(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden publicly received his COVID-19 booster shot on Monday afternoon as his administration promotes new booster guidance that has spurred some confusion among Americans on when to get a third dose.
“Like I did with my first and second COVID-19 vaccination shot, I’m about to get my booster shot and do it publicly. That’s because the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, the Center for Diseases Control and Prevention, the CDC, looked at all the data, completed their review, and determined the boosters for the Pfizer vaccine — others will come later, maybe, I assume — but the Pfizer vaccine are safe and effective,” Biden began.
Delivering remarks ahead of receiving a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the South Court Auditorium, provided Biden the opportunity to address some of that confusion.
He joked, “Now I know it doesn’t look like it, but I am over 65 — I wish — I’m way over. And that’s why I’m getting my booster shot today.”
The president already received his first dose of the vaccine on Dec. 21, 2020, and his second dose on Jan. 11, 2021. At age 78, Biden qualifies for a third shot under the new CDC guidance issued last week recommending booster shots to older Americans at least six months after their first series of shots.
Additionally, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky overruled her agency’s independent advisory panel last Friday by also adding a recommendation for a third dose for Americans ages 18 to 64 considered high risk to COVID-19 due to where they work.
Biden repeated the administration’s messaging that while booster shots are rolling out, baseline vaccinations are the priority.
“The bottom line is that you’re fully vaccinated, and you’re highly protected now from severe illness, even if you get COVID-19. You’re safe and we’re going to do everything we can to keep it that way, with the boosters. But let me be clear, boosters are important, but the most important thing we need to do is get more people vaccinated,” he said.
“The vast majority of Americans are doing the right thing. Over 77% of adults have gotten at least one shot. About 23% haven’t gotten any shots. And that, that distinct minority is causing an awful lot of us, a lot of damage for the rest of the country,” he added.
“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. That’s why I’m moving forward with vaccination requirements wherever I can,” Biden said.
As Biden walked over to receive his shot, he did a double-take back to the podium to put his mask back on, in apparent modeling of CDC recommendations.
He said first lady Jill Biden, at age 70 and working in a school, considered a high-risk environment for COVID-19, would receive her shot booster soon too.
On ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday, Walensky acknowledged the confusion around the decision and the categories of people it applies to as the administration promotes the rollout of booster shots.
Asked also on CBS about Biden’s comment last week that boosters could be offered to the general population anyway, despite the more narrow recommendations from the Food and Drug Administration and CDC, Walensky said, “I recognize that confusion.”
“Right now, our recommendation is for these limited people in the population, over 65, high-risk workers, high-risk community occupations, as well as high-risk by comorbidities,” she said.
On when the general population will be eligible, Walensky said it’s being looked at every few weeks but did not offer the same optimism as the president had last week.
“We are evaluating this science in real-time. We are meeting every several weeks now to evaluate the science. The science may very well show that the rest of the population needs to be boosted. And we will provide those guidances as soon as we have the science to inform them,” she said.
The new CDC current policy does not apply for boosters to be given to people initially vaccinated with the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson shots.
(NEW YORK) — In 2009, when Dashauna Priest was just 9 years old, her third grade class project was to write letters of gratitude to military veterans. Priest’s letter was sent to Frank Grasberger, a World War II veteran, and he’s kept it ever since.
“It meant so much to me and touched my heart so much,” Grasberger told “Good Morning America.” “Keeping it with me made me feel like I was with her, protecting her.”
In addition to the note of thanks, Priest drew a helmet with flowers coming out of it and an American flag on the letter, which Grasberger said “really touched” him.
“I felt like how could such a young girl understand what war was and how could she be so kind writing to someone she didn’t even know?” he said.
Grasberger knew he wanted to meet Priest immediately after reading the letter but was unable to find her, he said. Jill Pawloski, an employee at VITALIA Senior Residences in Strongsville, Ohio, where Grasberger lives, stepped in and tracked Priest down on social media.
“I reached out and sent her a private message explaining the situation,” Pawloski told “GMA,” adding that Grasberger was unaware that she was searching for Priest on his behalf. “I then asked her if she’d be interested in coming to our community to surprise Frank and without hesitation she said yes. I was thrilled and so full of joy that I could do this for Frank. He has such a huge heart and I knew this would fill his heart up.”
Priest, now 21, told “GMA ” that Pawloski’s message went to the requests folder on Instagram, which she “usually doesn’t open” but for some reason did that day.
“It’s so ironic because two weeks before I had opened up my memory box and went through it and I actually picked up [Grasberger’s] letter and read it,” Priest said. “So when she had messaged me, I had opened it around 12 at night and I actually cried because it was like, ‘Wow, this is crazy I just read the letter.'”
In response to Priest’s original letter, Grasberger wrote her a letter back in 2009, but he said he “never knew if she ever received it.”
After 12 years, the pair were able to finally meet on July 23 of this year. With the help of Grasberger’s family, Pawloski was able to keep the meeting a secret from Frank so that it could be a surprise.
“We told him that someone was coming in to interview him about his story,” Pawloski said. “We were all in tears watching [them] meet for the first time. It was beautiful and heartwarming and showed what a little act of kindness can do for two strangers.”
“Oh God, I was in shock like it couldn’t be the girl,” Grasberger said. “I never thought I’d find her let alone see or meet her. It was amazing. I went through a box of Kleenex.”
Priest said of the meeting: “It was amazing. He’s a very amazing person. He has a great personality. I was really thrilled to meet him. He was just full of life.”
Grasberger, along with his family and Pawloski, had another surprise waiting for them. In a full-circle moment, Priest arrived wearing her National Guard uniform as she herself has joined the military.
“No one had known I was in the military so when I showed up in my uniform it sparked something in everyone to start crying and it made me cry,” Priest said, adding that she’s not typically a crier.
“I’m so proud of her,” Grasberger said. “She’s like a third daughter to me. She has become such a wonderful nice girl. I hope her son knows one day what a difference she made in my life.”
(WASHINGTON) — When Anita Hill accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of unwanted advances and lewd comments when she worked for him, she says it changed “just about every aspect” of her life.
Thirty years after Hill delivered testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about Thomas, she is still a “crusader” — not just on the topic of sexual harassment but also on the larger issue of gender violence.
“I started out with sexual harassment and I thought that was the issue that I would deal with but I started hearing from people who had told me about intimate partner violence and then there are people who wrote me, [who] spoke about their experience with sexual assault and rape,” Hill told “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts. “And what I started to understand was that there was this connection and that you couldn’t really separate them, because at the heart of it was the same problem.”
Hill’s testimony in 1991 before a panel of 14 male senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee gripped the nation. The senator who led the hearing was President Joe Biden, who, in recent years, has publicly apologized for the treatment Hill received while publicly testifying against Thomas.
Hill told Roberts she feels that Biden’s personal apology to her “wasn’t enough.”
“I’m not sure that he quite understood how much harm the Senate hearings and his control, or lack of control, of those hearings did to all of us,” she said of Biden. “I think, unfortunately, the personal apology wasn’t enough. What I really wanted was somebody who was going to commit to doing something about this massive problem of gender violence that we have in this country that’s hurting everyone.”
Thomas would go on to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, a position he continues to hold.
Hill writes in her new book, “Believing: Our 30-Year Journey to End Gender Violence,” that her testimony against Thomas not only changed her own life but sparked a national conversation on gender violence.
The conversation has been propelled over the past decades by actions like the Me Too movement, founded by Tarana Burke in 2006, and Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony in 2018 against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but much is left to be done, according to Hill.
“We can, first of all, change the narrative culturally and stop telling people, telling children, that what’s happening to them is ‘not so bad’ because that keeps people from coming forward,” said Hill, adding that more needs to be done to fix what happens once people come forward with allegations.
“I still am not at the point where I can say I advise everyone to come forward. I don’t,” she said. “What I advise people to do is understand the process that you’re coming forward into, because we still have processes that are not necessarily meant to solve the problem of sexual harassment, or rape or sexual assault. We’ve got to change the processes if we in fact want people to feel confident and trust that they are going to be treated fairly when they go into them.”
In the United States, 81% of women and 43% of men report experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
When it comes to domestic violence, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Hill, whose book goes on sale Tuesday, said she still believes “change is possible” 30 years later.
“I’m believing that change is possible. I’m believing that we deserve better,” she said. “We deserve better systems. We deserve better attention. We deserve leadership that will call out and acknowledge this problem for the public crisis that it is.”
“I’m talking about the president, as well as the president and CEO of every company and university,” Hill said. “Make that commitment to use your resources to stop this problem, and I believe that we can do it.”
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 686,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.7 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. is continuing to sink on the list of global vaccination rates, currently ranking No. 46, according to data compiled by The Financial Times. Just 64.7% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Sep 27, 9:07 am
CDC ‘enthusiastically awaiting’ Pfizer vaccine data on ages 5 to 11
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said her agency is “enthusiastically awaiting” data from Pfizer on the use of its COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11.
On Sunday, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on This Week that he expects the company to submit the data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration within the coming days.
“As soon as they get submitted to the FDA, I know the FDA is urgently planing to review this data,” Walensky told ABC News’ Whit Johnson in an interview Monday on Good Morning America.
“It will go from the FDA to the CDC and we will review it with similar urgency,” she added, “and I’m hoping in the order of weeks.”
Sep 27, 8:49 am
CDC director stands by decision to overrule panel on Pfizer boosters
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said she stands by her decision to overrule her agency’s independent advisory panel by adding a recommendation for people considered high risk due to where they work to get a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
“This scientific process goes from an advisory committee at the FDA, to the authorization of the FDA, to an advisory committee at the CDC and then recommendations from the CDC. It’s a very transparent, scientific, public process and I listened intently,” Walensky told ABC News’ Whit Johnson in an interview Monday on Good Morning America.
“I fully endorsed the recommendations from the CDC advisory committee for boosters for those over the age of 65, as well as for those with underlying conditions,” she continued. “And then I also endorsed — in full alignment with the FDA and many people at the CDC — for boosters for people with high risk exposures, like those who work in occupational settings or in group settings or live in group settings, and I felt after listening to all of the science that that was actually the best move for public health.”
On Thursday night, the panel voted unanimously to recommend Pfizer boosters for seniors and other medically vulnerable Americans, six months after their second dose. People younger than 49, however, should only get a third dose if the benefits outweigh the risks, the panel said — a personal consideration to discuss with their doctor. Some panelists said that without further data, they weren’t comfortable with automatically including younger people because of their jobs.
(NEW YORK) — Angela McCray left her job as a pharmacist to homeschool her three children as pandemic lockdowns closed public schools in Monroe, North Carolina. So when public schools in the region announced reopening plans, she was excited to return her daughter for in-class instruction.
But McCray became concerned when her school district — Union County Public Schools — didn’t announce any official plans to test students or even require masks to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
“I was being patient knowing that they would see the numbers increase and would change their mind,” she said.
That never happened.
In fact, the school district decided to roll back its quarantine and contract-tracing requirements for students with positive cases, citing the need to ease the workload of school staff.
It was a move that shocked and angered parents.
“As a pharmacist, as a mother, I couldn’t stand by and continue to watch that happen,” McCray said. “We had to start getting action in place to figure out how we can push our elected officials to step in and make some changes.”
The district only reversed course on its quarantine requirements when the state threatened to sue. But it still has no plans to offer COVID-19 testing to students or to require masks, despite both being recommended by public health officials.
“Testing is not offered by the school system, and it is offered within the county,” said Tahira Stalberte, assistant superintendent for communications and community relations at Union County Public Schools. “If anyone wants a test, they can call our local health department and they can get them a test.”
Six months after President Joe Biden offered states $10 billion so schools could routinely test students and staff to prevent asymptomatic cases, the school year is being hindered by the virus.
Some 925,000 children have become infected since school began this fall, according to data collected by the American Academy of Pediatrics, a staggering spike that has pushed many more kids into quarantine.
Some states have rejected their share of the $10 billion in federal funds for COVID-19 testing in schools while others have been painfully slow in actually implementing virus mitigation plans.
A survey of the nation’s 100 largest school districts from the Center on Reinventing Public Education found that less than 15% of those schools are utilizing federal funding dollars to establish COVID-19 in-school screening programs.
A spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department said the federal government has disbursed the funds. But when it comes to the utilization of those dollars, it’s up to the states to distribute the money to those that need it, including school districts.
The options for school districts range from working with the state government to stand up a screening program, outsourcing the testing and screening process to a third party vendor, or completely overseeing the student testing process themselves, which many school administrators — particularly in smaller districts — have described as an impossible task without additional support.
The challenges in implementing steady in-school testing and mitigation strategies have been particularly acute in the South and Midwest.
Texas has reported more than 125,000 positive COVID-19 cases in the first month since schools in the state reopened. Now with the spike in student caseloads, many Texas school districts are rethinking their testing strategies in the hopes that immediate changes will keep schools open and curb spread of the virus.
After two teachers working in the Connally Independent School District — serving the Waco, Texas area — died from coronavirus-related complications, masks were mandated for every student and staff member. The requirement placed the school district in direct opposition to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who signed legislation banning mask mandates.
“With the loss of two beloved teachers, we know that concerns for physical and mental health are heightened,” said Wesley Holt, Connally ISD superintendent, in a memo to parents. “We want to assure you that we are focused on measures to take care of our students and staff.”
As matters like testing and mask-wearing remain fraught, highly politicized issues, school districts that find themselves in disagreement with their governors on these matters have had to adopt a go-it-alone approach.
Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds rejected $95 million in federal funds offered to the state for in-school coronavirus testing, complicating matters for school districts urgently looking for funding to establish testing.
“There is confusion about funds Iowa had available last year for testing and contact tracing supposedly being returned before school districts knew they were available,” said Phillip Roeder, a Des Moines Public Schools spokesperson, of the state’s returned federal COVID-19 testing dollars.
In one of the nation’s wealthiest counties, Fairfax County in northern Virginia, officials have been slow to establish any kind of formal testing regimen for students and staff.
“We are exploring a public-private partnership to offer testing and vaccinations across schools and expect to have more soon,” said a Fairfax County Public Schools spokesperson in a statement. “Our current layered mitigation strategy has meant that less than 0.2 % of our in-school student and staff population has been quarantined due to a COVID exposure.”
Some school districts that have been slow to implement systematic testing have found themselves in the difficult position of choosing between overseeing the logistics of managing a COVID-19 screening programs at the beginning of a new school year or involving third-party vendors to manage them.
“In many states, there are a number of different testing vendors they [schools] can choose from,” said Leah Perkinson, manager of the pandemics division at the Rockefeller Foundation. “One of the most unfortunate parts about all of this is that there is a ton of guidance out there, but there’s just not a lot of awareness about what the choices are.”
The New Orleans Public School system utilizes a testing program through the Louisiana Department of Health, in which students and their families can go to more than 91 school-based sites to get free routine COVID-19 PCR tests and receive results in under 24 hours.
The school district, which serves over 44,000 students, gives schools the choice of opting into the testing program, but some schools within the district have decided it’s more appropriate to mandate testing. Overall, New Orleans school officials say participation in the testing program has shown promise, especially given an unnaturally busy hurricane season.
“We believe that following Hurricane Ida, it has actually boosted participation,” said Morgan Ripski, COVID-19 testing coordinator for New Orleans Public Schools. “The vast majority of our schools were not yet reopened, but what they did was open their sites as testing centers so students and parents could get tested before returning to the classroom.”
In the first few days after Hurricane Ida hit, more than 13,500 students were tested through the New Orleans Public School’s testing program in partnership with the Louisiana Department of Health. The COVID-19 positivity rate was 1%.
For parents who learn their child has been exposed to COVID-19 in a school district like Union County Public Schools that has no testing protocols, the fear of what might happen next is all-consuming.
Kenan Medlin’s son is immunocompromised and she was worried for days when she learned he was exposed to another student with COVID-19. Her son’s recovery from respiratory illnesses typically takes longer than for other children.
Medlin decided to pull her son out of class and homeschool him until the school district requires masks and offers testing.
“You should be able to go to public school and know that your child is going to be safe, cared for, and that the school will do everything they can to protect your children, but they’re just not doing that,” she said. “This is backing parents into a lot of corners and putting them in impossible situations.”
(SAN DIEGO) — A woman and her 2-year-old son died Saturday afternoon after falling from the stands at Petco Park before the Padres game, investigators said.
The 40-year-old woman and her toddler were at a dining and concession area on the concourse level of the San Diego, California, stadium when, for an unknown reason, they fell three floors down and hit the sidewalk, the Padres said in a statement Sunday.
First responders rushed to the stadium but weren’t able to save the mother and son, according to the team.
Investigators said the victims’ deaths “appeared to be suspicious.”
Although the victims have been identified, the authorities and baseball team have not released their names to the public, and have only said the deceased were San Diego residents.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of life at Petco Park last evening. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of those involved,” the Padres said in a statement.
Investigators are still going through evidence and looking for eyewitnesses who were present at the time of the incident.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the Homicide Unit at (619) 531-2293 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.
(New York) — A large crowd of mourners packed a public funeral service for Gabby Petito, the slain 22-year-old travel blogger, on Sunday afternoon in Long Island, near where Petito grew up in Blue Point, New York.
The service was live-streamed online and showed the full length of a wall in a chapel at Moloney’s Holbrook Funeral Home, decorated with photos of Petito. An altar at the front of the chapel was covered in flowers and memorial candles.
Petito’s parents and relatives sat in the front row of the chapel accepting condolences from friends, family and strangers.
A prayer card handed out to mourners contained a poem title “Let it be,” a phrase Petito had tattooed on her arm.
“Do not grieve for me for I am free. I am traveling a path the Lord has taken me,” the poem reads. “Be not burdened with times of sorrow. I wish for you the sunshine of tomorrow. Perhaps my time seemed too brief. Do not lengthen it with undue grief. Lift up your hearts and share with me the memories that will always be.”
During the service, Petito’s father, Joseph, and her stepfather, Jim Schmidt, former chief of the Blue Point Fire Department, spoke.
Joseph Petito described his daughter as having “ridiculously blue eyes” and told mourners that “her nature was always to smile and treat everybody kind.”
“I want you to take a look at these pictures, and I want you to be inspired by Gabby,” Petito said. “If there’s a trip you guys want to take, take it now. Do it now while you have the time. If there is a relationship that you’re in that might not be the best thing for you, leave it now.”
Jim Schmidt added that throughout his career as a firefighter he has had to arrange funerals and give eulogies but added, “not one of them has prepared me for this moment.”
He pointed out a photo behind him of Petito as a little girl and said, “I still see Gabby as this.”
“Parents aren’t supposed to bury their children. This is not how life is supposed to work,” Schmidt said.
He added, “Gabby, at 22 years old, helped teach me that you can always make money but you can’t make up for lost time. Gabby loved life and lived her life every single day. She is an example for all of us to live by, to enjoy every moment in this beautiful world as she did. To love and give love to all like she did.”
Petito’s mother spoke out the night before the funeral with a heartfelt message to supporters.
Nicole Schmidt posted a message on Facebook late Saturday night following a 12-day silence.
“As I scroll through all the posts, my heart is full of love,” Schmidt wrote. “I wish I could reach out and hug each and every one of you!!! Your support has been so overwhelming, and we are so filled with gratitude.”
Schmidt also posted a series of family photos of her daughter as well as images of Petito traveling, telling supporters, “Please know what you are all doing for us does not go unnoticed, and with all of you by our side, we will get #justiceforgabby.”
Petito’s body was discovered a week ago Sunday in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming after her family reported her missing on Sept. 11. She vanished while on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, who authorities are still searching for and have named a “person of interest” in her death, which has been ruled a homicide.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Laundrie stemming from his alleged unauthorized use of a debit card to withdraw $1,000 during the period in which Petito was missing, according to the Associated Press. The FBI has not disclosed whose card Laundrie allegedly used.
Joseph Petito announced Saturday the creation of The Gabby Petito Foundation, which he said will provide resources and guidance to families of missing children.
“No one should have to find their child on their own,” he wrote on Twitter, “we are looking to help people in similar situations as Gabby.”
A vigil was held Saturday night in Florida for Petito.
People who were touched by her story gathered in North Port, Florida, outside the Laundrie home, attempting to convey a message to the family that they want justice for Petito.
Residents of Blue Point honored Petito on Friday night by lining streets in the city with thousands of memorial candles.
(DENVER) — The 6-year-old girl who died on a ride at a Colorado amusement park earlier this month was never strapped into her seat — and two operators failed to notice even after a monitor alerted them to a seatbelt safety issue — before the ride plunged 110 feet, according to a state investigation.
Wongel Estifanos was visiting Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, located atop Iron Mountain in Glenwood Springs, with her family on Sept. 5 when she went on the Haunted Mine Drop ride, a free-fall drop down a pitch-black shaft.
After reviewing video surveillance and operating manuals, investigators with the Colorado Division of Oil and Public Safety determined that when Wongel got on the ride, she sat in a previously unoccupied seat on top of two already-locked seatbelts, and that “multiple operator errors” and “inadequate training” contributed to the fatal accident, according to a report released Friday.
The girl was only holding the tail of one seatbelt across her lap, but when checking her seat, a ride operator “did not notice that the seatbelts were not positioned across her lap,” according to the report.
The ride’s control panel alerted the operator to an error with one of the seatbelts on Wongel’s seat, indicating that that seatbelt had not been properly unlocked after the previous ride cycle, according to the report. The operator returned “multiple times” to check the seatbelt and buckle it to no avail, but “did not believe the error because they were convinced the restraint had been cycled,” the report stated.
A second ride operator then unlocked the seatbelts using a manual switch, clearing the error on the ride’s control system, “without unloading passengers to determine what the issue was,” the report stated. This decision did not resolve the problem — that Wongel was not wearing the seatbelts — and demonstrated that the operator “did not have a complete understanding” of the control system’s safety indicators, according to the report.
The second operator also checked the girl’s seatbelts but “did not notice that neither of the seatbelts were positioned across her lap,” according to the report.
With no error on the control panel, the second operator was then able to dispatch the ride.
“Because Ms. Estifanos was not restrained in the seat she became separated from her seat and fell to the bottom of the [Haunted Mine Drop] shaft, resulting in her death,” the report stated.
Operators were not formally trained to unbuckle all seatbelts following each ride, though it was common practice and one that the first operator performed “inconsistently” on earlier rides, according to the report.
The operators are supposed to buckle the seatbelts for each of the ride’s six passengers and confirm the restraints are over their laps, per the manufacturer’s operating manual, as “passengers cannot be expected to know or correctly execute the safety procedures for this ride,” the report stated. Both operators failed to follow these procedures, according to the report.
The report also determined that the operators’ training “did not appear to emphasize the inherent risks of the ride,” and that the manufacturer’s operating manual “does not instruct operators on how to properly address errors.”
The Haunted Mine Drop is currently closed, and future plans for the ride are “undetermined,” the amusement park said.
“Safety is, and always has been, our top priority,” Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park founder Steve Beckley said in a statement following the release of the report. “Since opening our first ride just over 15 years ago, Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park has delivered more than 10 million safe and enjoyable rides.”
“We have been working closely with the Colorado Division of Oil and Public Safety and independent safety experts to review this incident,” he continued, noting that the amusement park will review the report “carefully for recommendations.”
“More than anything, we want the Estifanos family to know how deeply sorry we are for their loss and how committed we are to making sure it never happens again,” he added.
In a statement to Denver ABC affiliate KMGH-TV, Dan Caplis, an attorney for the Estifanos family, said that Wongel’s parents had received the report and called on people who have “experienced problems” with the Haunted Mine Drop to come forward.
“Wongel’s parents are determined to do everything in their power to make sure that no one ever dies this way again,” said Caplis, who told the station he intends to file a lawsuit against the park on behalf of the family.
ABC News’ Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — At least three people are dead after an Amtrak train derailed in remote northern Montana on Saturday.
Seven cars on the train, Empire Builder 7/27, derailed at about 4 p.m. local time near Joplin, according to Amtrak. The rail line confirmed there were injuries in the accident, but offered no more details.
The three deaths were confirmed by the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department. Officials did not say how many total were injured.
There were approximately 146 passengers and 16 crew members on board the train, Amtrak said. The train was traveling from Chicago to Seattle.
Several passengers on the train shared images of the front cars off the track, with some tipped on their sides.
Amtrak said in a statement that anyone with questions about friends or family who were traveling on the derailed train should call 800-523-9101.
It was not immediately clear what caused the derailment.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it is launching a “go team” to investigate the derailment.
Liberty County is an extremely rural part of northern Montana, with only a few thousand residents despite being larger than the entire state of Rhode Island.
Great Falls is the largest nearby city, about 100 miles south of Joplin. The state capital of Helena is about three hours south of Joplin by car.
ABC News’ Stefan Joyce and Matt Foster contributed to this report.
(MOSCOW) — As the Hispanic and Latino population grows throughout the U.S., New Mexico has established itself as a haven for people of Latin American and Hispanic descent.
That culture can be seen throughout the streets — in the Pueblo- and Spanish-style architecture, the traditional santeros and the Mexican artistry.
“The Land of Enchantment” is the most Hispanic and Latino state in the country, with 49% of its population identifying as such, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But this population can’t be so easily defined.
“We see ourselves as multicultural: Mexican, American, Latino, Chicano, Indigenous — We’re what we call ‘mestizaje,’ a mixture of blood and culture,” said Denise Chavez, a Chicana writer and playwright. “There’s no place quite like it.”
This state has a turbulent history of colonialism that led to diverse traditions, a blend of cultures, a complicated clashing of identities.
Indigenous and Native communities have occupied now-New Mexico for centuries. It wasn’t until the late 1500s that Spanish colonizers created their first settlements.
New Mexico’s capital, Santa Fe, is the oldest in the U.S., since it was designated 400 years ago. It became the 47th state in 1912, about five weeks before Arizona gained statehood.
“Spanish is the first [European] language we spoke in what is today the United States, so it’s not a foreign language,” said Rob Martinez, a state historian.
With the region dominated by Spain before Mexico governed it the 1800s, those Indigenous roots run deep, Martinez explained.
“It’s never pleasant to be on the receiving end of conquest and colonization,” Martinez said. “I like to tell people: Our culture and our history are brilliant, they’re magnificent, but history is also violent and scary, and you have to be brave to study your history.”
This culture represented in the lively traditions seen throughout the streets.
Art is a major part of the culture — Mexican retablos, paintings of saints on wood, and santeros, the painted and carved images of saints, can be seen at historical sites, churches and homes throughout New Mexico.
“This is a tradition from the late 1700s and early 1800s — it’s truly New Mexican,” Martinez said. “It’s a combination of Roman Catholicism and folk Catholicism. It’s a very beautiful, very stark and straightforward art form. People love this religious and cultural expression.”
And when in New Mexico, Chavez said, visitors must have a dish featuring the state’s prized vegetable: chile. It’s used to add a pungent, smoky kick to stews, sauce, tamales, sandwiches and more — and is a staple of New Mexican cuisine.
“We’re just at the end of chile season, which is an incredible time in New Mexico,” Chavez said. “The smell of green chile, the harvest, going out to the farms, getting your chile and roasting it … a lot of our traditions have to do with food.”
Another integral, and controversial, piece of New Mexican culture is the Fiesta de Santa Fe.
The annual celebration commemorates the reconquest of Santa Fe in 1692, according to Martinez. The city was “founded” by Spanish colonists in 1610, but in 1680 Pueblo natives fought back, burning down the city and driving out the Spanish, who fled to present day Juarez, Mexico.
“They didn’t want to get rid of their languages, they did not want to lose their religion, they did not want to lose their culture,” Martinez said. “So there’s a revolt — the first revolution in what’s today the United States.”
In 1692, the king of Spain ordered a resettlement mission. The Spanish retook those lands and began oppressing the natives, said Patricia Marie Perea, the Hispanic and literary arts educator at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
“There’s always some tension between the Indigenous communities and those who are celebrating the Spanish and the conquest into New Mexico,” said Perea. “It’s such a hard thing to contend with.”
For this reason, Perea said, celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month — Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 — can be a bit complicated.
“Hispanic” refers to people who descend from Spanish-speaking countries. Considering the state’s long history of Spanish colonialism, many New Mexicans denounce the term.
And while the population has expanded to include so many people of many Latin American cultures, the state’s history adds to the intensity and passion with which New Mexicans defend their roots.
“There is hope here,” Chavez said, “and that’s what makes New Mexico so wonderful — the never-dying hope of its people.”
