program.
“The only thing worse than the Iran that exists now is an Iran with nuclear weapons,” Biden said during the interview. “It was a gigantic mistake for the last president to get out of the deal. They’re closer to a nuclear weapon than they were before,” he said.
A diplomatic resolution is “the best option,” according to the Biden administration’s Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this spring. He said military intervention is not off the table, though.
Republicans in the House and Senate — along with several Democrats — are skeptical of the agreement, making the approval of any potential deal with Iran a challenge for the Biden administration on Capitol Hill.
Earlier this year, the White House said Iran’s nuclear advances would make rekindling such a deal with the country “impossible” if the U.S. does not reach one soon.
ABC News’ Shannon Crawford contributed to this report.
(PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA) — Five children, including a toddler, were wounded in two quadruple shootings that erupted overnight in Philadelphia, according to police.
At least three adults, including a woman believed to be the toddler’s mother, were critically injured in the shootings, authorities said.
The first shooting unfolded about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday in West Philadelphia, when at least one shooter opened fire on a Kia SUV occupied by two women and the two young children, Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small said during a news conference.
Small said 10 shots were fired at the parked vehicle, critically injuring the two women in the front seat and injuring the toddler, a 2-year-old boy, sitting next to his big brother in the backseat. He said the toddler was shot in the leg, while a woman in the driver’s seat, believed to be the child’s mother, was shot in the head and critically injured.
The other woman seated in the front passenger seat was also critically wounded, Small said. He said a 26-year-old man believed to have been standing outside the vehicle when the barrage of shots were fired was hit in the leg by a bullet and taken to a hospital in critical condition.
“In this Kia, in addition to the three victims, there was a 6-year-old boy also in the backseat,” Small said. “He’s lucky since this vehicle was hit 10 times by gunfire and three of the other passengers were all struck by gunfire.”
Investigators believe that following the shooting, the driver of the SUV drove about a block before stopping, according to Small.
No arrests have been announced in the shooting and a motive was under investigation.
“We don’t know if somebody was intentionally firing shots at this vehicle or if it was hit by stray gunfire, but the vehicle clearly has 10 bullet holes in it,” Small said.
Around 2 p.m. Thursday, four children were shot in front of an apartment building in North Philadelphia, police said. The shooting occurred about two blocks from the Edgar Allan Poe national historic site.
Police officers responding to calls of numerous shots fired, found the wounded victims — a 13-year-old boy, a 14-year-old girl, a 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl — in a courtyard of the apartment complex, authorities said.
Small said at least 21 shots were fired in the direction of the children, but it was unclear if they were the targets of the shootings.
The two girls were both shot in the face and were taken to a hospital in serious condition, police said. The two boys were hospitalized with non-life-threatening wounds to their legs and arms, police said.
Officers recovered a revolver at the scene, but it was not immediately clear if it was used in the shooting, police said.
The episode came as a 10 p.m. summer curfew the city recently imposed on young people under the age of 18 was in effect. The curfew was enacted by city leaders in an attempt to protect children against gun violence. But Small said two of the children were standing just outside their apartments when they were shot and two others were friends.
“They were just a few feet from the front door on the courtyard, right in front of the house where two of the victims lived,” Small said. “The other two we believe were just visiting, they were friends, when someone fired at least 21 shots in the direction of these teenagers, striking all four.”
The two shootings occurred amid a violent streak on the streets of Philadelphia, including a June 4 mass shooting that left three people dead and 11 injured in the city’s South Street entertainment district.
The Philadelphia police department’s most recent crime statistics show that as of July 10 there have been 2,233 shooting incidents in the city this year, a 6.9% increase from the same period in 2021.
As of Wednesday, the city had recorded 290 homicides, 2% fewer than at this time last year, the statistics show. Philadelphia had 562 homicides in 2021, breaking a record set in 2020.
Matt Winkelmeyer/MG22/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
In July 2020, Joe Jonas and his wife, Sophie Turner, became first-time parents when they welcomed daughter Willa. Now, two years later, they’re a family of four.
ABC News has confirmed that the couple, who married in 2019, has welcomed a baby girl. It’s not known when exactly the baby was born or what her name is. Sophie, 26, confirmed her pregnancy to ElleUK in early May. “We’re so excited to be expanding the family. It’s the best blessing ever,” she told the mag.
Joe’s little brother and bandmate Nick recently became a father when he and wife Priyanka Chopra welcomed daughter Malti via surrogate. Older brother and bandmate Kevin has two children with his wife, Danielle.
After announcing dates for a 2023 U.S. tour leg earlier this week, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band have unveiled plans to play four concerts in the United Kingdom as part of their previously announced late-spring/early-summer European trek.
The newly added shows will take place May 30 in Edinburgh, Scotland; June 16 in Birmingham, England; and July 6 and July 8 in London’s Hyde Park. Tickets for the U.K. concerts go on sale Thursday, July 21, at 9 a.m. local time. Tickets for the Edinburgh show will be available at LiveNation.co.uk, while tickets for the Birmingham gig can be purchased at AXS.com and for the London concerts at BST-HydePark.com.
Springsteen and The E Street Band’s 2023 U.S. outing is mapped out from a February 1 concert in Tampa, Florida, through an April 14 performance in Newark, New Jersey. The European leg kicks off April 28 in Barcelona, Spain, and runs through a July 25 show in Monza, Italy.
Zombies 3sings and dances its way onto the Disney+ streaming service this Friday, and its main stars say this installation is both satisfying and supernatural.
Milo Manheim, who plays the zombie Zed, tells ABC Audio the movie not only picks up right where Zombies 2 left off — with aliens landing in their hometown of Seabrook — it drastically ups the ante. “It becomes otherworldly this time,” he teased.
Much like the theme of the previous two installments, with the humans of Seabrook learning to live life with another species, Manheim added of Zombies 3, “We’re still exploring those themes of acceptance, but there’s just a little twist on this one.”
“We realized that it’s important to have conflict because conflict leads to conversation, which leads to progress and growth,” he continued.
Aside from the “important message” of learning acceptance, Meg Donnelly, who plays the human cheerleader Addison, notes there’s plenty of entertaining numbers that’ll get the audience moving. “There’s so many amazing dance number songs,” she gushed.
This third and final chapter will also finally solve the mystery of Addison’s brilliant white hair, which began glowing at the end of the second movie. Donnelly said fans will be “really, really happy” to learn the truth, hinting, “It’s very satisfying.”
“Addison finds where she belongs,” Manheim added of the “impactful” reveal. “That’s been a theme throughout the whole franchise … She finds out who she is in this movie.”
Donnelly noted this is a welcome arc for her character because she’s spent the past two films accepting others for who they are. “I really look up to her. She’s such an amazing role model for young kids,” she grinned. “I can only hope to be as good as a person as she is.”
Zombies 3 arrives on Disney+ this Friday, July 15.
(NEW YORK, NY) — The number of police officers who died in the line of duty decreased by over 30% over the first six months of this year compared to 2021, but the number of officers killed by gun deaths increased by nearly 20%, according to a new report released Thursday by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
The numbers, part of the organization’s mid-year report on all officer fatalities, found that, so far this year, 129 federal state, tribal and local officers died in the line of duty, compared to 188 over the same time period last year.
The organization says the decrease is almost entirely due to a reduction in COVID-19 deaths but the virus continues to be the biggest killer of law enforcement in 2022, with 54 officers losing their lives because of it, compared to 98 at the same time last year.
Thirty-three officers died from gun deaths in 2022 compared to 28 during the previous year at the same time.
Sgt. Joshua Caudell, a K-9 officer with the Arkansas Department of Corrections was one of the officers shot and killed.
The family of the nine-year police officer called his death “devastating” according to local reports.
NLEOMF says the most of the gun-related deaths were carried out with handguns, and involved domestic disturbances. The month of June saw most gun violence with 12 officer deaths.
Traffic deaths, the group said, are also down 9%, while automobile crashes are up.
“Of the 31 traffic-related fatalities, 19 were automobile crashes and 1 was a motorcycle crash,” the report says. “During the same time period last year, 13 officers were killed in automobile crashes and three died in motorcycle crashes.
The 20 total crashes over the first six months of 2022 represent a 25% increase compared to 16 in the same time period in 2021.”
The report found that 53 were city officers, 41 were from sheriff’s offices and 19 were from state police agencies.
Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images, FILE
(BUFFALO, NY) — A federal grand jury returned an indictment Thursday charging the alleged Buffalo, New York, mass shooter with federal hate crimes.
Payton Gendron, 18, is accused of storming a Tops grocery store on May 14 and gunning down 10 people, all of whom were Black, in an alleged hate crime.
At one point, Gendron aimed his Bushmaster XM rifle at a white Tops employee, who was shot in the leg and injured, Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters last month. Gendron allegedly apologized to him before continuing the attack, Garland said.
The federal hate crime charges were announced last month.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — The Department of Health and Human Services announced it is investigating reports of women being denied vital medication for chronic medical conditions unrelated to abortion in states that have banned abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
It will also be issuing guidance to 60,000 retail pharmacies, reminding them of their obligations under federal civil rights laws, the agency said.
“We are committed to ensuring that everyone can access health care, free of discrimination,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement Wednesday. “This includes access to prescription medications for reproductive health and other types of care.”
One example of the fallout has been reports of several women diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in states with abortion bans that have reported not being able to obtain a medication called methotrexate from their pharmacies.
“I’m a 48-year-old woman without a uterus,” Jennifer Crow from Tennessee, where there is a six-week abortion ban in place, told ABC News. “I didn’t think the abortion ban would affect me.”
She said she has been taking methotrexate for her inflammatory arthritis since April. On July 1, for the first time since getting her prescription, her pharmacy required her to call her doctor to access a refill she was already prescribed, she said.
Crow said she was without medication for three days until she could speak to her doctor after the long July Fourth holiday weekend. She said, “During those three days, the inflammation returned. I was immediately put back into a flare.”
Crow said she’s spoken to many other people on Twitter with chronic diseases requiring methotrexate treatment with similar experiences to hers. She said that “many of them reached out to their doctor preemptively. Many doctors said that they had a blanket hold on all methotrexate until it gets worked out.”
Becky Schwartz, 28, who suffers from lupus, told Stat News her doctor in Virginia said he had to pause prescribing the medication by orders of the health system he worked for.
She told Stat News the medication was dramatically effective and she feared what would happen without it.
“Before I started taking it, I was not able to do much at all, I was pretty immobile,” she said. “Within a month, I was feeling great. Not perfect, but I could take a shower unassisted.”
“I have gotten some reports where children have been denied methotrexate for their juvenile arthritis until they’ve proven they’re not pregnant,” Dr. Cuoghi Edens, an assistant professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at University of Chicago Medicine told the Los Angeles Times. That included an 8-year-old, Edens said.
The pharmacy’s reluctance to fill a standing prescription or a doctor’s reluctance to prescribe it may be due to fear of legal retaliation via felony charges on providers for aiding or abetting abortions.
“The concern that physicians and pharmacists are experiencing is, ‘Is there a legal implication based on the SCOTUS ruling for continuing to prescribe or fill prescriptions for methotrexate?'” Dr. Kenneth Saag, president of the American College of Rheumatology, told ABC News.
The American College of Rheumatology, the Arthritis Foundation, the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation and the advocacy group CreakyJoints have all issued statements since the recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opposing the restriction of methotrexate access and have developed educational materials, as well as offered avenues through helplines and email to help support those who are not able to obtain their treatment.
Methotrexate is no longer used for abortions.
Medication abortion is the use of a combination of hormonally-active drugs to evacuate the contents of the uterus. Before the FDA approval of mifepristone in 2016 for medication abortion, methotrexate was paired with misoprostol. The abortion process on this older regimen was less effective, more prone to causing adverse side effects and took a substantially longer time to complete.
Methotrexate is still used to treat ectopic pregnancies, which occur when the embryo implants outside of the uterus. These pregnancies are not viable in any circumstance and only pose a significant risk to the mother, including future infertility and death, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. A study found that deaths from ectopic pregnancy decreased from 1.15 to 0.50 per 100,000 from 1980 to 2007, presumably due to improved treatment options and guidelines.
The issue of methotrexate access in outpatient pharmacies makes some providers worried about the future of access in other health care settings.
“Methotrexate has been revolutionary in women’s health care for ectopic pregnancies, as most ectopic pregnancies don’t go to the OR anymore. My take-home is, what’s next? Let people die from a ruptured ectopic if methotrexate is restricted? Do women then have to wait until ectopic pregnancies rupture so that they can then get a lifesaving procedure in the OR?” said Dr. Jacques Moritz, a board-certified OB-GYN.
When women who can become pregnant are prescribed methotrexate, there are already safeguards to prevent adverse events related to pregnancy.
The American Academy of Family Physicians strongly recommends that women using this medication must use birth control in the form of hormonal contraceptives, condoms and/or abstinence. If a woman is ready to become pregnant, the American Academy of Rheumatology recommends that methotrexate be stopped at least three months before conception.
For those already using methotrexate, it’s not as simple as finding another medication.
Methotrexate is a drug that also works to suppress the immune system. This treatment can be essential for people diagnosed with cancer as part of a chemotherapy regimen, some autoimmune diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and Crohn’s disease, or for those who have received an organ transplant.
“These are chronically ill patients who spend oftentimes years from the first date of the onset of the illness through diagnosis through a trial-and-error period to get themselves onto a medication where they’re able to live their lives,” Steven Newmark, chief legal office and director of policy for CreakyJoints, told ABC News. “And to see any kind of impediment put in place is horrific to say the least.”
Without access to this treatment, disease flares are more likely, which can prevent people from maintaining their daily responsibilities and negatively impact their quality of life.
Restricting methotrexate from women could mean that the standard of care will not be met for those experiencing a range of diseases beyond reproductive care in states where abortion is banned.
“In arthritis, women are disproportionately impacted by the disease, so it’s more likely that you’re going to see a woman show up to the pharmacy counter for a methotrexate prescription than a man. So, it’s kind of like this double whammy in that there are a few layers to this particular issue,” Anna Hyde, the vice president of advocacy and access, and Alisa Vidulich, the policy director for the Arthritis Foundation, told ABC News.
Alternative medications are not necessarily the answer.
Newmark told ABC News, “There are concerns that alternative medications, which is not always a proper one-to-one substitute, but even if you look at other medications, they may not be covered in the same manner by insurance and may be more expensive.”
“It’s a shame that other diseases are being affected by this,” Moritz added. “The doctor-patient relationship is sacred and now it’s being desecrated.”
Dr. Jade Cobern contributed to this article and is a resident in preventive medicine and pediatrics in Baltimore, Maryland, and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
Dr. Erica Jalal is an internal medicine resident physician at George Washington University and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
Wiz Khalifa makes a triumphant solo music return with the new video for this latest single, “Bad A** B*****s“
The Edgar Esteves-directed visual sees Khalifa in a desert-like location surrounded and adorned by a group of women dressed in red ensembles with matching capes. Making a quick cameo in the video are a few jars of the rapper’s famous Khalifa Kush marijuana brand.
Earlier this week, Khalifa sat down with Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host Anthony Anderson to announce the release date of his forthcoming album, Multiverse, dueout July 29.
He then alerted fans of the album’s due date via social media and unveiled the project’s caricature-like cover art on Instagram this week.
Khalifa also talked with Anderson about a new film venture with his portrayal of George Clinton —a pioneer of funk music —in the upcoming biopic Spinning Gold. Khalifa said he was very familiar with Clinton prior to taking on the role.
“My parents listened to all types of music in the house and they made sure I grew up with the funk,” he said. “It was just fun to be a part of it. They really wanted me to be myself but as him.”
A busy man these days, the “Black and Yellow” rapper is gearing up to hit the road with his Vinyl Verse tour, co-headlined by fellow rapper Logic. Starting July 27 in Irvine, CA, the tour will hit 28 cities across the U.S. and wrap in September.
Tickets for the tour can be found on Wiz Khalifa’s official website.
Macklemore has finally finished his not-so-secret collaboration with “Dance Monkey” singer Tones and I and promised fans will hear it very soon.
Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, the Grammy winner shared a video of him jamming in a parking lot to a new song named “CHANT.” “Can you guess who’s singing on the hook?” he captioned the clip. A female voice is heard singing, “I’m on fire, fire/ You can’t take my voice from me/ I will rise up, rise up/ So what are you waiting for?”
It didn’t take fans long to guess it was Tones, whose real name is Toni Watson. The Australian singer has previously stated she’s a big fan of Macklemore.
Soon after, the “Glorious” rapper shared a follow-up video in which he sits on a couch and further teases the collab. “What’s up, guys? I’ve been working on some new music and I brought the homie,” Macklemore says. Tones then rises from behind the couch and flashes a rock-on sign.
“This song is SPECIAL,” she said of “CHANT” when re-sharing the video to her own Instagram page.
