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(LOS ANGELES) — A California reparations task force has voted to approve recommendations on one of the most significant reparations campaigns for African Americans in modern U.S. history. However, some critics have questioned whether the proposed reparations are sufficient to address systemic issues in the Black community.

The task force was established through a bill authored by then-Assemblymember Shirley Weber, currently California’s first African American Secretary of State, according to task force chair Kamilah Moore. The bill was signed into law in September 2020 by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The task force’s next and final meeting will be on June 29 when the report will be released to the California legislator. Its supporters hope the report will be the foundation of a state bill, which could go to the legislature for a vote by the end of 2023 or early 2024.

Task force recommendations

The task force’s report follows the United Nations’ guidelines to remedy victims of international human rights violations, Moore told ABC News.

“The task force hasn’t necessarily endorsed any particular dollar amounts,” Moore said “We just endorsed a methodology that the economists and public policy experts we hired used to calculate the total losses in the areas of health harms, the devaluation of black businesses, housing segregation, mass incarceration, and over policing and unjust property takings.”

According to Moore, the task force proposed that eligible Californians should receive atonement under international law’s five forms of reparations: compensation, restitution, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.

Moore cited reparations for Japanese Americans who endured internment camps during World War II and remedies for Holocaust survivors in Germany as examples used in the task force’s proposal to state legislators.

She said all African Americans in California who can trace back an enslaved or freed ancestor in the United States dating back to the late 19th century would be eligible.

Moore said $1.2 million is the most economists determined a resident could get if they were at the life expectancy mark of 71 years of age, or older, and endured more acute forms of racism for longer periods of time. She said some media outlets have reported misleading news, including claims that the task force is pushing for every Black Californian to receive $1.2 million.

‘Deflects attention away’

According to the Pew Research Center, 77% of African Americans support reparations for the descendants of enslaved people.

But at least one prominent critic says reparations do little to address persistent issues faced by the community, such as poverty and gun violence.

Bob Woodson, a Black civil rights activist and founder of the Woodson Center, which aims to reduce crime and violence, said he believes that reparations would serve as a distraction from other issues.

“It really deflects attention away from the critical problems,” Woodson said. “That is the moral and spiritual freefall that is consuming, not just Black Americans – that the highest death rate for our young people is homicide.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading cause of death for Black men under 44 years is homicide, at 26.1% for men ages 20-44 and 35.1% for those 19 and under.

But Andre Perry, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute who studies majority-Black communities and has done studies on reparations, says it is dangerous to separate these disturbing statistics from the root cause.

“Wealth is a predictor of many behaviors,” Perry said. “People who are low wealth or have negative wealth, are much more likely to exhibit risky behaviors like violence.”

Woodson said he was concerned about the economic toll the reparations payments would inflict on the state and its residents.

“For us to be taking seriously a discussion about whether or not a state should go bankrupt, almost, paying Blacks for reparations as if that would solve the problem,” Woodson said.

Perry pointed out that states often create emergency funds when necessary and the same could be done for reparations.

Moore offered a suggestion from a state lawmaker to make payments in installments for a set number of years.

She said the economic loss faced by Black Americans in California due to systemic discrimination over the years is staggering. The amount calculated by the task force’s economists is $800 billion, she said.

‘The most important thing’

On the federal level, Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri announced a nationwide reparations bill on Wednesday that calls for $14 trillion to help close the wealth gap between African Americans and white Americans.

“The United States has a moral and legal obligation to provide reparations for the enslavement of Africans and its lasting harm on the lives of millions of Black people,” Bush said at a press conference on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

When asked how the government would pay out the sum of $14 trillion, Bush said she is engaged in talks to find the answer.

“We’re still having those kinds of conversations,” the congresswoman said at the press conference. “We’re working with this administration, we’re talking with other members of Congress… but I’ll say this, if we can continue to fund these endless wars, or we can continue to put trillions of dollars into forever wars… we’re talking about things that are happening now.”

“The most important thing – our descendants,” Andrea Jordan of Sacramento, California, said when describing what she would do with compensation through reparations. “To be able to leave that tangibles for them and otherwise I would not be able to do.”

Jordan told ABC News of the toll inflicted on her grandfather after laws were passed decades ago in Mississippi to take his land.

“He understood as a man and as a Black man what they had done,” Jordan said. “He was a mean person because of what they had done and died with a frown on his face from what he knew that he was not able to leave [for his family].”

Jordan believes African Americans deserve reparations.

“We started with such a deficit that our entire life couldn’t even dig us out of it. So, this would even the playing field. And it’s long overdue,” Jordan said. “This country is drenched in our blood.”

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(NEW YORK) — A Texas man pleaded guilty to smuggling a firearm that authorities linked to the deadly kidnapping of four U.S. citizens near the border in Mexico, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.

Roberto Lugardo Moreno Jr. admitted to purchasing the pistol and then taking it to Mexico for the Gulf Cartel, the Wednesday statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

“These weapons often contribute to fueling the violence committed by drug cartels, which drastically affects communities both in Mexico and in the United States,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Craig Larrabee of Homeland Security Investigations San Antonio. “This investigation and prosecution highlight the fine work federal border security agencies perform each day, often behind the scenes and often unknown to the public.”

After the four Americans arrived in Matamoros, Mexico, in March, “unidentified gunmen fired upon the passengers in the vehicle,” the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said at the time. Two of the Americans were killed, and the other two were found days later in Mexico.

Five alleged members of a powerful Mexican cartel were charged with aggravated kidnapping and murder a day after the Gulf Cartel allegedly took responsibility for the kidnapping. The five men were found tied up near a pickup truck, and a handwritten note, purportedly written by members of the cartel, was found placed on the truck’s windshield.

“We have decided to deliver those involved and directly responsible,” the note said, presumably referring to the five men found tied up at the scene.

Moreno is expected to be sentenced in August. He faces up to 10 years in federal prison and the potential for $250,000 in fines.

The public defenders’ office handling Moreno’s case did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

ABC News’ Anne Laurent contributed to this report.

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(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — Over 90 firefighters responded to the scene of a massive fire at a construction site in Charlotte, North Carolina, Thursday morning and braved devastating conditions to rescue workers who were caught in the blaze.

As of Thursday afternoon, two construction workers who were at the site of the future apartment complex were unaccounted for, according to the fire department.

Firefighters responded to the residential construction site on Liberty Road around 9 a.m. and within 10 minutes, the blaze grew to five alarms, Reginald Johnson, the fire chief for the Charlotte Fire Department, told reporters.

“It was a very fast-moving fire [with] high heat conditions well over 2000 degrees. And as a construction site is open, a lot of wood is exposed the fire moved very rapidly,” Johnson said.

Firefighters rescued 15 construction workers from the fire, including one person who was stuck on top of a crane. Johnson said that firefighters had to set up hose lines to protect the crane before they could go and make the rescue.

Johnson also confirmed that two “maydays” were issued after firefighters had issues getting out of the fire while rescuing some of the construction workers.

The cause of the fire is currently under investigation, according to the fire department.

Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles tweeted a statement urging nearby residents to remain inside and thanking first responders for their work.

“Very grateful that @charlottefire was able to rescue the crane operator,” she tweeted.

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(NEW YORK) — Americans can likely expect summer temperatures to be even more sweltering than usual, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Hotter-than-normal temperatures are possible for much of the U.S., with all of the East Coast, the South, the West Coast and Rockies forecast to sustain scorching conditions, according to the NOAA’s Summer Outlook, released on Thursday.

Overall, 2023 is likely to fall under the top 10 warmest years on record, perhaps even the top five, Karin Gleason, monitoring section chief for the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, told reporters during a call on Thursday.

The only regions in the U.S. that will see near normal summer temperatures will be in the Plains, the Great Lakes and the Midwest.

A large portion of the country experienced record-high temperatures to start the year, according to NOAA. Seven states on the East Coast that had its warmest start to the year include Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.

Maryland also had the driest start to the year on record, according to NOAA.

Drought conditions in the West are also expected to persist, but improve, Gleason said.

“Drought coverage and intensity have steadily decreased since October 2022,” Gleason said.

Forecasts for the West favor a drier-than-normal summer, especially in Arizona, Utah, Colorado. New Mexico and western Texas, according to NOAA.

Washington, Oregon and parts of Idaho could also be on the drier side, forecasts show.

In the East, there could be more than the normal amount of precipitation. Summer is forecast to be wet and humid on the East Coast from New York to Mississippi and even toward southern Wisconsin.

Global sea surface temperature was also the warmest on record for April, which could exacerbate the effects of a strong El Nino that could develop later in the year.

A transition to El Nino is expected in the next couple of months, just in time for the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season.

El Nino tends to suppress hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, but due to warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures, any tropical cyclones that develop could potentially rapidly intensify.

El Nino could also bring more heavy rain to Southern California during the wet season, which will further alleviate the megadrought.

There is a 90% chance that El Nino could persist into winter for the Northern Hemisphere, which typically means a warmer winter for northern states and wetter and cooler winter for southern states.

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(CLEVELAND) — The charges against a man accused of stalking Cleveland EMT worker Lachelle Jordan were dropped on Thursday, according to officials.

Stennett was charged earlier this month with one felony count of menacing by stalking and one felony count of violating a protection order. He was taken into custody on May 8 and held on $100,000 bond.

“A joint motion to reduce the bond was filed because at this point we have inconsistent evidence to substantiate the stalking complaint against Michael Stennett. Today, that case was dismissed and the investigation will continue,” Lexi Bauer, a spokesperson for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, told ABC News in a statement. “Any further charging decisions will be made after a thorough investigation is complete. Numerous law enforcement agencies are involved in the investigation. We decline to comment further at this point.”

Stennett’s case gained national attention amid news reports that Jordan had gone missing days before she was expected to testify in a pre-trial hearing against Stennett.

Jordan’s father, Joseph Jordan, previously claimed in an interview with ABC News that his daughter was being stalked by Stennett and had violated a restraining order she filed against him multiple times.

Jordan was found safe last Thursday. The circumstances around her disappearance remain unclear.

In a surveillance video obtained by Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS, Jordan can be seen walking into a convenience store barefoot with torn clothes, where she asked to make a phone call to police. The convenience store, Open Pantry, is roughly three miles from where she was last seen.

Her father spoke out in a press conference on Saturday but did not provide any details on what happened to her.

“We want [details] just like you,” he told reporters. “We don’t know him yet because the investigation is ongoing.”

Joseph Jordan said his daughter was hospitalized with unspecified injuries and is getting medical treatment but “she’s gonna be OK, as can be expected.”

A spokesperson for the Cleveland Police Department told ABC News on Thursday that “there is no new information” on the investigation into Jordan’s disappearance.

ABC News’ Peter Charalambous, Meredith Deliso and Teddy Grant contributed to this report.

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(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — Arguing no one has suffered more than them, the parents of three children killed and those traumatized by a mass shooting in March at Covenant School in Nashville are asking a court to prevent the killer’s writings from being released

The request was filed Wednesday in Davidson County Chancery Court in response to three separate lawsuits asking that the journals of the shooter, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, be made public to shed light on a possible motive for the massacre.

In their court filing, the parents asked a judge set a hearing in which they would be allowed to give victim impact statements on how the deadly rampage has affected their lives.

“No one was more traumatized or has suffered more, than the families of the victims and survivors of the Covenant School atrocity. No one,” the brief filed by the parents reads. “And no one can claim a remotely similar interest in whether the shooter’s writings be released.”

On March 27, Hale, a former student at the private Christian school, launched an attack on the campus, killing three 9-year-old students and three adults, police alleged. Hale used a legally purchased AR-15-style rifle and another gun in the rampage, firing 152 rounds in 14 minutes before being fatally shot by a police officer, officials said.

About a week after the shooting, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department released a statement saying journals and maps were found in Hale’s vehicle and home, revealing the attack was planned over a period of months and that “Hale considered the actions of other mass murderers.”

The collective writings were reviewed by Nashville detectives and the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia.

“The motive for Hale’s actions has not been established,” the police department said in an April 3 statement.

The brief filed with the court by the parents of the slain children said three-quarters of Covenant School parents support the motion to keep Hale’s writings under court seal.

“The parents see no good that can come from the release and wish to contend that the writings — which they believe are the dangerous and harmful writings of a mentally-damaged person — should not be released at all,” the brief argues.

However, if the court decides to make a redacted version of Hale’s writings public, the parents asked that it be done after the end of the school year on June 8 “so that the children of Covenant School might finish the school year in peace.”

“The parents humbly and respectfully request that the court spare them and their children additional pain that would be caused by the release of these documents until after the school year concludes,” according to the parent’s court brief.

The parents added that they fear Hale’s writings could inspire “copycat attacks.”

A hearing on the issue was scheduled for Thursday but has now been postponed until Monday.

The parents’ request came just two days after more than 60 members of the Tennessee House Republican Caucus signed a letter they sent to Chief John Drake of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, asking him to release Hale’s writings. The lawmakers wrote that Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has called upon the General Assembly to hold a special session to consider public safety legislation in response to the shooting.

“In order for this special session to be successful, it is paramount we understand the behavior and motives of the Covenant School perpetrator,” the letter said.

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(EVERETT, Wash.) — An incident at a Washington jail Wednesday prompted a significant emergency response and sent seven inmates to the hospital after a potential fentanyl exposure.

The incident resulted in seven inmates being transported to a local hospital, with no fatalities reported, according to the Everett Fire Department. Twenty-three emergency response units responded to the incident, officials said.

Exposure to fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid, likely resulted in multiple overdoses, ABC affiliate KOMO-TV reported. A spokesperson for the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office said each inmate received multiple doses Narcan, a medicine used to reverse opioid overdoses, which officials credited with saving the inmates’ lives.

Four inmates would soon be released from the hospital, the sheriff’s office told KOMO.

“Due to the number of patients, the incident was upgraded to a Multiple Casualty Incident (MCI), which brought in mutual aid assistance,” Everett Fire wrote online.

The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to an inquiry on the incident.

According to the facility’s website, the jail houses roughly 875 inmates across a “general housing module” and specialized housing. The module where the overdoses took place was placed under lockdown, according to KOMO.

The rate of fentanyl overdose deaths has spiked by 279 percent since 2016, according to the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Vital Statistics System. A string of overdoses in nearby Portland, Oregon, left eight dead last weekend, with at least six overdoses likely related to fentanyl.

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(NEW YORK) — An 8-year-old girl died while under U.S. Border Patrol custody in Texas on Wednesday, authorities said.

The child and her family were in custody at the Border Patrol station in Harlingen, near the border with Mexico, where she had “a medical emergency,” according to a statement from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Border Patrol’s parent agency.

The girl was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead, CBP said.

The CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility, charged with upholding the agency’s ethical standards, is conducting an investigation into the incident, as is protocol. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and the Harlingen Police Department were also notified.

CBP did not disclose the girl’s nationality or provide further information about her death.

The incident occurred amid concerns of a looming surge at the U.S.-Mexico border now that so-called Title 42 restrictions have expired. The pandemic-related immigration policy allowed the United States to swiftly turn back asylum seekers at its border with Mexico for the last three years in the name of protecting public health.

Last week, a 17-year-old Honduran boy traveling alone died while under U.S. Health and Human Services Department custody in Safety Harbor, Florida.

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(WASHINGTON) — Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser on Wednesday said officials must “act urgently” to combat crime in the nation’s capital after a 17-year-old was fatally shot in a high school parking lot while class was still in session, according to police — the third shooting involving a child in the District since Sunday.

The teenager, who has not been publicly identified, died following a confrontation at Roosevelt High School that resulted in gunshots, D.C. Metropolitan Police said. He was found with one gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Law enforcement has begun a preliminary investigation and is asking for the public’s help in finding the shooter. They said the teen had been in school at Roosevelt earlier Wednesday and authorities are investigating what time he left.

Assistant Chief of Police Morgan Kane told reporters later Wednesday that police do not believe students inside the school faced any danger.

A source familiar with the situation told ABC News that that D.C. Public Schools planned to deploy immediate mental health and social workers to assist with crisis support for students and staff at Roosevelt.

“I can’t overstate how heartbreaking it is, how heartbroken I am right now, for our kids with what we see happening as a police agency in the city,” Kane said. “But what I will tell you is that it just makes us more deliberate and intentional in our resolve to put our hands around what is happening with our kids.”

On Sunday, 10-year-old Arianna Davis was shot in the upper body while driving home with family following Mother’s Day celebrations, police have said. Metropolitan Police said she was “accidentally hit in a barrage of gunfire.”

On Wednesday, authorities said Davis had died.

Separately, before dawn on Monday, a 12-year-old girl was shot after a bullet went through the window of her home and struck her in the leg as she was sleeping, according to authorities. She was transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mayor Bowser said: “We don’t want to see any gun violence in our city, certainly not among our children. We regard our schools as the safest place for our children.”

Bowser told reporters that she felt there “needs to be a fundamental shift” with “how we talk about consequences and how we’re working with young people that we know are in trouble.”

Asked to elaborate, Bowser said: “I think it needs to be on how to get young people who are using guns and make sure that they can’t hurt other people.”

She pointed to new legislative efforts aimed at increasing public safety, unveiled on Monday, which she said she hopes the city council “urgently” takes up before the end of the summer. The proposal would increase penalties for some violent crime and illegal gun possession.

“We can’t think of our juvenile rehabilitation system as punishment that courts and judges don’t regard as a way to help keep young people out of trouble,” she said, adding that her administration is supporting the “idea of respite or shelter care before a young person gets himself in trouble or hurt somebody or ends up being a victim of crime.”

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(GREENVILLE, S.C.) — A South Carolina woman who ran an autism clinic is facing federal charges of health care fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina.

Stamatina “Nina” Bourret, 41, from Greenville — 200 miles northwest of Charleston — was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday on 21 charges including fraud, and aiding and abetting for defrauding Medicaid.

According to the indictment, viewed by ABC News, Bourret ran Agapi Behavior Consultants, which allegedly provides clinic, in-school and at-home services for children with autism and other related disorders.

The clinic’s website says its programs are for those between ages 18 months to 21 years, and treatment consists of behavioral support, emotional training, family training, social skill training and generalizing skills.

The indictment states that from about July 2020 to April 2022, Bourret billed Medicaid for services that she and other workers either only provided partially or did not provide at all.

For example, the indictment alleges that Bourret submitted claims that services were provided on the weekends, despite the fact that Agapi was closed on weekends, and that she also submitted “false and fictitious claims for services beyond what was actually performed on the beneficiaries.”

She also submitted claims using the provider numbers of employees who did not work in the area of South Carolina where patients lived, and claims of employees who never treated these patients, the indictment says.

The claims ranged from about $58 to $436, according to the indictment.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment.

Bourret was arrested Tuesday and was released on a $25,000 bond on the condition she surrender her passport.

She faces a maximum of up to 10 years in prison for each charge. Bourret is also required to forfeit all process “obtained, directly or indirectly, from the offenses charged in this Indictment, that is, a minimum of approximately $1,109,430.00.”

Attempts to reach Bourret were unsuccessful, and a number listed for Agapi was not in service. Her next court appearance is scheduled for May 26 at the federal court in Greenville.

Her attorney, Andrew Moorman, told ABC News he could not comment on the case.

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