(NEW YORK) — As attacks from Russia continue to escalate in Ukraine, one concrete bunker has become a nursery of sorts filled with nearly two dozen babies.
The babies, most of them newborns, were born to surrogate mothers in Ukraine, and now are unable to be reunited with their parents, who live in countries around the world.
They are being cared for by nurses and caregivers who have stayed behind to care for them.
Together, they shelter in a basement of a building owned by BioTexCom, a fertility clinic, in Kyiv.
More than 4,300 babies have been born in Ukraine since the conflict with Russia began, according to a March 6 Facebook post from Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice.
While some parents were able to evacuate their babies from Ukraine, many, including the babies in the shelter in Kyiv, remain in place as the attacks from Russia continue.
In recent years, Ukraine has become a popular location for foreign parents who want to hire a surrogate to carry their baby.
It is one of the few countries in the world where commercial surrogacy is allowed, according to Erica Horton, president and partner of Growing Generations, a United States-based surrogacy and egg donation agency.
Because of its lower cost of living and lower cost of medical care, Ukraine is also one of the most cost-effective surrogacy options in the world, Horton told ABC News’ Good Morning America.
“Surrogacy in the United States at a minimum is probably going to cost someone between $100,000 and $150,000, and in Ukraine, from what I know, you’re looking at maybe $50,000 to $60,000,” she said. “That’s a pretty big difference even if you factor in the cost of travel.”
Horton said that as someone who works in the surrogacy industry, it is “heartbreaking” to see babies left behind and parents unable to get their children.
“We work with people every day who are going through this process, and it’s already scary enough to trust another person to do one of the most important things in your life,” she said. “Then to have something like this layered on top of that is devastating for the parents who care about their child and who, undoubtedly, care about the woman who put her hand up to help them have their child. It’s very difficult to witness.”
(NEW YORK) — Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Suni Lee is opening up about the mental health struggles she says she has faced since competing in the Tokyo Olympics last summer, including anxiety and impostor syndrome.
“I feel like after the Olympics, there’s just been so much doubt in like, ‘Oh, she shouldn’t have won Olympics, blah, blah, blah,’ and it really hits my soul,” Lee, 19, said this week in an interview with ESPN, adding, “I think I just put in my head that I didn’t deserve to win.”
Lee, who grew up in Minnesota, won gold in the gymnastics all-around competition in Tokyo, making her the fifth American female gymnast in a row to win that title. She also helped lead the U.S. women’s team to a silver medal in the team competition.
Lee’s teammate, Simone Biles, had been favored to win the gold in the all-around competition, but withdrew from that competition to focus on her mental health.
Lee began her college career at Auburn University after the Olympics and told ESPN she struggled with a lack of confidence.
“Like impostor syndrome,” she said. “That’s exactly what I have. And it’s very hard. It was very hard for me to motivate myself the first couple of weeks here because it was like I didn’t want to do gymnastics, I hated it.”
Lee said the intense fame she garnered after the Olympics also led to anxiety so crippling she considered pulling out of her college gymnastics meets, according to ESPN.
In Tokyo, Lee made history as the first Hmong American to compete for Team USA and the first to win a gold medal at the Olympics.
“I would have anxiety attacks at the meets,” she said. “Like the first couple of the meets of this season, I was a wreck because it was like constant screaming my name and like, ‘Suni, can you take a picture?’ or ‘Can you sign an autograph?’ while I’m trying to concentrate.”
She continued, “When everybody expects you to be good for Auburn, it’s really hard for me just mentally, because I already put so much pressure on myself that when I have that extra pressure stress added on to it, I just kind of break.”
Lee said she has used journaling as a tool to help her cope. In February, she shared a page from her journal on Twitter.
In her pre-meet notes, Lee wrote to herself, “Be average Suni. Nothing more. Nothing less. You are good enough. Have faith. Be great.”
“I think it’s important because a lot of the times people forget that we’re human,” Lee told ESPN. “I think people just look at me as a famous person; they don’t actually look at me as a person and to kind of see that we can make mistakes, too.”
What to know about impostor syndrome
Lee is not alone in speaking about imposter syndrome, a form of intellectual self-doubt that can be accompanied by anxiety and depression, according to the American Psychological Association (APA).
High-achieving figures ranging from former first lady Michelle Obama to Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis and Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg have also spoken out about feeling a sense of impostor syndrome, despite their record of accomplishments.
Lisa Orbe-Austin, a licensed psychologist and the author of Own Your Greatness: Overcome Impostor Syndrome, describes the feeling of imposter syndrome as, “A phenomenon where highly-skilled, experienced, qualified, credentialed people have not internalized those credentials or experience and, as a result of that, fear being exposed as a fraud.”
“The idea of fraudulence in imposter syndrome is that you don’t have the skills. You don’t have the credibility. You don’t have the competence, and that you’re hiding it,” Orbe-Austin told ABC News’ Good Morning America last year. “The result of it is often burnout, exhaustion, a constant feeling of fatigue because they are constantly overworking to cover up this experience of fraudulence.”
As many as 70% of people experience impostor syndrome, according to Orbe-Austin, who noted the condition has been studied for more than 40 years and has “significant amounts of research” behind it.
“Typically, imposter syndrome makes you less happy in your job,” she said. “It also affects your ability to feel like you can negotiate for yourself because you’re just happy to be there.”
Impostor syndrome can often stem from early childhood roles and family dynamics, according to Orbe-Austin.
The APA notes that feelings of being an impostor can “often go hand in hand” with perfectionism, explaining, “So-called impostors think every task they tackle has to be done perfectly, and they rarely ask for help.”
While impostor syndrome can happen to men and women and people of all backgrounds and races, there are “additive effects” for people of color, according to Orbe-Austin.
“There has been research to show that when you are a person of color and you experience imposter syndrome, you also have higher levels of anxiety and higher levels of discrimination-related depression,” she said.
When it comes to coping with the feelings of self-doubt, Orbe-Austin said it’s important to identify and remember why a person is successful.
“The reason you are successful is because you have skills, abilities, credentials, competencies that you’re not aware of, that you’re having trouble internalizing, but that’s the reason why you’re successful,” she said. “The impostor syndrome is not the reason.”
(WASHINGTON) — At her Senate confirmation hearing next week, Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson will face calls to recuse herself from one of the first major cases she would hear as a justice: a challenge to Harvard University’s use of race as a factor in undergraduate admissions.
Jackson, an alumna of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, currently sits on the university’s Board of Overseers that “provides counsel to the University’s leadership on priorities, plans, and strategic initiatives,” according to its website.
The justices this fall are slated to hear a challenge to the school’s admissions policy brought by a group of Asian American students that alleges they were illegally targeted and rejected at a disproportionately higher rate because of their race. The case could determine the fate of affirmative action policies nationwide.
“It would be profoundly inappropriate for a jurist to sit on a case for a school in which she has held a governing position and a role in setting institutional policies,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote in a column this month. “For that reason, Jackson will be asked in her confirmation hearing to confirm whether she will recuse herself from the Harvard case.”
It could also provide an opening for Republicans to raise sensitive issues of race, opposition to affirmative action in general, and President Joe Biden’s pledge to prioritize race and gender in his high court pick.
“I expect one of the first questions at this hearing to be: You are highly qualified, but a lot of other highly qualified people weren’t considered for this job because of their race. Would you think that was lawful if it happened at a private employer?” said Sarah Isgur, a former Trump Justice Department lawyer and ABC News contributor.
Jackson’s six-year Harvard board term concludes on May 26, a school spokesman said. Supreme Court oral arguments in the school’s case would be heard several months later.
Federal law stipulates that federal judges must recuse themselves from cases whenever their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” or when “the judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding.”
Enforcement of the rules on the Supreme Court is by honor system, leaving it to each justice individually to decide when it’s appropriate to recuse from a case. Those decisions are rarely explained.
“Six years on the Board is a long time, and her impartiality in the case — that is, in favor of Harvard, given her ties to the Board — might be reasonably questioned,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a nonpartisan judicial watchdog group. “I think that balancing these factors, it’d be prudent for her to recuse, though it’s not as clear cut as some pundits have made it out to be.”
Board involvement in setting admissions policy, including potential consideration of race as a factor, and in guiding the school’s response to the lawsuit is not clear. A university spokesman declined to comment.
“As I understand it, the Board of Overseers is not a policymaking body and does not make admissions decisions or policies, nor are its members in a fiduciary relationship with the university,” said Stephen Gillers, an expert in legal ethics at NYU School of Law. “Recusal would not be necessary, even if Judge Jackson were still a board member when the case is heard.”
Judge Jackson, who is a member of the board’s executive committee, has not publicly addressed the apparent potential conflict or possible recusal from the Harvard case.
Former Democratic Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama, who is shepherding Jackson through the confirmation process, declined to say whether recusal has been discussed.
“That’s a question that she’ll answer once she gets at the confirmation hearings, rather than me trying to answer for her,” Jones told ABC.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates told ABC News “Judge Jackson would follow the highest ethical standards when it comes to recusals.”
As a U.S. District Court judge, Jackson removed herself from at least two cases involving Harvard University, according to her written responses to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire this month.
In 2016, she recused herself from a case involving the Education Department’s sexual assault guidelines for colleges and universities because the Harvard Board of Overseers was “evaluating its own potential response to those guidelines.” In 2018, Jackson stepped aside in a case involving a Harvard research librarian who was suing the Environmental Protection Agency over a Freedom of Information Act request.
“For similar reasons – even if Jackson resigns from the Board – she may need to recuse from the [affirmative action] case because she ‘has personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding,’ as described in the federal statute governing judicial disqualification,” said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal advocacy group with influence among Republican senators.
Isgur said an apparent conflict of interest is already evident.
“She’s been on the Harvard Board of Overseers for five years — that’s from the start of this litigation through the discovery process. The likelihood that she hasn’t discussed the case while on that Board is very, very low,” Isgur observed.
Jackson would become the fifth graduate of Harvard Law School on the nation’s highest court if she’s confirmed, though legal analysts noted that simply being an alumnus of the school did not alone create an ethics issue.
“Her being a graduate won’t be a problem at all,” said Cardozo School of Law professor and ABC News legal analyst Kate Shaw. “If it were, there’d be several other recusals. But it might be prudent for her to resign from that board prior to joining the Supreme Court, which I think would resolve any conflict.”
The Harvard case and a related suit against the University of North Carolina will be argued together at the Supreme Court sometime in October or November. Many court watchers believe the conservative majority will move to roll back, or outright ban, the use of race in admissions.
The cases will be the first test on affirmative action for the six-justice conservative majority since the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy and death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both of whom defended the policy.
Judge Jackson’s views are not clear, but an examination of her jurisprudence suggests she would likely be in tandem with the court’s liberal wing.
(KENOSHA, Wis.) — The father of a 12-year-old girl called for charges to be filed against an off-duty police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who appeared to kneel on his daughter’s neck while trying to stop a fight.
“She’s humiliated, she’s traumatized. Every day I gotta hear, ‘Daddy, I don’t wanna go to school,'” the father, Jerrel Perez, said during a press conference in Kenosha Wednesday.
“It breaks me because I wasn’t there to help her,” he added. “I felt helpless.”
Videos of the incident, which took place at Lincoln Middle School in Kenosha on March 4, were captured by students and went viral.
Perez said that after the incident took place, he thought that his daughter was trying to get out of her punishment when she complained about pain in her neck, but said that hours later he watched the video.
“I want to see this officer get charged,” Perez said, adding that his daughter is in therapy and seeing a doctor due to a neck injury.
The Kenosha Police Department and the Kenosha Unified School District announced earlier this month that they have launched an investigation into the incident.
A video taken by one of the students at the school was obtained by ABC News and shows the officer responding to a reported fight between two students.
The 12-year-old girl, who is in the sixth grade, appears to push the officer and then he pins her to the ground and appears to kneel on her neck, according to the video. It is unclear what happened before or after.
The Kenosha Police Department released a statement on March 7 addressing the incident.
According to KPD, after a fight broke out between two students in the cafeteria during lunch, Kenosha Unified School District employees, including the off-duty officer, intervened and one staff member was injured.
“K.P.D. has watched the video clip and has seen the photo which has been widely shared on social media over the weekend. We are keenly aware of the significant sensitivity surrounding the photo. K.P.D., together with K.U.S.D. is investigating the incident in its entirety while being cautious not to make conclusions based off of a small piece of information shared on social media,” police said. “Both agencies will look to our respective policies and procedures for guidance in this circumstance. It is the highest priority of those officers who work in our schools to provide a safe and secure learning environment for our children and staff.”
The officer is a 37-year-old male with four years of service at KPD, police said, but when asked by ABC News whether the officer’s identity will be revealed, a KPD spokesman declined to comment.
Tanya Ruder, chief communications officer for the Kenosha Unified School District, told ABC News on March 8 that the officer is a “part-time KUSD employee, who was hired as an off-duty Kenosha police officer,” and is “currently on a paid leave from the district.”
“We appreciate your patience as we work with the Kenosha Police Department to investigate the facts surrounding this incident,” she added.
Police did not immediately respond to a request for updates on the investigation.
Family attorney Drew DeVinney said during the press conference Wednesday that the family is going to take legal action against police and the school soon.
DeVinney disputed the allegation that the girl pushed the officer and said that she was charged with “disorderly conduct.”
Asked if the girl is facing any charges, police declined to comment.
Perez expressed outrage over the police officer’s tactics, comparing the image to George Floyd — the Minnesota man who was killed in May 2020 after a police officer placed a knee on his neck for nine minutes.
Amid a national push for police reform after Floyd’s death, Wisconsin banned the use of police chokeholds in June 2021 except in life-threatening situations or when a police officer has to defend themselves. Chokeholds include various neck restraints.
DeVinney said Wednesday that the police and the school have refused to share video captured on security cameras of the incident with the family.
Ruder told ABC News last week that they cannot release the footage as this is a pending investigation.
(WASHINGTON) — In a White House list of weapons being sent to Ukraine as part of a new $800 million military support package announced by President Joe Biden Wednesday — among nearly 10,000 anti-armor weapons, 800 anti-aircraft Stinger systems, and thousands of rifles — appeared 100 “tactical unmanned aerial systems.”
But these aren’t the large U.S. drones you’re used to seeing.
The 100 unmanned systems heading to Ukraine are actually small “Switchblade” drones, a U.S. official told ABC News.
Unlike long-range Predator drones, which look similar to small planes and fire missiles at targets, the smallest Switchblade model fits in a rucksack and flies directly into targets to detonate its small warhead.
Less than 2-feet long and weighing only 5.5 pounds, the Switchblade 300 can be launched from a small tube that resembles a mortar, after which it can fly for up to 15 minutes. The larger Switchblade 600 is effective against armored targets and can fly for more than 40 minutes, but weighs 50 pounds, according to the manufacturer.
The U.S. official could not say whether one or both of the systems would be included in the 100 units destined for Ukraine.
Both Switchblades use onboard sensors and GPS to guide them to their targets. Both also have a “wave-off” feature so that human operators can abort an attack if civilians appear near the target or if the enemy withdraws.
“These were designed for U.S. Special Operations Command and are exactly the type of weapons systems that can have an immediate impact on the battlefield,” said Mick Mulroy, former deputy assistant secretary of defense and an ABC News national security and defense analyst.
Jack Harlow is explaining why he decided to keep Tory Lanez and DaBaby on his remix of “What’s Poppin'” despite their recent controversies.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the rapper acknowledged that while he did face pressure to remove Tory and DaBaby from the song, they recorded the track before the two were “canceled.” Lanez, as we know, has been charged with shooting Megan Thee Stallion, and DaBaby came under fire for making homophobic remarks.
“I know I’m a good person,” Harlow tells Rolling Stone. “My character, my integrity are very important to me. And I think I’ve done such a good job that now I’m being forced to answer for other people’s actions.”
He adds, “It doesn’t feel right as a grown man to speak for other grown men all the time.”
Harlow did show his support for Megan Thee Stallion, though, telling the mag, ”One thing’s for sure, is that Megan got shot. And I wish her nothing but love and respect.”
As previously reported, Harlow announced that his new album, Come Home the Kids Miss You, is due out May 6.
When TheJonas Brothers aren’t together on tour or making music, they all seem to have a million other projects in the works. Joe Jonas admits that there was a time that he saw that as a threat to the group — but not any more.
“Years ago, I thought that if one thing was going, then I would have to hit a pause button on something else,” he tells People. “When me and my brothers decided to get back together, we said, ‘Let’s never do that to our creativity ever again. Let’s really be supportive. If we want to go down the road of discovery, then let’s all be for it and not hold back.'”
“I’m so very grateful that I have that support system of the brothers,” he adds. It’s a good thing he’s got that support system, because he’s just started up his side project, DNCE, again after a four-year hiatus.
On top of that, he’s also a judge on the upcoming MTV reality show Becoming a Pop Star, and he stars in an upcoming action war drama called Devotion. Oh, yeah — he’s also appearing in a new campaign for Tanqueray, and then, there are those rumors that he’s going to be dad again.
“I make a gratitude list every morning,” says Joe. “And usually top of the list is just that I’m grateful that I’m able to do this still, and that I have this opportunity to travel and tour…So very, very, very glad and proud of what we’ve gotten to accomplish so far.”
In June, Joe and brothers Nick and Kevin will kick off a five-night residency in Las Vegas.
As Kane Brown readies the release of his next studio album, he says he removed all the pop songs he’d recorded from the track list in favor of focusing on his country roots.
“I’m just really excited for the fans to see that it’s an actual country foundation. I’m going to give them a country album,” he tells ABC Audio.
Any artist who bends the rules when it comes to style is likely to feel external pressure to fit into one genre or another, and Kane’s no exception. “I mean, I have and I haven’t [felt pressure],” he notes. “But I feel like every artist has.”
He says that the biggest reason he chose to go more country on this album wasn’t due to pressure, but rather a desire to spend more time in a genre that feels best. “This is my home. This is where I started,” the singer points out. “I should definitely just give [the fans] what a lot of them want.”
Kane’s already beginning to deliver: The first three songs off his next album — “Leave You Alone,” “Whiskey Sour” and the chart-topping lead single, “One Mississippi” — are some of his most country-leaning releases to date. But if you’re a fan of Kane’s ‘poppier’ side, don’t despair. The songs he scrapped from his country project aren’t necessarily going back on the shelf for good.
“I still got five of those,” he hints. “I’m not saying they won’t be released. They just won’t be on the album.”
When it arrives, Kane’s new album will be the follow-up to his 2020 EP, Mixtape Vol. 1.
Acclaimed prog-rock drummer Bill Bruford, best-known for his work with Yes, King Crimson and the supergroup U.K., will release a six-CD compilation titled Making a Song and Dance: A Complete Career Collection on April 29.
The box set will feature highlights of Bruford’s 50-year-plus career, including recordings with Yes, King Crimson and U.K., as well as from various solo projects and collaborations.
The first two discs, dubbed “The Collaborator,” focus mainly on Bill’s work with Yes and King Crimson. Discs three and four, collectively titled “The Composing Leader,” are mostly dedicated to his solo group’s Bruford and Bill Bruford’s Earthworks.
Disc five is called “The Special Guest,” and includes recordings he made with singer/songwriter Roy Harper, founding Yes bassist Chris Squire, Yes guitarist Steve Howe, jazz-fusion guitar virtuoso Al Di Meola, and the Buddy Rich Big Band.
The last CD is titled “The Improviser,” and features improvisational pieces Bruford recorded with ex-Yes keyboardist Patrick Moraz, King Crimson, Earthworks and others.
“My interest was with the broader discourse on drums and drumming, rather than any notions of success or fame,” says Bruford, reflecting on his musical career. “The latter I could do little about but, in the 1960s, the former was wide open and meaningful contribution seemed everywhere possible. The context in which the first track in the set was conceived bears almost no relationship to the context in which the last was, four decades later.”
Making a Song and Dance comes with a 52-page booklet featuring a biography written by Bruford, as well as rare photos. You can pre-order the collection now at BurningShed.com.
Bill was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Yes in 2017.
Anne Hathaway tackles a complicated role in the new Apple TV+ series WeCrashed. The series, out Friday, chronicles the rise and fall of WeWork, its charismatic founder Adam Neumann, and his wife/WeWork Chief Branding Officer Rebekah Neumann.
Hathaway plays Rebekah and tells ABC Audio that while Rebekah may not seem like the most relatable person, we can certainly identify with “the very human experience of having a goal and falling short of it and what that must feel like.”
Rebekah is credited with coming up with the mission phrase of WeWork, which was “to elevate the world’s consciousness,” and Hathaway thinks Rebekah really believed in it.
“I think she wants to do good. I think she wants to make the world a better place. And I really do think she believed in the power of We,” says the Ocean’s Eight star.
A belief Hathaway doesn’t share with Neumann is the idea that one person can change the world.
“I believe that you can change yourself and you can be open about that process, but I don’t think that the world is going to be saved by one person doing good,” she explains. “I think it’s going to be saved by all of us doing good.”
Hathaway did benefit from picking up one of Rebekah’s habits.
“I do yoga now,” she shares. “Rebecca has much healthier habits than I do. So getting to live as her as for the better part of a year wound up being a very good thing for me.”
