(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — Two U.S. Postal Service employees are dead after a shooting at a Memphis postal facility, authorities said.
The suspected shooter, who was also a USPS employee, died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, FBI Memphis spokesperson Lisa-Anne Culp said during a press briefing Tuesday.
The shooting occurred Tuesday afternoon at the East Lamar Carrier Annex, a location that does not have retail customers. Around 2:50 p.m. local time, the Memphis Police Department said it had secured the scene and there was no active threat.
A witness told Memphis ABC affiliate WATN she saw people running away saying shots had been fired.
USPS is working with the FBI, Memphis Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on the investigation, Postal Inspector Susan Link told reporters.
The USPS and FBI spokespeople did not share any additional information on the shooting, including the identifies of the victims or suspect.
“The Postal Service is saddened at the events that took place today in Memphis,” the USPS said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with the family members, friends and coworkers of the individuals involved. The Postal Service will be providing resources to all employees at the East Lamar Carrier Annex in the coming days and weeks.”
This is the second high-profile workplace shooting in the Memphis area in recent weeks. Last month, one person was killed and 14 others were injured in a shooting at a Kroger grocery store in Collierville. The suspected gunman, a third-party vendor for Kroger, died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
(NEW YORK) — Scientists have discovered another way modern-day farming techniques are killing off bee populations.
While pesticides have long been blamed for the decline in pollinators, a study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on Tuesday has found that the mass-flowering of single plant species is increasing the prevalence of bee populations infected with parasites.
Monoculture farming — which involves growing only one type of crop at a time on a specific field — is a common agricultural practice, especially in the U.S., which has about 440 million acres being cultivated for monoculture. But one of the consequences of the practice is that landscapes without much natural habitat can suddenly experience mass-bloom events and have negative impacts on bees, according to the study.
Researchers at the University of Oregon surveyed 1,509 bees in sunflower fields and non-crop flowering habitats in California’s Central Valley, finding that when the crops flowered for a short period of time across a large space, the events can aggregate pollinator species together, which then results in increased rates of bees becoming infected with parasites as they come in contact with each other.
The degraded landscapes are attractive to bees because of the massive amounts of pollen and nectar that bloom at the same time, the researchers said. The mass events have the potential to provide immune and nutritional benefits to the bees, but when the mass blooms peaked is when the bees had higher rates of parasitism, Hamutahl Cohen, a researcher of the at the University of Oregon’s Institute of Ecology and Evolution and one of the authors of the study, told ABC News.
“We have an incredible amount of biodiversity on this earth,” Cohen said. “And we’re seeing that wildlife is declining, and one of the primary drivers of decline is disease.”
While in many ways the modification of landscapes is necessary to feed a growing population, Cohen described the mass-flowering crops as the “doorknobs of the bee world” as bees go from flower to flower to collect food amid their daily work.
“It’s just the same thing as a human touching a doorknob,” she said. “We all know this, because of the pandemic … if you have a cold and you touch a doorknob, and someone else comes and touches that doorknob, they can get sick.”
Scientists are suggesting that farmers stop the practice of monoculture farming, which are often in “highly degraded areas” such as California’s Central Valley, which has seen an “incredible amount” of habitat loss in the past 100 years, Cohen said.
However, the fate of bees is not doomed, Cohen said. On fields where farmers who heeded the call to implement strips of perennial plants, bee aggregation was less likely to be associated with parasitism due to the increased diversity of flowers.
While Cohen was not surprised to see the enhanced rates of parasitism in bees and monoculture farming systems, she was surprised to find just how effective planting non-crop flowers were for conservation efforts.
“It didn’t just dampen the effect of aggregating these,” she said. “It actually reversed the effects.”
The perennial plants are often selected for characteristics like drought tolerance and suitability for pollinators, Cohen said, adding that there can be “economic hurdles” to changing the landscape to implementing conservation practices.
(WASHINGTON) — The House voted Tuesday to temporarily raise the debt ceiling by $480 billion after the Senate approved the stopgap measure late last week, putting off the risk of default until early December.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the lower chamber back to Washington from a two-week recess to pass the measure. The bill passed along party lines Tuesday evening in a 219-206 vote. It now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature.
“A default would send shockwaves to global financial markets, and would likely cause credit markets worldwide to freeze up and stock markets to plunge. Employers around the world would likely have to begin laying off workers,” Pelosi told reporters during a press conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
The debt ceiling bill was packaged as part of a rule for floor debate of several other bills, meaning there was not a stand-alone vote on the debt limit measure. The bill was considered “deemed and passed” once the rule was adopted.
Pelosi staved off defections amid razor-thin margins in the House. She could have only afforded to lose three votes.
Republicans for months have said that Democrats would need to act on their own to raise the debt limit because they have total control of Washington and are planning to pass a multi-trillion social and economic package with zero input from Republicans.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said repeatedly that Democrats should have to hike the debt limit because of the high cost of Biden’s proposed agenda.
Democrats have argued that raising the debt limit is a bipartisan responsibility, in part because it covers spending that already took place under the Trump administration.
The House’s return Tuesday follows a chilling warning from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that if the House fails to act this week the U.S. is at risk of defaulting and will be unable to pay its bills.
Yellen warned on ABC’s “This Week” that McConnell and Republicans are playing with “catastrophe” over a pending fight to raise the debt ceiling.
“Fifty million Americans wouldn’t receive Social Security payments. Our troops won’t know when or if they would be paid. The 30 million families that receive a child tax credit, those payments would be in jeopardy,” Yellen said.
She said such a scenario “could result in catastrophe.”
President Joe Biden has said he will sign the bill into law once the House approves the measure Tuesday, but lawmakers will once again be at odds and at risk of fiscal calamity come December.
The new deadline will coincide with the end of the stop-gap deal to fund the federal government.
Pelosi indicated an off-ramp on the debt ceiling drama is in the works. She told reporters that the Treasury Department should be able to lift the debt ceiling unilaterally, while Congress would maintain the power to overrule an increase to the debt limit.
“I’m optimistic that these decisions have to be made,” Pelosi said.
“We are not a rubber stamp or a lockstep party — we have a discussion, and other family values that all members have brought to the table,” Pelosi said.
The idea to give the Treasury the authority to lift the debt limit “seems to have some appeal on both sides of the aisle because of the consequences of not lifting it.”
Pelosi said she thinks the idea has “merit.”
“We’re just hoping that we can do this in a bipartisan way,” she added.
The speaker said she does not support raising the debt limit through the process of reconciliation, which would allow Democrats to pass any bill with just a simple majority. The process is time-consuming and Democrats have firmly said they oppose using the process.
In a letter to Biden, McConnell warned that come December he would be willing to allow the nation to default on its national debt rather than work with Democrats on a resolution.
“Your lieutenants on Capitol Hill now have the time they claimed they lacked to address the debt ceiling through standalone reconciliation, and all the tools to do it,” McConnell said in the letter. “They cannot invent another crisis and ask for my help.”
ABC News’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
(BOGOTA, Colombia) — A “few” U.S. personnel at the embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, have reported symptoms consistent with “Havana syndrome,” a source familiar with the cases confirmed to ABC News.
Colombia is now the latest country where American officials have reported incidents of the mysterious neurological affliction that has confounded the U.S. government for years now, but the reports are particularly notable because Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Bogotá this month, the Colombian Foreign Ministry announced last week.
In a similar episode in August, Vice President Kamala Harris’s trip to Vietnam was delayed for a few hours after an unconfirmed case of “Havana syndrome” was reported by a staffer at the U.S. mission there.
American diplomats, spies and other officials have reported strange experiences and debilitating symptoms in several countries now, starting with Cuba in late 2016 and expanding to China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Germany, Austria and elsewhere.
Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, cognitive difficulties, tinnitus, vertigo and trouble with seeing, hearing or balancing. Many officials have suffered symptoms years after reporting an incident, while some have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries.
It’s unclear how many U.S. officials have confirmed medical symptoms.
Leadership at the U.S. embassy in Bogotá informed staff of the reported incidents, saying they are investigating the cases and addressing them “seriously, with objectivity and with sensitivity,” according to an email from Ambassador Philip Goldberg obtained by the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. The source confirmed to ABC News that Goldberg has been in communication with staff, but declined to share the emails.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price declined to comment on the report Tuesday during a department briefing, saying instead the agency is working to ensure all affected personnel get “the prompt care they need in whatever form that takes” and to protect its work force around the world.
Pressed on why the administration wasn’t being more forthcoming, Price said officials had to respect personnel privacy, adding, “It’s certainly not the case that we are ignoring this. We are just not speaking to the press — we’re speaking to our workforce.”
Price also declined to confirm that Blinken is traveling to Colombia. Colombia’s Foreign Ministry announced he would visit for a high-level dialogue on Oct. 20 with Foreign Minister and First Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez after the two met last week in Paris on the sidelines of the summit of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.
Mark Stein, lead singer and keyboardist of the veteran psychedelic rock band Vanilla Fudge, will release his debut solo album, There’s a Light, on November 26.
Stein recorded the album during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was inspired by the health crisis and other issues the U.S. and the world have been facing — including social unrest, racial disparity and political conflicts — to put together collection of songs offering such themes as hope, unity and redemption.
“This is an album about hope, but at the same time, I had to sing about the dangers of division,” the 74-year-old musician notes. “When I started the newest collection of songs during the early weeks of the pandemic, it dawned on me that I had created an album with a theme. These songs are reflections of what the world is about now, and what we need to do to bring us together again.”
The album’s lead track, “We Are One,” has been released as an advance digital single, and a companion music video for the tune has premiered on YouTube. Stein says the song speaks of “unity and what I know our country and the world is capable of.”
There’s a Light also includes two classic covers tunes that reflect the album’s themes, renditions of The Temptations‘ “Ball of Confusion” and The Rascals‘ “People Got to Be Free,” and culminates with an emotional version of “America the Beautiful.”
There’s a Light can be pre-ordered on CD now at MerchBucket.com, and limited-edition bundles featuring a signed copy of the disc, as well as a Mark Stein T-shirt, bracelet and bandana, also can be purchased at the site.
Here’s the There’s a Light track list:
“We Are One”
“Ball of Confusion”
“We Are Survivors”
“Lyin'”
“Racism”
“All Lives Matter”
“Let’s Pray for Peace”
“People Got to Be Free”
“Break It Down”
“America the Beautiful”
Duran Duran will celebrate their 15th and latest studio album, Future Past, with a special virtual album-release event that will stream live on the Dreamstage.live platform at 3 p.m. ET on Thursday, October 21, one day before the record hits stores.
The event will feature a live Q&A with Duran Duran’s members, during which they will share stories about their 40 years together as a band. The interview segment will be followed by the premiere of a new documentary titled Duran Duran: Alison Jackson’s Double Take, which gives a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the group’s music video for “Anniversary,” a recently released advance single from Future Past.
The “Anniversary” video was directed by Alison Jackson, an award-winning filmmaker, photographer and artist who explores the cult of celebrity while using celeb lookalikes.
The streaming event will replay at 8 p.m. ET on October 21, and then will be available on demand for 72 hours. Tickets can be purchased now at Dreamstage.live. Check out a trailer for the event on YouTube.
As previously reported, Future Past will be released on October 22 and includes guest appearances by Blur guitarist Graham Coxon, Swedish pop singer Tove Lo, German-born U.K. rapper Ivorian Doll, Japanese punk group CHAI and longtime David Bowie keyboardist Mike Garson.
Future Past was co-produced by Duran Duran with the legendary Giorgio Moroder and British DJ/producer Erol Alkan. You can pre-order it now.
After being honored last week with the BET I Am Hip Hop Award for career achievement, Nelly is now feuding again with one of his former group member who wants more credit for his success.
The 46-year-old rapper began his career with the group the St. Lunatics before launching his solo career in 2000 with the landmark Country Grammar album, which has sold over 10 million copies. Ali from the St. Lunatics has beefed with Nelly for years, and now they are feuding again after Ali claimed that Nelly dissed him Monday on Instagram.
The former Real Husbands of Hollywood star commented in his post, “It’s called a career and in it you have ups and downs…some never have ups themselves so technically they just never had a career. they just was apart of someone else. FACT!!”
Ali took that remark as a personal insult, and had harsh words for Nelly. He claims that he was the ghostwriter behind Nelly’s solo success, and slammed him for slow sales of his new country album, Heartland.
“Do you notice that he hasn’t said ANYTHING about that country album !!??,” Ali responded in his own Instagram message. “Well I’ll tell you why…13,000 !!!! Wow, that’s how many copies of that album he sold !! ‘MY’ career was writing you a career.”
He added, “to be continued (it’s all the most grand illusion ever pulled, and it’s all unraveling RIGHT NOW… and he’s mentally suffering trying to hide the secrets).”
In February, Ali claimed that Nelly “hustled” the entire group, and asked him to put the group back together again. The St. Lunatics released only one studio album, Free City, in 2001.
Tyga has been arrested on felony domestic violence charges following allegations of abuse by his ex-girlfriend, Camaryn Swanson.
In a statement from the Los Angeles Police Department to ABC News, authorities say that Tyga, born Michael Stevenson, turned himself in on Tuesday morning “around 9:00 am where he was arrested and booked for felony domestic violence.”
Tyga’s bail was listed at $50,000, although it’s reported that by Tuesday afternoon, the rapper had quickly bailed himself out.
As previously reported, Tyga’s arrest comes after Swanson took to social media on Monday evening to share photos of the alleged injuries she suffered as a result of what she says was an altercation with the rapper.
In an Instagram Story where she appears to have a black eye, Camaryn tagged TMZ and wrote, “I’ve been emotionally, mentally, and physically abused and I’m not hiding it anymore.”
According to TMZ, the incident occurred after Swanson arrived at Tyga’s home uninvited. There, she reportedly argued and yelled at the rapper until she was picked up by her mother. Swanson, however, disputes claims that she was told not to show up at Tyga’s home.
Tyga and Swanson have been reportedly dating since the beginning of the 2021.
(WASHINGTON) — If it’s been six months or more since your second COVID-19 vaccine shot, you may be wondering whether you qualify for a booster.
In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed an independent panel’s recommendation that older adults, along with those as young as 18 who have an underlying medical condition, receive a Pfizer booster shot.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky also added a recommendation for a third dose for those in high-risk jobs or settings, such as nursing and teaching. Immunocompromised Americans, like those undergoing cancer treatment, have been able to get a third dose of the Moderna or Pfizer mRNA vaccines since mid-August.
But there has been a lot of public debate and there are different rules for Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer boosters, all of which can add to confusion. So, when is it your turn?
ABC News answers a wide variety of scenarios in the table below to let you know whether you qualify — and if you don’t today, when you might.
New booster recommendations are expected after the CDC advisory panel’s meetings on Oct. 20 and 21.
Boosters are intended to return the level of protection to the vaccine’s optimal level. Mixing and matching vaccines are not authorized or recommended at this time, but may be in the near future, and if your vaccine or demographic isn’t yet eligible for a booster, experts say it’s best to wait.
Appointments for all vaccines and boosters can be found at vaccines.gov.
Congratulations to Usher and his girlfriend, Jennifer Goicoechea, who announced Tuesday she recently gave birth to a baby boy.
“Hi my name is Sire Castrello Raymond,” the eight-time Grammy winner captioned a photo of his newborn on Instagram. “I am the newest addition to the Raymond crew. I was born Sept 29, 2021 at 6:42 pm weighing 7 lbs 13 oz. Hear me roar … A.K.A Ra Ra Gang.”
Goicoechea commented, “The Champ is here.”
The couple ALSO have a 1-year-old daughter named Sovereign Bo Raymond. Usher also has two sons: 13-year-old Usher V, known as Cinqo, and Naviyd, 12, with his ex-wife, Tameka Foster, to whom he was married from 2007 to 2009.
Usher also was previously married to Grace Miguel from 2015 to 2018. They do not have children together.
Last week, Usher announced two bonus dates for his residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. He’ll be performing there on Thursday, December 23 and Friday, December 24, in addition to his previously planned shows on December 28, 29, 31 and January 1, 2022.
