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(ALBANY, N.Y.) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation Thursday banning the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in retail pet stores throughout the state.

Animal activists have been calling for such a ban for years contending that pet stores are often stocked with animals that are bred and abused in “puppy mills” and other mass breeding centers.

“Dogs, cats and rabbits across New York deserve loving homes and humane treatment,” Hochul said in a statement.

Under the law, which goes into effect in 2024, retail stores that previously sold pets can still operate and sell pet supplies and other accessories. They also have the option to charge shelters and rescue groups rent to use their space for adoptions.

Store owners face a $1,000 fine for violating the new rules.

State Sen. Michael Gianaris, who co-sponsored the bill, said that puppy breeding mills have been known to keep animals in unsanitary conditions, where they’re abused and neglected.

“Today is a great day for our four-legged friends,” he said in a statement.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has pushed the governor and other state leaders to do more against the puppy mill pipeline and go after stores that sell animals from those facilities. A report released this year by the ASPCA found that 1 out of 4 of puppies shipped to New York state pet stores came from dog brokers who buy puppies from licensed and unregulated breeders and resell the animals to stores.

California was the first state to ban the sale of pets in 2019 and four other states, Washington, Maine, Maryland and Illinois, have followed suit.

“We are hopeful that this enormous step by New York State may encourage other states to take similar action to stop the cruel commercial breeding industry from supplying pet stores within their borders,” Matt Bershadker, the president and CEO of the ASPCA, said in a statement.

Some pet shop owners, however, criticized the governor and state legislature for the bill, saying the move hurts their businesses without going after the root problem.

“We have policies like this where everybody just makes the assumption that every single breeder that a pet store works with looks like the ones you see on TV that are filthy and the [dogs] are dying, and that just simply isn’t the case,” Emilio Ortiz, the manager of the New York pet store CitiPups, told NY1.

Gianaris, however, argues that there isn’t a single New York pet store that hasn’t been touched by the puppy mill industry.

“That’s why we should ban it outright. There is no such thing as a responsible retail sale of animals in New York,” he told WABC, ABC News’ New York station.

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(SAN DIEGO, Calif.) — A father is warning about how serious the flu can be, especially for children, as his 10-year-old son remains hospitalized with the virus.

Cory Tamborelli, from Ramona, California — about 34 miles northeast of San Diego — said his son, Tristan, first started experiencing flu symptoms about a week and a half ago.

‘A fever and a little bit of a runny nose,” he told ABC News local affiliate KGTV.

However, the young boy’s condition rapidly deteriorated and within 48 hours, Tristan was unresponsive.

“He was limp, couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. It was the most scared I’ve ever been in my life,” Tamborelli said.

Tristan was life-flighted to Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, where he tested positive for two strains of flu, according to an update from his aunt, Sara Presley Scott.

Doctors discovered that Tristan’s liver and kidney were failing. He was rushed to the pediatric intensive care unit, where he was sedated and placed on a ventilator.

His aunt said he needed to be placed on dialysis to help support his non-functioning kidney.

“It was so bad. I was scared he wasn’t going to make it. You feel helpless,” Tamborelli said. “Nothing you can do.”

Hospitals across the country have been reporting that they are at capacity or near capacity as the flu season has started earlier than usual.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some children are at higher risk of developing flu-related complications including infants, those up to age 5, American Indian/Alaskan Native children, and those up to age 18 with chronic health problems.

Tristan falls into that latter category. Tamborelli told KGTV that his son suffered a stroke as an infant and, as a result, has several underlying conditions including epilepsy and a blood clotting disorder.

“Each year, millions of children get sick with seasonal flu, thousands of children are hospitalized and some children die from flu,” according to the CDC.

Currently, children age 4 and under are being hospitalized at a rate of 42.3 per 100,000 and children between ages 5 and 17 at a rate of 17.9 per 100,000 — the highest rates recorded since the 2009-10 season, which was the year of the swine flu outbreak, CDC data shows.

Additionally, at least 21 pediatric deaths have been recorded so far this season.

Tristan has since come off the ventilator and his condition is starting to improve, although doctors told his family it will likely be a long road to recovery.

Now, Tamborelli is urging families to make sure their children are vaccinated as the U.S. heads into the colder weather months.

According to CDC data, about 42.5% of all children have been vaccinated as of the week ending Nov. 26, the latest date for which data is available.

This is similar to the 40.9% of children who were vaccinated this time last year but less than the 46.9% who were in 2020.

This year, a CDC study — conducted alongside other experts — found that flu shots were 75% effective against life-threatening influenza.

Tamborelli said Tristan’s flu shot from his pediatrician was delayed last month but is advising other parents not to delay and to be on the lookout for flu symptoms.

“Keep an eye out. If they get sick, and you’re not sure, take them to the hospital,” he told KGTV. “I’d hate to have anyone else go through this.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The District of Columbia Bar association’s disciplinary counsel called Thursday for Rudy Giuliani’s disbarment after a preliminary finding that Giuliani violated at least one rule of attorney practice when, as the attorney for then-President Donald Trump, he pressed a baseless, failed legal challenge to the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania.

“This case, the seriousness of the misconduct, calls for only one sanction and that is a sanction of disbarment,” Phil Fox, a lawyer for the D.C. Bar, said at a disciplinary hearing in Washington. “I think it was a fundamental harm to the fabric of the country that could well be irreparable.”

Thursday’s hearing is only a step in a long process that could lead to Giuliani’s disbarment in the nation’s capital. His law license has already been suspended — but not revoked — in New York, where a court last year found he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements” about his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Giuliani has appealed the decision.

Giuliani’s attorney, John Leventhal, said Thursday that Giuliani’s service to the nation mitigated the need for the District of Columbia to disbar him.

“Let’s take politics out of this equation and treat Mr. Giuliani like any other lawyer,” said Leventhal.

“A letter of reprimand or private admonition” would be more appropriate, Leventhal said.

Fox called Giuliani’s previous service as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and as mayor of the city of New York “admirable,” but told the disciplinary committee it did not justify a sanction less than disbarment.

“It’s like it’s two different people,” Fox said during the hearing. “There’s the person who responded the way very few people could have responded to 9/11 … and there’s the person who tried to undermine the legitimacy of a presidential election without a basis to do so.”

“I would like to personally object to Mr. Fox’s attack on me as having tried to undermine American democracy when there’s not a single fact in the record to support that argument,” Giuliani responded as Leventhal and another defense attorney, Barry Kamins, urged him to stop. “It is a typical unethical cheap attack.”

A decision from the disciplinary committee is expected in late February or early March. The D.C. Court of Appeals would make a final decision on whether Giuliani would be disbarred, a determination that could have consequences on his ability to practice law in other places.

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(MOSCOW, Idaho) — Police investigating the mysterious murders of four University of Idaho students say they’re “confident” that the person or persons in a white Hyundai Elantra spotted near the crime scene has “information that is critical” to the case.

Authorities announced on Dec. 7 that they’re looking to speak with the occupant or occupants of a white 2011-2013 Hyundai Elantra that was in the “immediate area” of the victims’ house in Moscow in the early hours of Nov. 13, when the crimes occurred.

Police said they’re investigating this surveillance video from a Moscow gas station that shows the white car that morning.

“So far we have a list of approximately 22,000 registered white Hyundai Elantras that fit into our criteria that we’re sorting through,” Moscow police Capt. Roger Lanier said in a video statement on Thursday. “But it may not be all of them — so the public can help us.”

“Maybe one of your neighbors has one in the garage they don’t drive that often. Maybe there’s one that’s just not on the registration database,” he said. “Let us know.”

Police have released this white Hyundai Elantra stock photo.

The unsolved slayings took place in the early hours of Nov. 13, when roommates Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle, as well as Kernodle’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin, were all stabbed to death in the girls’ off-campus house.

No suspects have been identified.

“This person went in very methodical,” Kaylee Goncalves’ mom, Kristi Goncalves, told ABC News on Wednesday. “I think he really thought it out. I think he was quick, I think it was quiet. And he got in and he got out.”

Two roommates in the house survived. Police said the roommates are not suspects and likely slept through the murders. They were on the ground floor, while the four victims were on the second and third floors.

Lanier said Monday that police “do have a lot of information” in the case that they’re choosing not to release to the public.

“We’re not releasing specific details because we do not want to compromise this investigation,” he said in a video statement.

Kaylee’s dad, Steve Goncalves, urges anyone in Moscow with a surveillance system to come forward. He said he’s worried that, now that a month has passed, some of those key videos could be erased.

“You could save this case,” he told ABC News.

Lanier said Tuesday that police have been looking for surveillance video since day one.

“We understand that video has a finite life, and sometimes systems will record over itself, and so we started that process very, very early,” he said.

Police urge anyone with information to upload digital media to fbi.gov/moscowidaho or contact the tip line at tipline@ci.moscow.id.us or 208-883-7180.

ABC News’ Nicholas Cirone contributed to this report.

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(SUN CITY HILTON HEAD, Fla.) — A Florida man was bitten in the arm by an alligator Thursday while washing his hands in a pond, according to the City of Sanibel.

Fortunately, the man was able to break free from the alligator and call 911. People on the scene of the attack applied a tourniquet until EMS workers arrived, officials said in a statement.

He sustained a serious injury on his right arm and was transported to the hospital for treatment, according to officials.

Florida Fish and Wildlife along with the Florida State trapper are actively attempting to capture the alligator at the pond.

There have been several alligator attacks nationwide this year that have killed or injured victims.

In August, an 88-year-old woman was killed in an apparent attack in South Carolina by a 9-foot, 8-inch male alligator when she was gardening near a pond in Sun City Hilton Head, an adult-only community, and slipped in, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office and the Department of Natural Resources.

Another elderly woman was killed in July after she fell into a pond along a Florida golf course and was attacked by two alligators, authorities said.

A man in Florida was also killed in a suspected alligator attack when he was likely looking for Frisbees in a lake, according to the Largo Police Department.

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(CAMBRIDGE, Mass.) — Claudine Gay will be the first person of color and second woman in Harvard University’s 386-year history to serve as president. The social scientist will transition from her role as the Edgerley Family dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences to succeed current university president Larry Bacow in July.

“I’m absolutely humbled by the confidence that the governing board has placed in me. I’m also incredibly humbled by the prospect of succeeding President Bacow in leading this remarkable institution,” Gay said at a university event Thursday to announce her election.

Before becoming a department dean in 2018, Gay, the daughter of Haitian immigrants and Harvard alum, earned her PhD in government, later teaching as a professor of political science, government, and African and African American Studies.

“I can’t help but think of a much younger version of myself–a first year graduate student moving into Haskins Hall lugging the things that seemed most essential to my success at the time: a futon, a Mac Classic II, and a cast iron skillet for frying plantains,” Gay said. “That Claudine could not possibly have imagined that her path would lead here, but I carry forward both her excitement and her belief in the infinite possibility of Harvard.”

Harvard Corporation senior fellow and Presidential Search Committee chair Penny Pritzker said in a letter to the Harvard Community that Gay was one of over 600 nominees for the role considered over the course of a search that started in early July.

“Claudine is a remarkable leader. She’s done outstanding work through unusually challenging times as the dean of Harvard, the largest and most academically diverse faculty,” Pritzker said at the announcement ceremony.

Gay said she imagines an institution in the future that is more connected and inclusive with an even greater impact on the “issues that matter.”

“The idea of the ivory tower, that is the past, not the future of academia. We don’t exist outside of society, but as part of it. And that means that Harvard has a duty to lean in and engage and to be in service to the world,” the president-elect said.

She added, “As I prepare for this next step in my Harvard journey, I do so with the same boundless optimism and our potential to meet this moment of opportunity.”

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(WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.) — Four-and-a-half years ago, a days-old newborn was found dead, floating in the ocean off the coast of Florida. The case turned cold with no fruitful leads and the female infant was never identified.

On Thursday, authorities in Palm Beach County said that they have arrested the mother of the infant with the help of the same genetic genealogy technique that led to an arrest in the “Golden State Killer” case in California.

“It was four years ago that I stood in front of these same cameras and asked for the public’s support in trying to figure out what happened and who this unidentified child was,” Palm Beach County Special Investigations Unit Captain Steven Strivelli told reporters during a press briefing Thursday. “I’m very, very happy to announce that today, we have all those questions answered.”

An off-duty firefighter was boating on June 1, 2018, when he spotted the little body floating on the ocean side of the Boynton Beach Inlet, authorities said at the time. The newborn was dubbed “Baby June” and authorities released an artist-rendered image of how the baby might have looked at birth.

Investigators searched records of every child recently born in Palm Beach and Broward counties but didn’t turn up anything, Strivelli said. A $10,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest. None of the tips they received were helpful, though, and the cold case squad took the case, he said.

“We were starting to look like we were heading towards a dead end,” Strivelli said, until their crime lab and cold case team were able to identify the infant’s father.

Using investigative genetic genealogy, a technique that was also used to solve the “Golden Gate Killer” case, the sheriff’s office uploaded the newborn’s DNA into a publicly available database, FamilyTreeDNA, and was able to identify a close relative, according to Julie Sikorsky, supervisor of the office’s forensic biology unit.

“We rebuilt the family tree and identified the close relatives, and then established the link to our suspect today,” Sikorsky told reporters.

Investigators found a likely father of the newborn, which they confirmed through DNA testing, Detective Brittany Christoffel of Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said. The father told investigators he had a girlfriend at the time who told him she had been pregnant but had “taken care of it,” according to Christoffel.

“He knew nothing about this baby,” Christoffel said. “He was thinking she perhaps had an abortion.”

Investigators obtained a “covert DNA sample” from his former girlfriend — “a piece of garbage she discarded” — and confirmed she was the mother of the newborn, Christoffel said.

Through search warrants, they learned she had been at the inlet on May 30, 2018 — 48 hours prior to when the baby was found — and had searched for and seen news articles about the discovery in the following days and weeks.

“But she’s never come forward in all this time,” Christoffel said.

Christoffel said they interviewed the mother, identified as 29-year-old Arya Singh, as well as several friends and family members. Detectives determined no one else knew about the incident and that Singh “was solely responsible for the baby ending up in the Boynton Beach Inlet,” Christoffel said.

Singh was taken into custody Thursday and will be charged with first-degree murder, according to Dave Aronberg, the state attorney for Palm Beach County. It is unclear if she has an attorney who can speak on her behalf. ABC News was unable to reach members of her family.

Singh reportedly told investigators she did not know she was pregnant until she gave birth on May 30, 2018, and was not sure if the baby was dead or alive.

“By the time the baby went into the inlet, she was already deceased,” Christoffel said.

The Baby June cold case marked the sheriff’s office’s first use of investigative genetic genealogy, also known as forensic genetic genealogy, and is believed to be the first use in Florida of the growing practice.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said his office will likely use it again.

“It’s a whole new world as far as technology is concerned,” Bradshaw told reporters. “We had a lot of people at the beginning say, ‘You got nothing, you’ll be lucky if you ever find anybody in this.”’

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that authorities were able to make an arrest with the help of the same genealogy database, when it was with the help of a genetic genealogy technique. The story has been updated.

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(HIGHLAND PARK, Ill.) — Lindsey Hartman, one of the survivors of the Highland Park shooting that unfolded on July 4, said although her and her family escaped physically unharmed, they remain mentally scarred.

“It just doesn’t go away just because the camera crews and the headlines go away,” she told “Nightline” co-anchor Byron Pitts. “I mean, it’s something that sticks with you forever.”

The shooting, during which a gunman opened fire during a 4th of July parade in the Chicago suburb, killed seven people and injured 48.

“It’s still pretty raw, you know. There’s a lot of emotions that are still very much at the surface,” she said. “Fear. Gratitude. Terror.”

The mass shooting that Hartman and her family survived at Highland Park is one the more than 600 mass shootings that have unfolded in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

In the U.S., more than 115,000 people are shot by a gun every year and in the past 30 years, gun violence has claimed more than a million lives.

Yet this number just scratches the surface of the people affected by gun violence, not encompassing people that have survived injuries, witnessed gun violence or seen it impact family members.

On average, more than 100 people die each day from gun violence yet more than 200 people sustain a nonfatal injury, according to data analyzed by Everytown for Gun Safety.

Hartman is part of the Everytown Survivor Network, a community of people that have survived gun violence who support each other and engage in advocacy. Through the program, she met fellow Chicago-resident and survivor, Valerie Burgest.

Burgest’s son Craig was shot and killed in 2013 while he was buying gum in a convenience store. He was 23 years old. The case remains unsolved.

The relationships she has formed through the Everytown Survivor Network are “powerful,” Burgest said, “because you really don’t have to explain yourself.”

“Val buried a son,” Hartman said. “And that is unimaginable. That is the worst kind of pain for any parent. But she never looks at me and says, ‘Your pain is less.'”

Another relationship, between Pastor Jackie Jackson and Doreen Dodgen-Magee illustrates the strength of bonds between survivors.

Jackson and Dodgen-Magee met four years ago through the Survivor Network and have become very close ever since.

“I took some food off of Jackie’s plate when we were at a meeting together,” Dodgen-Magee said.

“She just reached over. No conversation,” Jackson said. “I said, ‘Hold up. You got to be my family to take food off my plate.’ And she said, ‘Well, I guess we’ll just have to adopt each other.'”

“And we did,” Dodgen-Magee said.

Spending time together has been an important part of her growth, Dodgen-Magee said, just “being able to have fun.”

“It is so important because the world is so heavy when this is your reality,” she added.

“We managed to find space in this club for each other and ourselves,” said another survivor, Milagros Burgos.

“Everytown Survivor Network, and I say this unequivocally, saved my life,” she said.

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(NEFFS CANYON, Utah) — An off-duty Utah firefighter said he was in the right place at the right time when he came upon a skier half-buried in an avalanche this week, aiding in a rescue mission that took nearly eight hours.

Tom Elbrecht, a firefighter with the Unified Fire Authority, was skiing with his dog on Wednesday morning in Neffs Canyon in Salt Lake City when he heard a person yelling for help.

“I heard a very distinct ‘help’ from somewhere up on the hill, shouted back, got a response from the victim,” Elbrecht told reporters Thursday.

The skier — a 35-year-old man — had gotten caught in an avalanche estimated to be about 200 feet wide and up to three feet deep at around 11:45 a.m. local time, police said. He had been buried for about 45 minutes by the time Elbrecht found him, according to the Utah Avalanche Center said in its preliminary report. The avalanche danger for that area at that time was “considerable,” the center said.

Elbrecht made his way up the hill with his dog, Wiley, and found the victim wrapped around a tree, buried to his chest in the snow with his head, arms and one leg exposed. Elbrecht took to carefully unburying the victim from the heavy avalanche snow, concerned about possible damage to the man’s spine and right leg, which appeared broken.

“At that point I called actually my wife first because she knew exactly where I was that day,” Elbrecht said. “She was a pretty pivotal link and getting the correct information to the right people as fast as possible.”

Elbrecht said he helped keep the skier warm by huddling with Wiley in a snow shelter he built and giving him his jacket, vest and an extra down jacket while waiting for rescuers to get to them.

“I had my dog and I had him sandwiched between us and just tried to stay warm as a group together,” Elbrecht said.

The wait ended up being about six hours. Difficult terrain conditions and the location hindered the rescue operation, and a helicopter made several failed attempts to hoist them off the mountain.

“[I knew] it was not going to be a 30-minute ordeal, it was not gonna be an hour ordeal, it was gonna be hours,” Elbrecht said. “But as we started approaching, you know, 4:30, 5 o’clock, it was getting a little discouraging.”

“But I knew that they were going to do the best that they could as far as on search and rescue side of things,” he continued.

Eventually, ground teams went in and the skier was carried down by a snowmobile to the Neffs Canyon trailhead, where an awaiting ambulance transported him to the hospital, the Utah Avalanche Center said.

The skier, who has not been publicly identified, suffered a broken femur, arm injury and hypothermia in the avalanche, police said.

Elbrecht’s main regret was not carrying a lighter and snow saw — two things he normally does pack to make a fire if need but had left behind since he only expected to be out for a couple of hours.

Those involved in the rescue referred to Elbrecht as a hero — a word he avoided using himself.

“I can think of hundreds of coworkers that would do the exact same thing,” he said. “It was the right time, right place.”

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(NEW YORK) — A Michigan couple has won the right to adopt their biological twins, who were born via gestational carrier in January 2021.

Tammy and Jordan Myers told “Good Morning America” that after nearly a two-year ordeal, they can now be listed as parents on the birth certificates of their 23-month-old twins Eames and Ellison.

“It’s something that we have struggled with day in and day out,” Tammy Myers, 41, said. “It sucked the joy out of something that should have been only happy feelings. It just has been a hard pill to swallow. But at the same time, it’s kind of fueled our ambitions to change the situation.”

The Myers’ said their legal fight began when their fraternal twins had not yet been born. They had decided to grow their family through gestational surrogacy after Tammy Myers was diagnosed with breast cancer. When they found a gestational carrier and began the process, the Myers went ahead and applied for a pre-birth order for the twins but the twins ended up being born eight weeks early and the order was not approved in time.

Since February 2021, the Myers told “GMA” two of their pre-birth order applications were denied and then they were left with only one option – to adopt their twins, based on the parameters within Michigan’s surrogacy law, the Surrogate Parenting Act of 1988, which requires a judge to rule that anyone going through surrogacy be named a parent of the child or undergo the adoption process.

In the interim, the Myers asked the twins’ gestational carrier and her husband to be the children’s co-godparents and they were listed on Eames and Ellison’s birth certificates.

Last November, “GMA” featured the Myers’ story and at the time, Jordan Myers described the legal proceedings as “really hard” for his family. “We had our dreams coming true and it just felt like the floor was falling out from beneath us and now we were kind of being thrown into a bit of a tailspin from a legal perspective,” he said.

A year later, Tammy Myers said that even though this chapter of their family struggle has been resolved, she’s more motivated than ever to change what she calls an “insanely outdated” state law.

“I honestly don’t think that I’ll be able to put it behind me until I see this law changed,” she said.

“I think that cancer taught me that I do like to find purpose in my own struggle or anything traumatic that happens in my life and this seems oddly meant to be on so many levels. It feels like maybe we were supposed to raise awareness, maybe this was supposed to happen all along, and maybe that whole reason is because we can fight to change this law and update it here in Michigan,” she added.

In September, Michigan Sen. Winnie Brinks, Curtis Hertel, Jr. and Rep. Samantha Steckloff and Christine Morse proposed legislation to create a new process to allow for intended parents (like the Myers) be listed on childrens’ birth certificates, repeal the Surrogate Parenting Act and establish a new gestational surrogate parentage act, among other proposed changes. The bills have not yet advanced in either chamber since they were introduced.

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