(WASHINGTON) — The House on Friday passed a bill to uphold abortion rights for women, taking swift action in response to a new Texas law that bans nearly all abortions in the state.
The final tally was 218-211 with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announcing the vote.
Recent Stories from ABC News
The House bill has little chance of becoming law and is largely symbolic given Republican opposition in the Senate.
The House bill would codify protections provided by the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized women’s right to an abortion.
The Texas law that passed in September prohibits abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy and allows “any person, other than an officer or employee of state or local government,” to bring a civil suit against someone believed to have “aided or abetted” an unlawful abortion.
People who successfully sue an abortion provider under this law could be awarded at least $10,000.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the so-called “heartbeat ban” on May 19 and it went into effect on Sept. 1.
The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 on Sept. 1 to allow SB8 to take effect on procedural grounds, despite what the majority acknowledged as “serious questions” about constitutionality. The justices did not address those questions.
Pelosi has said taking congressional action would make a “tremendous difference” in Democrats’ efforts to maintain access to abortion rights. She called the Supreme Court’s decision “shameful.”
Ahead of Friday’s vote, Pelosi said the House legislation should “send a very positive message to the women of our country — but not just the women, to the women and their families, to everyone who values freedom, honors our Constitution and respects women.”
Since Texas’s abortion ban went into effect, lawmakers in 11 states, including Florida, have announced intentions or plans to model legislation after the state’s law, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America.
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in a Mississippi abortion case in early December. The high court is expected to consider the legality of Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a law that is intended to challenge Roe v. Wade.
The “Welcome to the Jungle” rockers have premiered a new song called “Hard Skool.” It’s the second fresh tune from GN’R in as many months, following the August release of “Absurd.”
The new track is available now as a digital download and via streaming services.
Like “Absurd,” the origins of “Hard Skool” date back to sessions for Chinese Democracy, the long-fabled GN’R album that finally became a reality in 2008, with frontman Axl Rose as the only original member still in the band.
Chinese Democracy remains the most recent Guns N’ Roses album. “Absurd” and “Hard Skool” mark the band’s first new music since Slash and Duff McKagan rejoined in 2016.
Amazon’s legal drama Goliath drops its fourth and final season today. Oscar-winning lead Billy Bob Thornton returns as loose-cannon lawyer Billy McBride, who this season is taking on a massive pharmaceutical company implicated in the opioid crisis.
“It’s been really amazing,” Thornton says of the show’s four-season ride. “I’ve had so many great experiences on it. I loved playing the character and the writers did such an amazing job.”
He adds, “And as you go further into a series like this, the writers…as they watch and listen to the actors, they start to capture their voices more and more.”
Thornton says, “I think that’s one of the advantages to the whole streaming idea, is that you have a chance to make an eight- or 10-hour movie, whatever it is, and people settle into it and start to understand, ‘Oh, that’s what this is.'” He adds with a laugh, “And so, by season four, we were like…’We are this!'”
Tania Raymonde plays Brittany, Billy’s confidante — a brilliant, beautiful part-time escort-turned-Billy’s paralegal. The actress says she’ll miss the character dearly, but she’s satisfied with the way things ended.
“I feel like this last season is such a great send-off for the series and such a nice final chapter,” she maintains. “And we left them in like a good place.”
Tania adds with a laugh, “So now they can go exist in like ‘post finale movie character world’ where they’re…all chilling and happy. I feel like we did them justice….So as long as…everyone, I think, was left in a better place than they were when we picked them up in year one. And that makes me happy.”
(ATLANTA) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has endorsed an independent advisory panel’s recommendation for seniors and other medically vulnerable Americans to get a booster shot of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, six months after their second dose.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, also partially overruled her agency’s advisory panel in a notable departure by adding a recommendation for a third dose for people who are considered high risk due to where they work, such as nurses and teachers — a group which the panel rejected in its recommendation. Some panelists said that without further data, they weren’t comfortable with automatically including younger people because of their jobs.
In a statement announcing her decision late Thursday, Walensky pointed to the benefit versus risk analysis she had weighed, and data rapidly evolving.
“In a pandemic, even with uncertainty, we must take actions that we anticipate will do the greatest good,” Walensky said. “While today’s action was an initial step related to booster shots, it will not distract from our most important focus of primary vaccination in the United States and around the world.”
With Walensky’s final sign-off, booster shots will now quickly become available for millions more Americans at pharmacies, doctors’ offices and other sites that offer the Pfizer vaccine as soon as Friday.
The CDC’s independent advisory panel voted unanimously on Thursday to recommend Pfizer boosters for people aged 65 and older, along with long-term care facility residents and people as young as 18, if they have an underlying medical condition.
People younger than 49, however, should only get that third dose if the benefits outweigh the risks, the panel said — a personal consideration to discuss with their doctor.
Walensky’s endorsement at least in part buttons up what has become a seething scientific debate after the Biden administration announced “boosters-for-all” ahead of any reviews from the regulatory bodies, or their independent groups. While the White House’s political appointees had endorsed Biden’s timeline, some of their career scientists and advisers vehemently objected to the incomplete data they were being asked to assess.
Ahead of Thursday’s vote, Walensky addressed the panelists and thanked them for “leaning in” to the complex issue at hand and “trying to put the pieces together.”
“You’re tasked with difficult decisions, weighing the risks and benefits extrapolating from sometimes a wealth and sometimes a paucity of data available,” Walensky said, but reminded them that despite the complex and contentious debate they share the goal of pulling the nation out of the pandemic.
“We all recognize that the science and data of COVID-19 are moving faster than any data we’ve ever seen before. And while I recognize a tremendously heavy lift of the past year, we all know that the pace is unlikely to let up anytime soon,” she added. “We will continue this dialogue, you will have more data to review and more recommendations to make and I will be here with you.”
Not every panelist was excited about the idea of boosters, insisting the vaccines still provide remarkable protection and that it was unvaccinated Americans who remained most at risk.
“I feel like we’re putting lipstick on hogs. This is not going to solve the pandemic,” said Dr. Keipp Talbot, a voting panel member and infectious diseases professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
The panel’s vote narrowed Wednesday’s authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, which did agree to make the shots available to frontline workers.
The vote also followed weeks of a contentious back and forth among top health experts over who should get a booster dose and when — and whether it’s still premature to be asking the question.
Scientists agreed that while vaccine protection is waning slightly, on the whole, vaccines are still working to dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalization. And many feared endorsing booster doses for most would imply vaccines are no longer working.
“I feel that we’re getting too much ahead of ourselves and that we have too much hope on the line with these boosters,” said voting member Dr. James Loehr of Cayuga Family Medicine in Ithaca, New York. “Having said that, you shouldn’t let the perfect be in the way of the good.”
Panelists initially pushed back on the proposals that American adults, 18 to 64, who are at risk for severe COVID-19 infection due to underlying medical conditions, or due to their occupation and setting receive a Pfizer booster dose. Many members stressed that in order to truly “move the dial” on the pandemic, more people need to complete the initial vaccination series.
“I think two and three are fraught with peril,” said member Dr. Oliver Brooks, chief medical officer of Watts HealthCare Corporation in Los Angeles, California. “They’ll be superfluous and they’ll create great inequities and problems within the implementation, so I’m really concerned about the data for boosters in general.”
One repeated sticking point for the CDC’s panelists during deliberations on Thursday: the still-open question over whether boosting with mixed vaccines might be permitted — since for those who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, there is no third dose protection currently available.
The FDA’s vaccine chief, Dr. Peter Marks, addressed the CDC’s panelists ahead of Thursday’s vote and acknowledged their frustrations.
“I think we understand at FDA the relative urgency here of trying to have a solution for anyone who has been vaccinated with any of the authorized or approved vaccines,” Marks said. “Unfortunately, we’re not in a place right now which I can give you an exact timeline, but I can tell you that we will proceed with all due urgency to try to get there as rapidly as possible.”
Ever wonder how The Spice Girls got their iconic nicknames? Melanie C, a.k.a. Sporty Spice, revealed the answer in a recent interview with E!’s Daily Pop.
“Originally, when we were forming as a girl band, we were trying to find out a look,” she explained. However, she says they were “uncomfortable” all dressing alike, as was typical for pop bands at the time.
So one day, she and her singing partners, which included Victoria Beckham, Mel B, Geri Halliwell and Emma Bunton, noticed they all had their own distinctive sense of style — Mel C in her sweatpants, Geri in something quirky and Mel B like “a leopard.”
Mel C says they thought, “We kind of look great as this mish-mash, let’s just do it.”
And subsequently, when a London-based magazine gave each Spice Girl a nickname — Baby, Sporty, Ginger, etc. — based on their respective styles, Mel C says they decided to “embrace them and run with it.”
Mel C is a contestant on this season’s Dancing with the Stars and even channeled her Sporty Spice alter ego for the premiere: She and her partner Gleb Savchenko danced to the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the group’s debut album, Spice.
Dancing with the Stars, now in its 30th season, airs Monday nights at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
Today, Apple TV+ launches Foundation, the sprawling sci-fi epic based on Isaac Asimov‘s groundbreaking book series.
Executive produced by David S. Goyer, the show — which some have dubbed “Game of Thrones in space,” centers on an all-powerful, dynastic galactic empire, and a mathematician who predicts, as all empires do, that it’s doomed to fail.
Goyer told ABC Audio he’d been approached to adapt the Foundation books years ago, but didn’t think a movie could capture it — but for a streaming series, it’s perfect.
“I first read it when I was 13 years old,” Goyer said of Asimov’s seminal work. “My father gave it to me. He said, ‘This is the greatest science fiction work of all time.’ No pressure,” he laughs. “Before he died, he said, ‘I want you to make Foundation.’ No pressure.”
Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Lee Pace plays Brother Day, one in a familial line of Emperors, who sees the math genius, played by Chernobyl Emmy winner Jared Harris, as a threat.
“I wasn’t good at mathematics,” Harris admitted, noting that he still had to deliver long, “challenging” mathematical monologues. Fortunately, he’s a veteran Shakespearean actor, and as such has experience with complicated language. “Yeah, I fell back on a lot of my theater training for that,” Harris says.
For Pace, the role was a blast. “It’s…surreal…to play the Emperor of the galaxy…[He] is someone who has…power over life and death…prosperity and failure. The best metaphor I could find for him is like he is like the sun of the Milky Way galaxy. Everything is spinning around him.”
Pace adds with a laugh, “His ego is the size of the galaxy. Is it fun to play? Absolutely. Absolutely!”
As the lyrics say, they “come from different sides” — of the world, but Coldplay and BTS have managed to blend both of their styles into their upbeat new collaboration, “My Universe.”
The song and its lyric video are out now, with the song’s words in English and Korean displayed in handwritten fonts over a cosmic background.
An official video, directed by Dave Meyers, is “coming very soon.”
“My Universe” is the second single from Coldplay’s upcoming album Music of the Spheres, due out October 15.
As previously reported, on Sunday, September 26, at 8 a.m. ET, a documentary about the song called Inside My Universe will premiere. Later that day, look for the release of an acoustic version of “My Universe,” as well as a “Supernova 7” mix, at 7 p.m. ET.
Both Coldplay and BTS are taking part in the Global Citizen Live 24-hour streaming even that starts on Saturday on ABC News Live and various other platforms.
(WASHINGTON) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot issued its first subpoenas Thursday to four former senior Trump administration officials, including former President Donald Trump’s longest-serving aide and last chief of staff.
The committee is seeking documents and depositions from Dan Scavino — Trump’s caddy-turned-social media guru and senior White House aide — former chief of staff Mark Meadows, conservative activist Steve Bannon and Kash Patel, who was the chief of staff for the acting defense secretary on Jan. 6.
In the letters, the panel said it was seeking information about Trump’s actions before, during and after the Capitol riot regarding his campaign to overturn the election results.
The committee is demanding records be delivered by Oct. 7, and for all four witnesses to appear for closed-door depositions on Oct. 14 and 15.
“The Select Committee has reason to believe that you have information relevant to understanding the important activities that led to and informed the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote in letters to Bannon and Scavino.
The panel’s members have vowed to move aggressively to obtain documents and records from witnesses in Trump’s orbit, many of whom have a history of stonewalling congressional investigators.
“That is a concern, but we have additional tools that we didn’t before, including a Justice Department that may be willing to pursue criminal contempt when people deliberately flout the compulsory process,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday about the possibility of Trump aides defying congressional investigators.
Trump, in a statement, pledged to fight the subpoenas “on executive privilege and other grounds,” though not every recipient was a White House or administration official.
Meadows, who was Trump’s last chief of staff, was close to Trump before, during and after Jan. 6, and was involved in efforts to challenge the election results — participating in Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger when he repeatedly urged him to reverse the presidential election results.
A Meadows aide declined to comment on the subpoena and whether Meadows would cooperate.
Patel, a former GOP congressional aide who worked in the Trump National Security Council before joining the Pentagon, was involved in security preparations for the Jan. 6 counting of the electoral vote on Capitol Hill and mobilizing the response to the riot, according to the committee, citing records obtained from the Defense Department.
Bannon, who remained an outside adviser to the president after helping to lead his first presidential campaign and a short stint in the White House, was at a meeting at the Willard Hotel where lawmakers were encouraged to challenge the election results, the committee claimed in its letter.
He was quoted as saying, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” the panel wrote in its letter, citing a Jan. 5 episode of his podcast, “War Room.”
Scavino, Trump’s longest-serving aide and one of his fiercest defenders on social media, was with Trump before and after rioters stormed the Capitol, the committee claimed in its letter, citing reporting from Peril, the new book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
He also used his Twitter feed to promote the Jan. 6 demonstration in Washington in support of Trump. Some attendees of that event outside the White House later marched on the Capitol and stormed Congress as lawmakers attempted to officially affirm the election results.
(WASHINGTON) — The Environmental Protection Agency announced a new rule Thursday to reduce super-polluting greenhouse gases commonly used in air conditioners and refrigerators as part of the cooling process.
This is a major leap forward in the Biden administration’s plan to combat climate change despite the president’s $3.5 trillion reconciliation package, which includes an overhaul on climate policy, facing broad opposition from Republicans in Congress.
These greenhouse gases, known as hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs, have an impact on warming the climate that is hundreds to thousands of times greater than the same amount of carbon dioxide, senior Biden administration officials said in a call with reporters Wednesday.
The rule creates a legal requirement for companies and manufacturers to reduce HFCs and was first proposed in May under the 2020 American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, or AIM. The AIM Act requires the EPA to phase down the production and consumption of HFCs, manage the gases and their substitutes as well as facilitate the transition to new greener technologies.
Included in the new rule is the creation of a climate protection program that will phase down the production and consumption of HFCs by 85% within the next 15 years.
It’s expected the phase down will reduce emissions by the equivalent of 4.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2050. According to the EPA officials, that’s equal to nearly three years of emissions from the U.S. power sector.
Reducing HFCs is part of the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce the effects of climate change while also generating jobs, a key sticking point of his climate policy initiatives.
“This actually reaffirms what President Biden always says when he thinks about climate, he thinks about jobs,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters Wednesday. “Because this administration knows what’s good for the environment is also good for the economy. Transitioning to safer alternatives and more energy-efficient cooling technologies is expected to generate more than $270 billion in cost savings and public health benefits by the year 2050.”
The EPA estimated that by the end of next year, the annual net savings of reducing HFC emissions will be $1.7 billion.
The rule also establishes an allowance and trading program to reduce HFCs. In accordance with the AIM Act, companies need an allowance to produce or import any HFCs or HFC-related products. The agency will have the allocation amounts distributed to each company by Oct. 1, according to Joseph Goffman, EPA acting assistant administrator.
According to the EPA, along with five other agencies, it will work to prevent the illegal importation and production of HFCs in the U.S. by creating an interagency task force.
In the 1990s, the value of seizures of refrigerants at the U.S.-Mexico border were second only to marijuana, according to the advocacy group Environmental Investigation Agency.
Stephen Yurek, the president and CEO of the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, a policy group that represents the interests of manufacturers, said the institute has supported the rule since the beginning.
“It’s great for U.S. industry which are the innovators of the new products. It’s great for the economy for jobs and that, but it’s also great for the environment,” Yurek said. “It’s a win-win for everybody.”
Climate advocates welcome the rule as well and that the Biden administration is moving forward to fulfill the requirements of the AIM Act, but some said this is just a starting point.
“It’s now imperative to adopt additional rules that ensure a swift transition to new technologies and full lifecycle management of these gases,” Christina Starr, senior policy analyst at the Environmental Investigation Agency, said in a statement.
Danielle Wright, the executive director of the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council, which works to promote the transition to natural refrigeration agents such as ammonia, said there is no doubt that this rule is an important first step.
But the key about the rule is that it is a phase down, not a phase out, she said. It does not create a cost-effective pathway for companies to transition to the gases that have the lowest impact on the climate: natural refrigerants. Switching to these alternative gases for refrigeration and cooling would be the equivalent of switching to electric cars, according to Wright.
“In order to make that an economically viable decision, you need really strong policy,” Wright said. “And so this policy is not strong enough to create those economically viable market conditions. It’s still an environmental win, but we’re not going as far as we could,” she said.
By finalizing this rule, the U.S. will be in line with key components of the Montreal Protocol’s Kigali Amendment — an international agreement aimed at reducing the production of HFCs.
However, the U.S. has not ratified the Kigali Amendment to officially join the treaty, and the White House has yet to send the amendment to the Senate for ratification.
When asked by reporters when the president would send the amendment to the Senate, national climate adviser Gina McCarthy said she did not have a date for when that will happen.
Nonetheless, the EPA is calling this rule a historic step towards reducing the effects of climate change by implementing pollution regulations across multiple industries.
“This is a very proud moment for the EPA, and more importantly for the American people,” Regan said.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Thursday’s sports events.
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Chi White Sox 7, Cleveland 2
Seattle 6, Oakland 5
Cleveland 5, Chi White Sox 3
Baltimore 3, Texas 0
Minnesota 7, Toronto 2
LA Angels 3, Houston 2
NATIONAL LEAGUE
St. Louis 8, Milwaukee 5
Arizona 6, Atlanta 4
LA Dodgers 7, Colorado 5
San Diego 7, San Francisco 6
Washington 3, Cincinnati 2
Philadelphia 12, Pittsburgh 6
