(SPRINGFIELD, Mo.) — The city of Springfield, Missouri, announced Monday that it was canceling a major summer festival as COVID-19 surges in the region.
The Birthplace of Route 66 Festival, which was scheduled for Aug. 13-14 and typically includes live music and a classic car parade, has been called off for the second year in a row due to COVID-19. In 2019, the last year the festival was held, it drew 65,000 attendees over two days, and it was expected to host 75,000 this year, according to the city.
“With our region’s low vaccination rate against COVID-19, the resulting surge of infections are overwhelming our hospitals and making our community sick,” Cora Scott, director of public information and civic engagement for the city, said in a statement. “We feel it is just not safe to bring tens of thousands of people from all over the world to this community for any reason.”
Missouri’s vaccination rate trails the national average. As of Monday, 46% of residents had received at least one dose, and 40% were fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with 56% of all Americans who’ve gotten at least one shot and 48% who are fully vaccinated.
In Greene County, where Springfield is located, vaccination rates are even lower than the statewide average. Just 39% of Greene County residents have received one dose of the vaccine, and 34% are fully vaccinated, according to state health department data.
Missouri is among a growing list of states that have seen rising infections, with new cases increasing 64% over the last two weeks, from 796 to 1,304, with a total of 9,100 cases per week, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services. Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and Nevada lead the nation with the highest weekly case rates per capita, which translates into more than 100 infections per 100,000 residents. New COVID-19 hospital admissions also rose 40% over the same two-week span.
In Springfield, which is in the southwest part of the state, the surge is straining hospitals and front-line workers say patients are becoming sicker more quickly.
Erin Baker, a nurse at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, told ABC News that the hospital has had seen an uptick in patients who needed to be intubated.
“A lot of healthier people, younger people in their 20s, 30s, 40s are getting this delta variant or COVID a lot quicker,” Baker said. “Their health deteriorates very quickly.”
Last month, the state health department warned that the delta variant, which is more transmissible than the original form of the virus and is especially dangerous to unvaccinated and partially vaccinated people, had “become prevalent in communities throughout Missouri.”
(WASHINGTON) — As more people return to the skies, the number of unruly passenger incidents onboard planes continues to skyrocket.
Last week alone, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported an increase of 150 unruly passenger cases, making it the worst weekly report of the summer.
The FAA said on Tuesday that it has received over 3,400 reports of unruly behavior from passengers since the beginning of the year. Of those incidents, 75% involved passengers who refused to wear face coverings.
In one of the most recent cases, a woman from Florida was arrested after allegedly refusing to wear a mask on a Delta Air Lines flight.
Video of the incident appears to show the woman argue with police officers on board the aircraft as they ask her to deplane. She was then restrained and escorted off.
Adelaide Schrowang is facing several charges and remains in police custody on a $56,000 bond.
The FAA is still enforcing its zero-tolerance policy for in-flight disruptions which could lead to fines as high as $52,500 and up to 20 years in prison. The agency has looked into more than 550 potential violations of federal law this year — the highest number since 1995.
Last month, a coalition of airline lobbying groups and unions called on the Justice Department to go a step further and prosecute unruly passengers “to the fullest extent of the law.”
“The federal government should send a strong and consistent message through criminal enforcement that compliance with federal law and upholding aviation safety are of paramount importance,” the letter said.
Flight attendants are often the first responders during these in-flight confrontations, and they have seen them become more volatile.
An unruly passenger allegedly punched a Southwest Airlines flight attendant in the face last month, knocking her two front teeth out.
“It tops the chart of the most egregious things I’ve ever heard of,” Lyn Montgomery, a spokesperson for the union that represents Southwest flight attendants, told ABC News. “It’s unbelievable and really hard to understand the level of aggression that has been exhibited towards our flight crews. It just seems that when people get on board an aircraft they’re feeling more angry than they used to feel.”
The spike in unruly passenger reports prompted the TSA to resume crew member self-defense training this month.
The voluntary training program, which was put on hold due to the pandemic, provides flight crew members with techniques “for responding against an attacker in a commercial passenger or cargo aircraft,” including self-defense measures and ways to identify and deter potential threats.
“It should be a recurring training so that we can create that muscle memory that you need to be able to respond at a moment’s notice,” Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, told ABC News. “But even taking the course one time changed my attitude, gave me a better understanding about how to stand, how to hold myself, how to protect myself if someone is coming at me.”
(NEW YORK) — With his sentencing hearing just days away, the man convicted of murdering Mollie Tibbetts is asking for a new trial, claiming he was unwittingly framed by the real killer who he claims confessed to the crime.
Attorneys for Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a Mexican national, filed a motion asking that the jury verdict in the case be set aside based on the new evidence they received from prosecutors following the trial.
The 26-year-old Bahena Rivera is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday and is expected to receive a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.
But he claims the real killer confessed to at least two people that he and a sex trafficker fatally stabbed the 20-year-old University of Iowa student.
Bahena Rivera’s attorneys, husband-and-wife team Chad and Jennifer Frese, wrote in a motion filed on Friday that two people, unbeknownst to each other, came forward on May 26 — the day Bahena Rivera testified in his own defense — and identified by name a man they claim confessed to them on separate occasions that he participated in Tibbetts’ 2018 slaying.
“That Mexican shouldn’t be in jail for killing Mollie Tibbett, because I raped her and killed her,” the man, whose name has not been released, allegedly told one of the two witnesses, according to documents filed in the Poweshiek County, Iowa, district court.
Prosecutors from the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, according to the defense motion, informed Bahena Rivera’s attorneys about the alleged confessions after prosecturors received word from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation that an inmate had come to a chaplain and later an assistant warden claiming that another inmate, whose name has not been released, told him he and a 50-year-old sex trafficker killed Tibbetts after her disappearance garnered national attention.
The inmate purportedly claimed he first saw Tibbetts bound and gagged at a sex-trafficking “trap house” owned by his alleged accomplice. He claimed, according to the defense motion, his alleged accomplice grew worried after federal authorities searching for Tibbetts showed up at a house next door to his.
The inmate allegedly claimed his accomplice devised a plan for them to stab Tibbetts and “dump her body near a Hispanic male in order to make it appear that the Hispanic male committed the crime.”
“It was reported that this Department of Corrections inmate was coming forward at this time because he had heard the testimony of Cristhian Bahena Rivera on television, and it was at that point, he realized that the information given him by this other individual was likely true,” the defense’s motion for a new trial reads.
A second individual contacted the Mahaska County, Iowa, Sheriff’s Office with a similar story involving the same inmate who reportedly confessed, but deputies said the witness appeared to be under the influence and dismissed the story as not being credible.
In his testimony during the trial, Bahena Rivera claimed he was kidnapped at his home near Brooklyn, Iowa, by two armed masked men, who ordered him to drive to where Tibbetts was expected to be jogging. He claimed that when they found Tibbetts, one of the men stabbed her to death, put her body in the trunk of Bahena Rivera’s car and made him drive to a cornfield, where the young woman’s badly decomposed remains were discovered a month after she went missing.
Bahena Rivera said that while he placed Tibbetts’ body in the cornfield, he did not kill her.
His stint on the witness stand came after homicide investigators testified that Bahena Rivera confessed to killing Tibbetts after he spotted her jogging and she rebuffed his advances. Prosecutors also presented surveillance video evidence showing Bahena Rivera’s black Chevrolet Malibu circling the area Tibbetts was jogging in around the time she went missing on July 18, 2018.
In his closing argument, prosecutor Scott Brown dismissed Bahena Rivera’s testimony as a “figment of his imagination.”
Bahena Rivera claimed during his testimony that he didn’t tell investigators about the masked men because they threatened to harm his former girlfriend, the mother of his daughter, if he did
The jury in the case deliberated for seven hours over two days before unanimously finding Bahena Rivera guilty of first-degree murder.
A spokesperson for the Iowa Attorney General’s Office declined to comment Tuesday but told ABC News that prosecutors plan to file a response to the defense’s motion for a new trial either Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday.
Bahena Rivera’s defense attorneys also filed court papers asking that an inmate at Iowa’s Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility be brought to the Poweshiek County courthouse on the day of Bahena Rivera’s sentencing hearing. The document does not say if the inmate is one of the people who came forward with the new claims.
(NEW YORK) — An alleged sexual assault victim who says she was held against her will for months was rescued after she left notes in public restrooms pleading for help, according to authorities.
In one note she wrote, “If I don’t make it tell my family I love them,” according to a criminal complaint.
Police say the first cry for help was found Thursday, stuck to a mirror in the women’s bathroom of a Walmart in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh.
The note was from a woman who said she had been sexually and physically assaulted, and was being held against her will, by 38-year-old Corey Brewer, who was armed with a knife, according to the complaint. The note also gave an address where she was being held and a description of a car, and begged the reader to call 911.
The alleged victim’s ex told police she and Brewer were in a relationship and that she filed a protection from abuse order against Brewer in August 2020, they said. The order expired one month later.
Police went to the address written on the note. Though no one answered the door, according to the complaint, officers said they could hear furniture being moved around inside.
Officers called Brewer’s number and asked to speak to the victim privately, but Brewer allegedly told the officers he wouldn’t take her off speaker phone, the complaint said. In the speaker phone conversation, Brewer told the officers the two were on vacation in New York, and the victim told police she was with her boyfriend.
Two days later, on Saturday, a second note signed by the same victim was found stuck to a mirror in a women’s restroom at the Fallingwater museum and landmark in western Pennsylvania, the complaint said. Police say video surveillance from Fallingwater showed Brewer and the alleged victim there.
The note said she’d been held since May 1 and was not on vacation, and again pleaded with the reader to call 911, the complaint said. The note said “she heard the police knocking at the residence, that the abuse hasn’t stopped, and please don’t give up.”
Police executed a search warrant early Sunday, rescuing the alleged victim and taking Brewer into custody, the complaint said. The woman told police Brewer confiscated her phone and she wasn’t able to escape.
She said Brewer sexually assaulted her, and that he also punched and strangled her numerous times, the complaint said. She claimed Brewer also threatened to kill her and her children if she tried to leave.
The woman also alleged Brewer took nude photos of her against her will and used a knife to cut her foot, according to the complaint.
Brewer was charged with sexual assault, strangulation and unlawful restraint. He did not have an attorney as of Tuesday afternoon and is due in court for a preliminary hearing on July 22.
(NEW YORK) — A woman is on the run from the police after driving a car through the lobby of a hotel-turned-homeless shelter in New York City.
The incident occurred just after 11 p.m. Monday in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx in New York City when police say a woman — who may have been a resident of the homeless shelter — drove a car straight through the front lobby of the Ramada by Wyndham on Gerard Avenue after an alleged ongoing dispute with the shelter, according to ABC News’ New York City station WABC-TV.
It is currently unclear what the woman and the homeless shelter had been feuding over but authorities say it boiled over when the woman left and returned by crashing her car into the building, leaving three people with minor injuries in the process. Their conditions are currently unknown.
Authorities said that police have previously been called to the homeless shelter regarding the ongoing dispute, according to WABC.
The aftermath of the crash was chaotic, and the vehicle could be seen deep into the hotel’s lobby and next to the elevators.
“I’m hearing people screaming. I don’t know what’s going on. I heard a big boom and everybody screaming,” eyewitness Ann Marie Parker told WABC following the incident. “I smell gas. I have asthma. So, I go downstairs on the elevator. I get out of the elevator and she’s driving towards me. I backed up, like, oh my God. I almost had a heart attack.”
Police say that the suspect fled the scene of the crime on foot and is still at large following the incident, according to WABC.
The hotel was not evacuated, and the New York City Department of Buildings responded to check out the safety and integrity of the structure.
This incident comes as New York City works to evict thousands of homeless people temporarily housed in hotels during the pandemic, according to WABC. The most recent effort, however, was recently stalled following a motion that was filed by the Legal Aid Society arguing that these evictions violate the rights of people living in the shelters.
(BALTIMORE) — Two Baltimore, Maryland, police officers were shot Tuesday morning in the parking lot of Security Square Mall, according to authorities.
Baltimore County police said the officers’ injuries are non-life-threatening. The suspect, who was also shot, is dead, police said.
Baltimore police said the two officers involved are on the Warrant Apprehension Task Force. They were working with the U.S. Marshals regional fugitive task force at the time of the shooting, according to a law enforcement source.
Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison is heading to the hospital, police said.
Additional information was not immediately available.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(BALTIMORE) — Two Baltimore, Maryland, police officers were shot Tuesday morning and are in unknown conditions, according to the city’s Fraternal Order of Police.
Baltimore police said the two officers involved are on the Warrant Apprehension Task Force. They were working with the U.S. Marshals regional fugitive task force at the time of the shooting, according to a law enforcement source.
Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison is heading to the hospital, police said.
Additional information was not immediately available.
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — A Taco Bell employee was arrested on Monday in Nashville, Tennessee after she and her coworkers allegedly set off fireworks inside the restaurant, causing the building to catch fire as they watched from afar and accidentally locked themselves out.
The incident occurred on July 5, at one of the fast-food chain’s locations in Tennessee’s capital city. But the investigation into how the blaze began took a turn on July 8, when the restaurant’s management called local fire investigators to report that surveillance cameras had captured their employees playing with fireworks inside of the establishment, according to a statement released Monday by the Nashville Fire Department.
“According to the surveillance footage, the employees can be seen locking the doors to the dining room to keep customers from entering the business,” the fire department said in the statement. “The video then shows the employees running around the inside of the store with fireworks in their hands.”
At one point in the video, the employees can be seen going into the men’s bathroom, where they are out of sight of the camera for a short period of time, before returning to the lobby and placing an item into a trash can near the door, according to the Nashville Fire Department.
“Employees are seen using their cell phone cameras to record the trash can from the outside of the restaurant,” the fire department said. “Employees then realized they locked themselves out of the restaurant. The employees tried unsuccessfully to get back into the store. When the employees saw the trash can start to smoke, they called 911 for help.”
The footage has not been released.
Firefighters arrived on scene a short time later and were able to force their way into the restaurant to extinguish the flames.
The Nashville Fire Department estimated that the fire caused more than $30,000 worth of damage to the inside of the restaurant. Investigators also found damage inside of the men’s bathroom where it appeared fireworks were ignited inside of the trash can.
The restaurant’s shift leader, 25-year-old Courtney Mayes, was taken into custody on Monday and charged with felony aggravated arson. She is being held on a $5,000 bond at the Davidson County Jail in Nashville.
“Arson is one of the costliest human-made disasters,” the Nashville Fire Department said in the statement. “Arson indirectly contributes to increased insurance premiums, higher medical costs, lost jobs, lost income, and the increased costs of fire services.”
The investigation into the incident is ongoing, and the Nashville Fire Department said it expects additional arrests “in the coming days.”
(DENVER) — Denver law enforcement officers were concerned they had encountered a mass shooting plot in the works when they learned one of four suspects arrested on gun and drug charges at a hotel near the venue of this week’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game had requested a room with a balcony, according to police reports.
Police were called to the Maven Hotel in downtown Denver on Friday after a hotel housekeeper entered the room of one of the suspects to clean it and noticed multiple firearms, according to probable cause statements filed in the incident and obtained by ABC News.
On Sunday, the FBI released a statement saying, “We have no reason to believe this incident was connected to terrorism or a threat directed at the All-Star Game.”
A preliminary assessment indicated the stash of guns seized at the hotel appears to be connected to a possible illegal transaction involving drugs and guns, according to an internal law enforcement memo obtained by ABC News.
Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen said at a news conference Sunday that the investigation is in its early stages and that “nothing has been ruled out.”
“We don’t know what we don’t know,” Pazen said. “That’s what the investigation is all about. We need to identify exactly, to the extent possible, why individuals were here in the first place, why in proximity to downtown. We don’t have those answers.”
When Denver police officers arrived at the hotel Friday night, staff directed them to a white Mercedes that reportedly belonged to one of the suspects and was parked in the hotel’s garage, according to the police affidavits. Officers went to investigate the vehicle, and when they peered through the windows they allegedly saw in “plain view” a rifle, bulletproof vest and a high-capacity ammunition magazine, the statements read.
Hotel employees told police that the person who owned the Mercedes had rented two rooms at the hotel, including the one where the housekeeper noticed the weapons, the documents state. The employees told police that the person who rented the rooms had specifically requested a room with a balcony that overlooked an alleyway and was supposed to check out on Friday but had extended his stay for several more days, according to the statements.
“It should be noted that this information was concerning to offices due to the location of the rifle, ballistic vest, duty belt and requesting a room with a balcony, coupled with the fact that the 2021 Major League Baseball All-Star Game events happening in the immediate area of the hotel,” the police statement read. “There is a propensity for mass casualty incidents in scenarios such as the above where many people are gathered together in a small area for a single event.”
The MLB All-Star Game is scheduled to be played Tuesday night at Coors Field, which is about a block from the Maven Hotel. Festivities around the game started over the weekend, and the event’s popular Home Run Derby is scheduled for Monday night.
Police obtained warrants to search the two rooms and in one of them found 12 guns and a large amount of suspected heroin and ecstasy pills, according to the statements.
Officers set up surveillance on the other room and detained a man, identified as Gabriel Rodriguez, 48, when he walked out, the police documents state. Rodriguez had a backpack with him that allegedly contained a loaded KelTec 9mm semiautomatic handgun with an obliterated serial number, an ammunition magazine, a large quantity of suspected methamphetamine and black tar heroin, according to the statements.
Police also seized about $1,120 cash they allegedly found on Rodriguez, according to the statements.
Rodriguez and two other suspects, Ricardo Rodriguez, 44, and Kanoelehua Serikawa, 43, appeared in court on Monday and were ordered to be held on bonds ranging from $50,000 to $75,000. The fourth suspect, Richard Platt, 42, made his first appearance in court on Sunday, and a judge ordered him to remain in jail in lieu of a $50,000 cash bond.
None of the suspects have entered a plea. They are being held on weapons charges and possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, according to Denver police.
They were all ordered to return to court on Monday. It’s unclear if any of them have retained attorneys or are waiting to be appointed public defenders.
During Monday’s court hearing, a prosecutor alleged that Ricardo Rodriguez was “the leader of the entire incident” and the one who rented both rooms at the Maven Hotel.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation told ABC News that Platt, Gabriel Rodriguez and Ricardo Rodriguez are all convicted felons and that Platt has previously been convicted on weapons and drug charges.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. – With lockdowns closing businesses and athletic seasons getting canceled, Americans took to the outdoors in 2020. People walked, ran, and picked up sports like golf and tennis. Many also took trips to many of the nation’s public lands.
The New River Gorge in West Virginia was named the country’s 63rd National Park as part of the December COVID-19 relief bill, and although always well-known regionally, it has quickly turned into a popular outdoor destination.
“We have seen an uptick this year since the designation,” park superintendent Lizzie Watts tells ABC News. “We hope that uptick is tied to two things: that COVID gave a lot of people the opportunity to learn how safe being outdoors are, and [also] encouraged families to take hikes and go outside where we can actually do things.”
One of the oldest rivers in the entire world, fifty three miles of the New River flows through the park, surrounded by over 70,000 acres worth of scaling rock and lush green trees. The park is a haven for mountain bikers, hikers, rock climbers, and white water rafters. Visitors can also harness in and walk across a beam along the New River Gorge Bridge—one of West Virginia’s most-recognized landmarks.
With a stream of visitors coming in, Watts recommends people plan ahead of their trips:
“Know what the popular trails are, and then also have an alternative… Try to do it Monday through Friday if you can, early morning, later in the evening when there will be less people because part of your experience is you want that grandeur of enjoying it to yourself or with your party.”
Local businesses are expressing their excitement about the park’s new designation.
“This is a huge light that can be shone on how awesome it is to live here,” says Adam Stevens, the owner of the Arrowhead Bike Farm and Campground in Fayetteville.
Stevens tells ABC News his business saw a spike during COVID-19 pandemic, and anticipates another as a result of the National Park designation:
“Not only are we this amazing, iconic geological preservation… we’re also wildly popular activity point for outdoor people. So, that was what we had before all this happened. Then, through COVID we saw a spike. Now we have this National Park thing which brings a different type of visitor.”
At the Fayetteville equipment shop Water Stone Outdoors, co-owner Maura Kistler says they too noticed an increase in visitation:
“Foot traffic has been off the hook. We sit and look across the shop at each other all the time and I’m like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ And that is a great problem to have.”
She tells ABC News that businesses have been waiting for this moment and feel ready, but there is some concern about how the park’s infrastructure will hold up:
“The New River Gorge is National Park-standard ready… we just need a few more parking lots and need to get better about distributing visitors across our park. We need to use all the different trails and all the different overlooks. It’s been really easy to just send people to the standard spots and that’s doing visitors a disservice. We just need to get smarter about that and that’s what we’re working on now.”
There is another concern for one group in the region: public land access. It was a hotly debated topic as the state considered whether the area should be designated a National Park.
“A lot of us hunters… we feel the land was taken from us. That’s my stance on it, and I believe of a lot of other local people,” says Larry Case, writer for the blog Guns & Cornbread. He spent decades as a conservation officer and hunter in the New River Gorge.
Hunting is steeped in tradition in West Virginia, and was even one of the many outdoor activities that saw a pandemic boost.
Hunting did not stop in the New River Gorge, however. Changing the designation from a National River to a National Park and Preserve permitted hunting in most areas. Approximately ten percent of the land is a National Park, where hunting is no longer allowed. The other 90 percent is a preserve, where hunting is allowed.
Advocates say hunters lost just a small portion of land. Case tells ABC News, however, losing any land is impactful for hunters:
“Hunters need to be concerned about public land access… and we didn’t need to change the area to a National Park for the protection of the area… We’re not against tourism, not against National Parks. I just personally don’t see why they had to take this area away from hunters.”
There is a genuine understanding between competing groups. Maura Kistler told ABC what hunters experience with the National Park designation does amount to a loss:
“I know Larry Case. He’s a good man. The hunters have been expressing their concerns and dissatisfaction. They lost some hunting… these are hunting grounds that have been used for generations and that is never an easy thing to accept.”
Park superintendent Lizzie Watts acknowledged the role hunters play in conservation efforts and in curbing a growing deer population in the region.
“A lot of hunters are some of the best conservationists in the world… and we have a huge population of deer in particular… I truly think the best decisions are compromises… both of the parties feel very passionate about what they believe. I think we truly all respected his [Larry Case’s] side of the equation… the compromise that the senators came up with was a Park and Preserve where we get to do both.”
She says there was an effort to compromise and, ultimately, to try to do what is best for the park:
“I think the American public and the national visitors are the true winners because we have a place at this stage, and more people will know how unique this wonderful ecosystem is.”
Listen to the report on the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve here.
