(HOUSTON) — A 9-year-old is fighting for his life following the deadly chaos at rapper Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival, which left eight people dead many more injured last Friday.
Now, his family is joining the wave of lawsuits being filed against the event organizers, venue management and performers at the concert.
Ezra Blount went to the concert at NRG Park in Houston with his father, and was on his father’s shoulders when the crowd surge began, Ezra’s grandparents told ABC Houston station KTRK-TV.
Ezra was separated from his father, and his grandparents said they found him alone at the hospital in a coma, suffering from major organ damage and severe brain swelling.
“He’s a small, innocent child,” Ezra’s grandfather Bernon Blount, told KTRK-TV. “He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve it at all. He’s just coming into town to see one of his favorite artists and to be trampled like that and really left the hospital with no one knowing where he was. That’s heartbreaking.”
According to Houston Police and witness accounts, tens of thousands of people dangerously rushed toward the stage when Scott — and later, rapper Drake — appeared. Concert attendees recall being pushed into one another from all sides, pushed down to the floor, and trampled or crushed by other concertgoers.
According to a GoFundMe, his father, Treston Blount, said he began to be crushed by others and could not breathe. He passed out and fell, and Ezra fell along with him, getting trampled by others in the crowd.
“How could this happen in the city of Houston? You know, when we go to concerts and different events we expect safety and security,” Ezra’s grandfather told KTRK-TV.
Now, family members are asking for answers about who is responsible for this tragedy as they await Ezra’s recovery.
“We’re praying that he makes a full recovery. And we have faith in the doctors that are treating him,” Treston Blount told the station. “We just wish something more would be done because no family deserves to be going through this.”
The family’s lawsuit, filed by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, alleges negligence regarding crowd control, medical attention and event staffing.
“This young child and his family will face life-altering trauma from this day forward, a reality that nobody expects when they buy concert tickets,” Crump said in a statement to ABC News. “This little boy is currently fighting for his life, and his parents will never know the same child they entered Astroworld with.”
In an online statement, Houston Chief of Police Troy Finner said he met with Travis Scott and security officials to address safety concerns prior to the concert. Finner said the criminal investigation into the incident is ongoing and urges the community to be “considerate of the grieving families.”
Following the concert, Scott released a statement on the tragedy on Twitter, saying, “I’m absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld festival.”
Scott announced he will cover the funeral costs and further aid to individuals affected by the tragedy and will refund all of the Astroworld concertgoers and ticket holders. He has also said he is cooperating with investigators.
Neither Scott nor his attorneys have responded publicly to the lawsuits.
(NEW YORK) — Vaccine mandates have been yet another controversial move in the deeply divisive COVID-19 pandemic, sparking lawsuits, protests and warnings of reductions in service.
But data and experts suggest that they are working.
In fact, some organizations saw their employee vaccination rates jump from less than half to over 90%.
James Colgrove, a professor of public health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health told ABC News that he’s not surprised with this outcome and predicted that similar workplace orders will follow the same story.
“In general, vaccine mandates work,” he said.
While vaccine opponents may appear vocal, medical experts say most are not dead set against the vaccination and need that push brought up by a mandate.
Although Colgrove and other medical experts say the country is in “uncharted territory” when it comes to vaccine mandates for adults, since such orders are rare outside of the health care industry, the signs are pointing to the directives greatly moving the needle in the country’s vaccinations efforts.
Jumps in vaccinations after mandates issued
Colgrove said the country has seen the effectiveness of vaccine mandates in our schools, which for decades have mandated inoculations against measles, mumps and other ailments. Mandates for hospital workers have also been shown to prevent outbreaks and mass worker shortages from illness, he noted.
COVID-19’s persistence in the U.S. and the resulting worker shortages from sick and hospitalized employees virus has forced many organizations in the country to consider mandates, according to Colgrove.
When the delta variant caused a jump in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths among the unvaccinated in the summer, more mandates and mandate-like programs were announced.
Some private companies started to issue vaccine mandates in the summer for their in-person based employees including Google, Tyson Foods, United Airlines and the Walt Disney Company, which is the parent company of ABC News. All of the companies allow exemptions for religious reasons and give deadlines for the fall.
The results from some of those mandates were strong, according to data shared by some companies.
When Tyson announced its mandate on Aug. 3, it said that less than half of its nearly 140,000 employees were vaccinated. When the deadline for the mandate came at the end of October, the food processing company said over 60,000 of its members got their shots and 96% of its staff was vaccinated.
“Has this made a difference in the health and safety of our team members? Absolutely. We’ve seen a significant decline in the number of active cases companywide,” Tyson Food president and CEO Donnie King said in a statement.
United Airlines said 48 hours after it announced its mandate, the number of unvaccinated staffers fell from 593 to 320. As of Oct. 27, 99.7% of the airline’s 67,000 employees had complied with the mandate, according to United.
“Our vaccine policy continues to prove requirements work,” the company said in a statement.
Dr. Sarah Goff, an associate professor of health promotion and policy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told ABC News that organizations are aiming to get their workplaces back in person and have been more willing to issue the mandates.
She also cited the 1905 Supreme Court case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which ruled that states have the right to issue a public health mandate, and the ruling Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel has strong factors behind the mandates.
“There is precedence for vaccines to be legally acceptable, but it’s up to the states and the companies,” Goff said.
In the public sector, a handful of states announced mandates for their state and local agencies in the summer and fall including Washington State.
Officials from Washington state’s health department told ABC News that the percentage of public employees who were vaccinated jumped from 49% on Sept. 6, a month after Gov. Jay Inslee announced the mandate, to 96% on Oct. 18, the mandate’s deadline.
New York City shows progress despite protests
New York City came under the spotlight for its vaccine mandate policies. At first, it allowed unvaccinated public employees who weren’t in health care or the Department of Education, but on Oct. 20 Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the rest of the city workforce needed to get one dose by Oct. 29 or be placed on unpaid leave. The city allowed for religious exemptions city employees who recently received an mRNA vaccine must show proof of their second dose within 45 days of their first shot.
At the time of the announcement, 84% of the city’s workforce had one shot, but several agencies, including the FDNY, NYPD and Sanitation Department recorded less than 75% of their staff, vaccinated, according to data from the mayor’s office.
Unions representing the FDNY and NYPD tried to take the matter to court but were denied injunctions before the deadline. Still, the Uniformed Firefighters Association led rallies against the mayor and the mandate contending that vaccinations should be the personal choice of their members.
By the time the mandate deadline came on Oct. 29, vaccination rates among the lagging agencies greatly increased. As of Nov. 7, 86% of NYPD members, 91% of city EMS personnel and 82% of firefighters have had one shot, according to data from the mayor’s office.
The FDNY said that some firehouses were understaffed the Monday after the deadline, which Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said was from a higher number of firefighters calling out sick. Nigro chastised any firefighters who used their sick days to protest the mandate.
In the end, only 34 police officers were placed on unpaid leave on Nov. 2 and all of the FDNY firehouses were operational on Nov. 5, according to the mayor’s office.
Not willing to take the risk
Goff said at the end of the day most people hesitant about getting the vaccine, even those who make a lot of noise about it, would not jeopardize their careers or families.
“You lose your job and it impacts people’s livelihood and while there may be some who say they’re willing to risk that, they don’t,” she said.
Goff and other medical experts added that the mandates also reach a wider group of people who aren’t completely dead set against the vaccination.
Colgrove said the increases in worker vaccinations after a mandate tracks with the data on vaccine hesitancy in the country.
While he said there is certainly a group that is completely against getting the vaccine, there are more unvaccinated people who are simply on the fence and haven’t had either a strong motivation or good enough messaging to go forward with it.
A survey released on Oct. 28 by the Kaiser Family Foundation said 8% of all adult respondents revealed they would ask for an exemption if presented with such a mandate, and 1% of adult respondents lost a job because of a mandate.
A KFF survey released a month earlier found that two-thirds of unvaccinated workers would not get a shot if their job demanded it.
“When you look at vaccine resistance, the people who are the most opposed often make a very large amount of noise that is at odds with the actual numbers who are against vaccination,” Colgrove said.
A strong nudge and a change in messaging
Dr. Kevin Schulman, a professor of medicine and economics at Stanford University School of Medicine and Graduate School of Business, told ABC News, said the mandates positive effect on changing the messaging of vaccines.
Schulman, who has written articles in medical publications on the need for better marketing of the COVID-19 vaccine, said companies have been using their vaccine mandate orders to emphasize their effectiveness more directly with their employees.
For example, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby and President Brett Hart told their employees that they had a responsibility to their employees to remain safe and prevent flight cancellations.
“It ends up being a story about how do we protect ourselves and how do we get up and flying again,” Schulman said. “It sticks with the apathetic population.”
Schulman said that company incentives, such as one-time salary bonuses, also helped sway the holdouts.
“Seeing other people around them get the vaccine, and tolerating it and going about their lives will help those groups,” Schulman said.
More company mandates likely
Last week, President Joe Biden announced a vaccine employment requirement through a new regulation from the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Companies that have 100 or more employees must require unvaccinated members to test weekly or face federal fines starting Jan. 4. Over 100 million employees are affected by this order.
Twenty-six states are suing the administration over the order and a judge in Louisiana issued an injunction on Saturday.
The health experts say the court battle over Biden’s plan won’t deter organizations from issuing their own mandates, including ones that go further than OSHA’s rules and place unvaccinated members on leave.
Colgrove said the need for a strong and healthy workplace and the increased examples of mandates working will compel those organizations to improve their vaccine rates one way or another.
“The more normalized it comes, the more people someone knows someone else who is vaccinated, the more people will comply,” Colgrove said. “With any vaccine the longer it’s been around the more people get with it.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 755,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 68.3% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-US sees slight uptick in pediatric cases after weeks of declines
-US reopens borders to vaccinated travelers
-Global COVID-19 cases top 250 million in under 2 years
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Nov 08, 7:07 pm
Pfizer to request OK for boosters to all adults: Source
Pfizer is likely to seek authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for a coronavirus vaccine booster shot for people 18 and older as soon as this week, a government official with knowledge of the situation told ABC News.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the Pfizer booster shot for certain groups of patients six months after their second dose.
Those eligible patients include seniors, adults with certain medical conditions and adults who work in environments that put them at greater risk for exposure to COVID-19.
Despite a looming threat that thousands of Transportation Security Administration workers could be terminated over the federal government’s vaccine mandate, Thanksgiving flights won’t be affected, a person with knowledge of the agency’s plans told ABC News.
Federal workers have until Nov. 22 to get vaccinated or face termination. After the deadline, TSA employees who are not fully vaccinated will get called to have a discussion with supervisors and be counseled and educated on getting vaccinated, the source said.
If workers do not get vaccinated following the first meeting, they will receive a warning, according to the source. Following the warning, workers will be subject to termination, the source said.
Three weeks ago, the TSA said 40% of its workforce was unvaccinated. The agency hasn’t provided updated numbers.
ABC News’ Mina Kaji and Amanda Maile
Nov 08, 4:43 pm
Jill Biden visits children’s vaccination clinic
First lady Jill Biden and Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy visited a children’s vaccination clinic Monday at Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia, to promote pediatric vaccinations.
“The vaccine is the best way to protect your children against COVID-19,” Biden said. “It’s been thoroughly reviewed and rigorously tested, it’s safe, it’s free, and it’s available for every child in this country, 5 and up.”
Franklin Sherman Elementary was the first school to administer the polio vaccine in 1954.
Sixth-grader Everett Munson, who introduced Biden, said, “I’m excited to be vaccinated because now I’ll be able to visit my cousins and grandfather. … I’m looking forward to going places without worrying that I could get COVID and give it to my family, friends or teachers.”
Munson also pitched an idea inspired by the school’s history.
“Maybe we should even take an idea from the polio vaccine at Franklin Sherman: Everyone should get ice cream after their shots,” Munson said.
ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart
Nov 08, 4:17 pm
US sees slight uptick in pediatric cases after weeks of declines
The U.S. saw 107,000 pediatric cases last week, an uptick following eight consecutive weeks of declines, according to a weekly report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
But this is still much lower than the pandemic peak — 252,000 child cases within one week – which was recorded in early September.
Last week, children accounted for 24% of the cases. Children make up 22.2% of the U.S. population.
Approximately 45.8% of adolescents ages 12 to 17 have been fully vaccinated.
Severe illness due to COVID-19 remains “uncommon” among children, the two organizations wrote in the report. However, AAP and CHA continue to warn that there is an urgent need to collect more data on the long-term consequences of the pandemic on children, “including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.”
(NEW YORK) — Several lawsuits have been filed so far against several parties connected to the deadly stage surge during Astroworld Festival at NRG Park in Houston, Texas, which left at least eight concertgoers dead and many more injured.
Astroworld is a music festival founded by rapper Travis Scott and held annually in Houston. This year was the third Astroworld event, which hosted popular rappers and singers including SZA, Bad Bunny, Chief Keef and Tame Impala.
According to Houston Police and witness accounts, a wave of tens of thousands of people surged toward the stage when Scott — and later, rapper Drake — appeared. Concert attendees say they were pushed into one another from all sides, and as the crowd pressed its way forward, some began to fall, pass out and get trampled by others in the audience.
“You’re not moving yourself — it’s more of the crowd moving you, so you don’t have control of your body at that point,” said concertgoer Fatima Muñoz, who shared her experience with ABC News’ daily news podcast “Start Here.” “So when people start falling and losing their balance, it kind of becomes like a domino effect.”
“Somebody next to me started falling, and he kind of took me down with him. And that’s when I had fell right on the floor, and that’s when everybody started tumbling down, and I tried so hard to get up,” Muñoz said. “There’s just too much people like on me, like, they legit dog-pile on me. I was on the floor. Nobody helped. I tried screaming for my life. I tried screaming for help. Nobody helped nobody.”
Muñoz said she bit someone’s leg to bring attention to her laying on the floor and then two attendees helped her up and out of the crowd.
“If those two guys didn’t help me, I mean, I really could have been one of those people for sure,” she said.
The lawsuits, along with some witness accounts, allege that Scott continued to perform despite the presence of emergency vehicles in the audience.
Houston police say the investigation is active and in its early stages.
Lawsuits stack up against concert producers, venue
Live Nation Entertainment and ScoreMore Holdings, two concert production and entertainment companies that organized and produced the event, are being sued, as well as performers Scott and Drake. NRG Park’s venue management and operation agency, the Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation, is also included as a defendant in the lawsuits.
The family of 21-year-old Axel Acosta, one of the people who died in the crowd surge, say they plan on joining a lawsuit as part of 35 total plaintiffs in a case to be filed against the aforementioned organizers by Houston attorney Tony Buzbee.
Buzbee also cited a 2015 disorderly conduct charge against Scott at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago, which he pleaded guilty to when he urged attendees to ignore security, ABC7 Chicago reported at the time.
“Certainly neither Travis Scott nor his handlers, entourage managers, agents, hangers on promoters, organizers or sponsors cared enough about Axel to make even minimal effort to keep him and the others at the concert safe,” Buzbee said in a press conference with the family Monday.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is also representing a 21-year-old attendee who helped lift people up from the floor amid the chaos in another lawsuit that accuses the event’s organizers and Scott of negligence in providing medical equipment, crowd control, safety precautions, adequate hiring and training of staff.
“We are hearing horrific accounts of the terror and helplessness people experienced — the horror of a crushing crowd and the awful trauma of watching people die while trying unsuccessfully to save them,” Crump said in a statement to ABC News. “We will be pursuing justice for all our clients who were harmed in this tragic and preventable event.”
Texas attorney Thomas J. Henry also filed a lawsuit against Scott and Drake, as well as Live Nation and NRG Stadium, on behalf of one of the surviving victims following Friday night’s tragedy.
Henry said he believes a message needs to be sent to “performers, venues and event organizers that a lackadaisical approach to event preparation and attendees safety is no longer acceptable.”
“Live musical performances are meant to inspire catharsis, not tragedy,” Henry said in a statement sent to ABC News. “Many of these concertgoers were looking forward to this event for months, and they deserved a safe environment in which to have fun and enjoy the evening. Instead, their night was one of fear, injury and death.”
Kherkher Garcia, LLP has also filed a lawsuit against event organizers and Scott on behalf of an attendee who the firm said “suffered serious bodily injuries when the uncontrolled crowd at the concert knocked him to the ground and trampled him.”
“He and those who promoted and supported this concert must take responsibility for their heinous actions,” Kherkher Garcia, LLP said in a statement to ABC News. “We intend to hold them fully accountable by showing that this behavior will not be tolerated in our great city.”
Scott and organizers react
Following the concert, Scott released a statement on the tragedy on Twitter, saying, “I’m absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld festival.”
Scott announced he will cover the funeral costs and further aid to individuals affected by the tragedy and will refund all of the Astroworld concertgoers and ticket holders. He has also said he is cooperating with investigators.
Drake has yet to comment on the lawsuits or what happened at Astroworld that night.
In a statement to ABC News, Live Nation said it was working with law enforcement to get answers.
“We continue to support and assist local authorities in their ongoing investigation so that both the fans who attended and their families can get the answers they want and deserve, and we will address all legal matters at the appropriate time,” Live Nation said.
On Instagram, Scott’s girlfriend, Kylie Jenner, who attended the concert, defended Scott.
“I want to make it clear we weren’t aware of any fatalities until the news came out after the show and in no world would have continued filming or performing,” Jenner wrote in her post.
Legal analysts, including civil litigation attorney Danielle Cohen Higgins and ABC News’ Dan Abrams, say there are many questions that need to be answered about what exactly happened at the festival.
Higgins said event organizers are going to have to answer for the safety precautions, crowd control procedures and other policies that play a big role in event planning.
“If Live Nation created an environment where they reasonably should have anticipated that a surge was possible — that’s a problem for Live Nation. They are the experts in creating this environment,” Higgins said in an interview with ABC News.
NRG Park representatives declined ABC News’ request for comment.
Higgins and Abrams also pointed out that in 2019, three people were also hospitalized at Astroworld after being trampled when thousands of people rushed to get into the event.
Following that 2019 incident, Houston police tweeted: “We are successfully working together to support Houston’s biggest music festival @astroworldfest at @nrgpark and collaborating closely with the festival to ensure the public safety of everyone attending the event. We look forward to a memorable night.”
Abrams, when asked on Good Morning America about what stands out to him the most about this tragedy, said any of Scott’s actions and comments at the concert could affect these cases.
“There’s going to be social media videos of every moment of that show,” Abrams said. “Every single second will have been documented, so we’ll know exactly what he said and when he said it.”
(HOUSTON) — It took just minutes for a crowd of concertgoers to transform into a deadly melee that killed several people during the Astroworld music festival.
Rapper Travis Scott, the founder of the festival, which is named after his 2018 album, continued to perform as multiple people in the audience suffered medical emergencies.
Eight people died in the chaos after the crowd, filled with 50,000 people, rushed toward the stage during Scott’s set. Dozens more were transported to the hospital with injuries.
Scott has a history of inciting crowds at performances and was charged for it twice in recent years.
Here is how the tragedy at the Astroworld Festival unfolded:
Aug. 1, 2015
Scott was arrested on charges of inciting a crowd to jump barriers at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine, according to officials.
May 13, 2017
Scott was arrested in Rogers, Arkansas, after prompting fans at the Walmart Music Pavilion to breach barricades and overrun security. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct and paid a fine.
Nov. 17, 2018
The inaugural Astroworld Festival took place in Scott’s hometown of Houston at the 350-acre NRG Park.
Nov. 9, 2019
A “similar incident” to the crowd surge took place at the 2019 festival, when fans breached barricades, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo told reporters over the weekend. Nearly 100 extra event security personnel were added for this year’s event, Hidalgo said.
Oct. 26
Scott announced the lineup for the 2021 Astroworld Festival, which included performances by Young Thug, SZA, Lil Baby, Earth, Wind & Fire, Master P and 21 Savage.
Friday
Around 9:30 p.m.: The crowd “began to compress toward the front of the stage,” Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña told reporters.
San Antonio resident Fatima Munoz, 21, described a “domino effect” that took place: “I had fell right on the floor, and that’s when everybody started tumbling down, and I tried so hard to get up,” she said on ABC News’ podcast “Start Here.” “There’s just too much people like on me, like those legit dog pile on me. I was on the floor. Nobody helped. I tried screaming for my life. I tried screaming for help.”
Scott continued his set. In the middle of his performance, Scott stood and told the crowd, “Somebody passed out right here,” an Apple Music livestream of the event showed.
Some 300 people were treated by medical personnel on site, authorities said. Another 25 were transported to the hospital.
Saturday
The remainder of the festival was canceled.
Scott released a statement on Instagram, saying he was “absolutely devastated by what took place” the night before.
The first lawsuit against Scott was filed in Harris County, Texas.
Thirteen people remained in the hospital, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said.
Sunday
Kylie Jenner posted to her Instagram story that Scott was not aware of any fatalities and would have not continued performing had he known.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner had previously expressed concerns when he met with Scott and his head of security to discuss the main event, Finner said in a statement.
Monday
Scott announced he will provide full refunds for all attendees who bought tickets to Astroworld and that he will not perform at the Day N Vegas Festival this upcoming weekend, sources said.
The FBI is providing “some forms of technical assistance” to investigators in Houston, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Monday at a Department of Justice news conference when asked by ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas whether the bureau was involved.
Identities of all of the victims were released. A prayer vigil for the victims was held at the Annunciation Catholic Church in Houston.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso, Jenna Harrison, Bill Hutchinson, Alexander Mallin and Stephanie Wash contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The nation’s top law enforcement officials announced on Monday the seizure of approximately $6 million in ransom payments and new criminal charges against a Ukrainian national and Russian national alleged to have deployed the REvil ransomware that infected more than 1,000 companies and public organizations around the globe this summer.
Yaroslav Vasinskyi, a Ukrainian national arrested last month in Poland, and Yevgeniy Polyanin, a Russian national who remains at large, face charges of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. Vasinskyi was charged in connection with his alleged role in carrying out the devastating July 4 ransomware attack against the software firm Kaseya, which in turn affected hundreds of companies within the U.S.
Together, the U.S. Treasury Department said the two men “are part of a cybercriminal group that has engaged in ransomware activities and received more than $200 million in ransom payments paid in Bitcoin and Monero.” It is announcing sanctions against the two men as well.
Charging documents unsealed Monday morning also accuse Vainskyi of conducting approximately 2,500 ransomware attacks and demanding approximately $767 million in ransom, $2.3 million of which was eventually paid.
There is no lawyer listed for Vasinskyi or Polyanin.
“Our message today is clear: The United States, together with our allies, will do everything in our power to identify the perpetrators of ransomware attacks, to bring them to justice and to recover the funds they have stolen from the American people,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco lauded Kaseya for calling the FBI and Department of Justice and asking for help in finding the alleged criminals.
“As we’ve shown time and time again, we’re still going to pursue them, disrupt them and hold them accountable,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
Garland said REvil ransomware has been deployed on approximately 175,000 computers worldwide with at least $200 million paid in ransom.
REvil was also behind the May attack on meat supplier JBS, which paid $11 million in ransom to unlock its systems.
The State Department is is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information that helps identify or locate the leaders of the cybercriminal group known as REvil or Sodinokibi.
The U.S. is also offering up to $5 million for information that leads to the arrest or conviction of any individual involved in a REvil ransomware attack.
In June, the Justice Department announced it had successfully seized millions of dollars in cryptocurrency Colonial Pipeline paid to the cyber criminal group DarkSide following the attack that led the pipeline to briefly shut down its operations.
ABC News’ Connor Finnegan contributed to this report.
(HOUSTON) — All eight of the victims have been identified in the deadly stage surge at the Astroworld Festival concert.
23-year-old Arturo Sanchez, an attendee, said his heart literally stopped as he was trampled by the crowd, and he believed he was going to die himself.
Bruised and battered, Sanchez told ABC News from his hospital bed on Sunday about the panic and chaos that erupted during the opening song of rapper Travis Scott’s performance.
He said that as soon as Scott began to sing, the crowd surged forward, knocking him off balance and causing him to fall to the ground near the front of the stage.
“I was on the floor screaming for help and trying to reach for people’s hands so they could see me and no one could see me,” Sanchez said. “I just kind of accepted the fact that I was going to die and I did for a little bit. My heart stopped, apparently.”
Sanchez said doctors told him he suffered a heart attack and had briefly flatlined.
He said he remembered a large man falling on him and sitting on his chest as he struggled to breathe and then passed out.
Sanchez said a registered nurse attending the concert performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him and helped get him to an ambulance.
“She saved my life, honestly,” Sanchez said.
Last victim identified
The medical examiner was able to identify the last of the eight victims who died on Sunday after asking for the public’s help in identifying the man.
Oscar Acosta confirmed to ABC station KTRK in Houston that his son, Axel Acosta, died at Memorial Hermann Hospital. He said his son traveled from Washington to see Scott perform.
Acosta identified his son after the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences released a post-mortem photo of the 6-foot-2, nearly 500-pound man, and asked the public for help in identifying him.
Axel Acosta, 21, was among the concertgoers killed when throngs in the estimated crowd of 50,000 packed into NRG Park — which is next to NRG Stadium, home of the Houston Texans NFL football team — suddenly surged toward the stage, authorities said. Another 25 people were injured, one just 10 years old, officials said.
Five other people killed were identified by either their families or the schools they attended.
‘An innocent young soul’
Danish Baig, 27, of Dallas was killed while trying to save his fiancee, Olivia Swingle, who had fallen and was reportedly about to be trampled by concert-goers pushing forward, his brother Basil Baig told ABC News.
“He was an innocent young soul who would always put others before him,” Basil Baig said in a statement. “He was a hardworking man who loved his family and took care of us. He was there in a heartbeat for anything. He always had a solution to everything.”
Basil Baig said in a Facebook post that he also was at the concert, promoted and organized by Live Nation, and described it as being “poorly” managed and supervised. He alleged that Scott provoked the crowd to move toward the stage.
“Travis Scott and his team and everyone associated in the event should and will be held responsible,” Basil Baig said in his statement to ABC News.
In videos Scott posted on Instagram Saturday, he said he tried to spot people in the crowd having physical problems and paused during the show to try to get help to fans that appeared in need.
“I could just never imagine the severity of the situation,” Scott said in one of the videos.
In a separate statement, Live Nation said, “We will continue working to provide as much information and assistance as possible to the local authorities as they investigate the situation.”
The youngest victim
The youngest victim who died was 14-year-old John Hilgert, a freshman at Memorial High School in Houston, according to a letter the school’s principal sent to parents.
“Our hearts go out to the student’s family and to his friends and our staff at Memorial,” principal Lisa Weir wrote in the letter. “This is a terrible loss, and the entire MHS family is grieving today.”
One victim had passion for dance
Also killed was 16-year-old Brianna Rodriguez, a junior at Heights High School in Houston, her aunt, Iris Rodriguez, told ABC News.
Iris Rodriguez said her niece had a passion for dance.
“Now she’s dancing her way to heaven’s pearly gates,” the Rodriguez family wrote on a GoFundMe page that included a series of photos of Brianna.
College senior dies
Franco Patiño, 21, a senior at the University of Dayton in Ohio, was identified by the school as one of the concertgoers killed.
In a letter addressed to members of the university’s campus community, the school’s president, Eric Spina, said Patiño was from Naperville, Illinois, and was majoring in mechanical engineering technology with a minor in human movement biomechanics.
Patiño was also a member of Alpha Psi Lambda, a Hispanic-interest fraternity, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Spina wrote. Patiño had been working in an engineering coop program in Mason, Ohio, according to Spina.
‘Huge hole in our lives’
The family of Jacob “Jake” E. Jurinek said in a statement Sunday that he was among those killed. Jurinek was a junior at Southern Illinois University and was majoring in art and media, his family said.
“We are all devastated and are left with a huge hole in our lives,” said Jurinek’s father, Ron Jurinek.
Rodolfo Pena, 23, from Laredo, Texas, and Madison Dubiski, 23, from Cypress, Texas were also killed.
Bedlam ensues
The concert bedlam unfolded around 9:30 p.m. local time Friday when the “the crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage,” Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña told reporters during a news conference Friday night.
“That caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries,” Peña said.
At least 13 people injured remain hospitalized, including five under the age of 18, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told reporters during a briefing.
As of Sunday night, at least one lawsuit has been filed against Scott.
What triggered the surge is under investigation by the Houston Police Department. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he has ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to make state resources available to support the investigation.
Scott has history of issues at concerts
Problems have previously occurred at other Travis Scott concerts. In 2015, the rapper was arrested on charges of inciting a crowd to jump barriers at a Lollapalooza concert in Chicago. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine, according to officials.
In 2017, Scott was arrested again after he invited more people to come closer to the stage, prompting fans at the Walmart Music Pavilion in Rogers, Arkansas, to breach barricades and overrun security. In that case, he also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct and paid a fine.
Prior to the fatal surge at Scott’s concert on Friday night, some 300 people had been treated throughout the day at the music festival by on-site medical personnel, authorities said. There were “many instances” where they had to administer Narcan, which is used to treat a narcotic overdose, said Peña, who did not have an exact number.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said that during the pandemonium, a private security guard working at the festival was possibly injected in the neck with drugs as he was attempting to grab or restrain someone.
“When he was examined, he went unconscious,” Finner said during a Saturday afternoon briefing. “(Medical staff) administered Narcan. He was revived, and the medical staff did notice a prick that was similar to a prick that you would get if someone was trying to inject.”
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso, Jenna Harrison, Kendall Coughlin, Darren Reynolds and Marcus Moore
(NEW YORK) — To help educate kids about the COVID-19 vaccine and encourage them to get it, Big Bird from “Sesame Street” announced that he just got the shot and is feeling great about it.
“I got the COVID-19 vaccine today!” Big Bird tweeted over the weekend, breaking a months-long hiatus on the social media site. “My wing is feeling a little sore, but it’ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy.”
The beloved character also revealed something he recently found out, which is “I’ve been getting vaccines since I was a little bird. I had no idea!”
Big Bird’s vaccination announcement received a shout-out from President Joe Biden, who replied, “Good on ya, @BigBird. Getting vaccinated is the best way to keep your whole neighborhood safe.”
While the character has been entertaining kids for decades, Big Bird is technically 6 years old, which means he recently became eligible for the Pfizer vaccine. The vaccine was authorized for kids ages 5 to 11 by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week. Shots are now being administered to children of that age group.
For those who may be puzzled as to why the “Sesame Street” character has joined the ongoing conversation about pediatric vaccinations, Big Bird has, historically, been the go-to muppet on vaccine PSAs.
In 1972, the giant yellow canary spoke about the importance of getting the measles vaccine, according to a resurfaced video shared by Muppet Wiki in a Twitter thread.
(NEW YORK) — This report is a part of “Rethinking Gun Violence,” an ABC News series examining the level of gun violence in the U.S. — and what can be done about it.
Paul Kemp, a founding board member and the president of Gun Owners for Responsible Ownership, has been a gun owner for most of his life.
He grew up in Michigan and owns a hunting rifle, a couple of handguns and a .22-caliber rifle.
He also said he was taught about gun safety growing up and thought he had a good understanding of the gun laws in the country.
But when his brother-in-law, Steve Forsyth, a youth sports coach and father of two, was shot and killed by a man armed with an AR-15 style rifle in 2012, “I realized how misinformed I was,” he said.
Kemp said he had “no idea that we had such a patchwork of gun laws around the country.” While he noted the National Firearms Act, first enacted in 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Brady Law, which amended the GCA in 1993, there is a “a lot of latitude for very weak gun laws in states,” he said.
Watch ABC News Live on Mondays at 3 p.m. to hear more about gun violence from experts during roundtable discussions. And check back tomorrow, when we look at Chicago’s violence disruptors and how they try to bring peace.
The U.S. is awash in guns, with nearly 400 million in the United States, according to a 2018 report from the Small Arms Survey, a Switzerland-based global research project.
And gun violence has been rising in the past several years (gun deaths are up 56% from 2014-2020, and injuries increased 73% in the same time period, according to Gun Violence Archive).
Many people who own firearms agree that violence is a problem — but fundamentally disagree as to why, leaving the debate at an impasse.
So, ABC News interviewed some gun owners to get their perspective on potential solutions to the spate of gun violence plaguing the country. Their perspectives represent slices of the highly charged debate that plays out at the national level between advocates, legislators and groups such as the NRA.
Here’s what they had to say:
Safe storage
The shooter at the Clackamas Town Center Mall in Oregon killed Forsyth and 54-year-old hospice nurse Cindy Yuille with a Stag Arms AR-15 rifle that he had taken from a friend, who had purchased the gun legally but left it loaded and unsecured in his house, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office public information officer told Kemp.
He said one of his first thoughts was, “Well, doesn’t Oregon have a safe storage gun law?” The officer told him no.
“I said, ‘You’re telling me that guy who owned that gun faces no consequences?’ and he said, ‘That’s correct.'”
There are 11 states in the U.S. that have some form of safe storage law on the books, according to the Giffords Law Center, a gun violence prevention organization. Massachusetts was the first state to require all firearms be locked up while not in use; Oregon became the second this summer when Gov. Kate Brown signed the Cindy Yuille and Steve Forsyth Act into law, named to honor the two who died in the shooting.
Safe storage laws generally require that a weapon must be stored unloaded, in a locked container or with a trigger lock, a device that goes over a firearm’s trigger and can be locked and unlocked using a key or numerical combination. While Massachusetts and Oregon enacted these rules for all gun owners, regulations in some states, such as Colorado and California, only apply these laws to gun owners who live with a person who is legally prohibited from possessing a firearm.
The punishments vary. In Colorado, it’s a fine and/or up to a year in jail. In Oregon, it’s a maximum $500 fine, which can rise to $2,000 if a minor obtains a firearm as a result of unsecured storage.
Approximately 4.6 million children in the United States live in a home where a firearm is stored loaded and unlocked, according to a national survey conducted by Harvard Injury Control Research Center in 2015. Safe storage could prevent up to a third of suicide and unintentional firearm deaths, a 2019 study published in JAMA Pediatrics found.
And safe storage regulations are popular.
In a 2019 report from the American Public Media Research Lab, more than three-quarters of the 1,000 Americans surveyed said they support mandating locked gun storage.
Universal background checks — including for private sales
Shannon Flores said her family currently owns somewhere around 37 guns at last count. Flores owns a Springfield XD-S handgun. Her wife, Scarlett, is a gun collector and hunter and has multiple kinds of firearms. Plus they have some .22 caliber rifles that their 9-year-old twins use for “plinking” — or practicing shooting clay pigeons, cans and hay bales.
Like Kemp, Flores emphasizes the importance of safe storage.
She said most of her family’s guns came with a gun lock when they purchased them, they have gun safes for the rifles, small safes for the handguns and Flores’ handgun also has a biometric lock.
But Flores, a Texas-based organizer for Giffords’ Gun Owners for Safety, also pointed to universal background checks — a system that would require all gun buyers to go through the National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) before purchasing a firearm — as a potential solution to curb gun trafficking and help prevent people who are prohibited from owning firearms from obtaining them.
Between November 1998 and September 2021, there have been just over 2 million denials out of more than 400 million federal background checks, according to a report from NICS, though this does not account for denials that may have happened due to a state background check. About half the time, FBI data shows, the reason for denial is because a person was previously convicted of a crime.
When combined with data from states that conduct background checks for point-of-contact sales, more than 300,000 people were stopped from buying a gun illegally in 2020, according to FBI data, raising the rate of barred would-be firearm purchasers from 0.6% to 0.8% over the past two years.
But those numbers only account for licensed gun dealers. Under federal law, unlicensed sellers — such as gun shows or private sales — aren’t required to perform background checks. Fourteen states and Washington, D.C., have laws closing this loophole, according to Giffords Law Center, but a majority do not.
Under the concept of universal background checks, the idea is that no matter where someone buys a gun — at a store, a gun show or through a friend or online — they would have to go through a background check via a nationwide database.
For instance, when Scarlett Flores sold a gun to a friend, they headed over to a local gun range in Houston that holds a FFL — a federal firearms license — and could serve as the point of transfer.
“She explains to clerk that she wants to sell a weapon. There’s an exchange of IDs, it goes through the system, small fee like $15, system is updated to prove this weapon was transferred and there’s a background check that goes with that,” Shannon Flores said.
This not only provides a background check of the purchaser, but it also documents that Scarlett no longer owns that gun and records the name of who now does.
Like safe storage laws, universal background check requirements have been popular in recent years: 89% of Americans support background checks for all gun purchases, including private and gun show sales, according to a 2019 ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Conversations about gun violence — and the ineffectiveness of gun laws — often reference Chicago, where there are restrictive regulations but a significant level of violence. Many people committing crimes with guns, some argue, obtain firearms illegally, so universal background checks wouldn’t make a difference.
According to the Department of Justice’s 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, 43% of people who used a gun in a crime obtained the firearm off the street or in the underground market, 25% got it from an individual, either from a friend or family member or as a gift, 10% purchased the firearm at a retail source like a gun store or pawn shop, 6% stole it and 17% obtained it in some “other” way such as finding it at the scene or the gun was brought by someone else.
But Shannon Flores said having a patchwork of gun laws across the 50 states “makes it really easy to traffic guns” along what’s sometimes called the Iron Pipeline — a route from the South, where gun laws are fairly relaxed, up the East Coast, where gun laws are more restrictive.
“I was one of them, the way I used to think about gun violence and crime in cities … The gun violence makes news all the time,” Kemp said. But then he began “looking into things,” he said. “Everybody says Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, but Wisconsin right next to them has some of weakest gun laws, and Indiana has some of the weakest gun laws … they feed firearms into Chicago.”
According to a 2017 report from the City of Chicago, 60% of guns that are recovered after being used in crimes come from out of state, especially from Indiana.
“Guns that are trafficked between states nearly always originate from states without strong background check laws,” Rob Wilcox, the federal legal director for Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit gun control advocacy organization, told ABC News.
In May, three Army service members stationed at Fort Campbell, on the border of Tennessee and Kentucky, were charged with the illegal purchase and transfer of dozens of firearms to Chicago. An investigation — which began after Chicago police responded to a mass shooting incident and found five firearms at the scene from the Clarksville, Tennessee area — found that the three soldiers had purchased more than 90 guns from federally licensed dealers in the region, most within five months.
Teaching responsibility
Some gun advocates say that regulation is beside the point and that what is needed instead is proper education.
John Harris, a lawyer and the executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, a gun rights advocacy group, argued that for decades, guns were not a “prohibited concept that was demonized.”
Teaching firearms safety in school could be something to consider, he said, “so there is an appreciation that firearms are not some video game entertainment item, but that they are useful — but potentially dangerous — items that you have to know how to use, know how to respect and only use respectfully.”
Some schools do teach gun safety. Utah lawmakers recently passed a bill creating a program to provide a firearm safety course in public schools. Both the Connecticut State Department of Education and the Virginia Board of Education have published guides for schools to develop lessons on firearm safety.
Shannon Flores, said her 9-year-old children, who use .22 caliber rifles for sport, have grown up around guns just like she did.
“We have conversations with them regularly about guns and lethality,” she said. “My kids have gone hunting with my wife … I grew up hunting, too, so I grew up seeing what a bullet can do to a living organism.”
Flores acknowledged that not all children grow up hunting or around guns at all. She pointed to a recent gun safety resource in her state called “Keep Em Safe, Texas.” The campaign has materials on safe storage and offers presentations for both adult and child audiences, but since the campaign was just launched in October 2020 there is no data yet as to its efficacy.
“As gun owners, we have to be the ones sending the message” when it comes to teaching gun safety to children who don’t learn about guns the way she did, Flores said. “Not everyone has the opportunity to explore guns in same manner.”
In Oregon, Kemp worked with a pediatrician to create a script for doctors and nurses to talk to teens and their parents about firearms and safety.
The National Rifle Association also has a program called the Eddie Eagle GunSafe program to prevent firearm accidents among children. It aims to teach kids that if they find a firearm, to stop, don’t touch it, run away and tell a grown-up.
Studies over the years have shown that teaching gun safety to children is generally ineffective in preventing accidental injuries or in reducing children’s interest in playing with guns.
“The most effective way to prevent unintentional gun injuries, suicide and homicide to children and adolescents, research shows, is the absence of guns from homes and communities,” according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which also notes that if a family does still keep guns in the home, then they should be store “locked and unloaded, with ammunition locked separately.”
What happens now?
Despite an acknowledgement that the level of gun violence in the United States is much, much higher than it should be, there’s not agreement among all gun owners when it comes to what to do about it.
Many gun owners support what Flores called “reasonable regulations.” The 2019 American Public Media Research Lab report showed more than two-thirds of gun owners supported safe storage laws. A 2019 ABC News/Washington Post poll found eight in 10 people in gun households supported universal background checks.
But there is still a population of gun owners who don’t see any legislative path forward.
The NRA has been waging a battle against numerous gun control efforts for decades, especially when it comes to legislation — and its message has an effect.
A 2018 study from Monmouth University showed that 78% of gun owners who are not NRA members supported background checks for all firearms purchases. That dropped to 69% of NRA members.
“They just became a lot more militant about their stance on things,” Kemp argued. “They have been incredibly effective communicators with their group, and their members are highly motivated and very vocal.”
The organization also has the NRA Civil Defense Fund, which according to its website, offers “legal and financial assistance to select individuals and organizations defending their right to keep and bear arms.”
The NRA Civil Defense Fund currently has ongoing litigation in 20 states.
Harris, who said he feels the Second Amendment gives Americans the “individual God-given right to possess any weapon they may have a use or need for, for political or self-defense purposes,” said there’s nothing he understands about gun control advocates’ position.
This is a position largely echoed by the NRA.
Attitudes about gun control laws have changed in the U.S., even in the past couple of years.
In a ABC News/Washington Post poll earlier this year, 50% percent of Americans said they would prioritize enacting new gun violence laws, while 43% prefer a focus on protecting the right to own guns.
The level of support is down from 57% after the mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018.
It is also unclear if proposed measures such as universal background checks have maintained their overwhelming popularity as measured in 2019.
This fundamental divide has resulted in gridlock at the national level, even with mass shootings on the rise as well as homicides and other gun violence.
In Flores’ view, gun owners, who understand guns and how they work, need to come together with organizations such as Giffords’ Gun Owners for Safety or Kemp’s Gun Owners for Responsible Ownership to come up with laws they can agree on — and get politicians on board, too.
“The argument that gun safety laws won’t make a difference is moot, because to not try anything is just to continue the bloodshed,” she said.
ABC News’ Marlene Lenthang contributed to this report.
“It’s been such a long time,” Cierra Chub said Monday on “Good Morning America.” “Each [of my kids] came up to visit once, but it’s not the same.”
Cierra Chubb, of South Carolina, was hospitalized with COVID-19 in July, while she was around 37 weeks pregnant.
Just two days after she was admitted to the hospital, she had to undergo an emergency cesarean section because her pregnancy was in distress.
She delivered her third child, a son named Myles, on July 26, two weeks before his due date.
While Myles was born healthy, Cierra Chubb’s condition quickly deteriorated after his birth. She was put on a ventilator and then an ECMO machine, on which she stayed for nearly 30 days, according to her husband, Jamal Chubb, who became the sole caregiver for their three children and documented his wife’s journey on TikTok.
“It’s just one of those things where you’re living life and then all of a sudden everything feels like it’s collapsing,” Jamal Chubb said on “GMA.” “At first I started sharing the story on Tiktok just because I wanted to update people because I kept getting a lot of text messages, and then it grew from updating to informing people on what I’m seeing with COVID firsthand and encouraging people to get vaccinated.”
“It kind of took on a life of its own,” he said, adding that his family has received “so many prayers” from people around the world.
In what Jamal Chubb described as “truly a miracle,” his wife’s condition began to improve over the past two months.
Cierra Chubb, who was not vaccinated when she was diagnosed with COVID-19, was able to walk out of the hospital on Oct. 27. She was cheered on by medical staff who lined the hallways to say goodbye.
“I had been there so long that I’d gotten to know the nursing staff and the respiratory specialists very well, but I wasn’t expecting that there were going to be that many people invested in my wellness,” she said. “It was incredible.”
Her recovery continued at a rehabilitation center — where she relearned everything from walking to writing — until Monday, when she was able to go home.
“I’ve been crying in the car all morning on the way up here,” Jamal Chubb said of his final drive from the family’s home to the rehabilitation center. “It is just surreal that this is the last time I’ll have to make this drive and she’ll be home with our family.”
He said his wife’s last words before she was put on a ventilator were, ‘I’m coming back to my family,’ and he put those words on his own social media so he could use them as motivation.
“That’s the hope I held onto as you progressed,” Jamal Chubb said to his wife. “It gave me hope every day to read it because that’s what I knew you wanted to do, you wanted to come back.”
Cierra Chubb said she was amazed at how her husband stepped up as a single dad to their three children, ages 7, 2 and nearly 4 months.
“Raising kids by yourself is just taxing,” she said. “When you get married, you are never expecting to have to do that part on your own, it’s a partnership and Jamal and I have always shared things equally.”
“He’s a very involved dad so I think this jump for him versus maybe your average guy wasn’t that big, but with me being sick on top of it, has to have been exhausting to say the least,” she said. “He’s been a rock star the entire time.”
