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(SPRINGFIELD, Mo.) — The Springfield, Missouri, health department is requesting funding for an alternate COVID-19 care site in response to a spike in infections and hospitalizations in recent weeks, health officials announced Wednesday.

Several local health facilities and hospitals jointly requested the alternative care site funding, which would include money for more beds, staff and antibody testing. One of those facilities was Springfield-based Mercy Hospital, which had so many hospitalized COVID patients last week that it had to call in backup ventilators from other hospitals in its network when it ran out.

The increase in severe illness is taxing the health system and sick patients are expected to outpace hospital capacity, according to the Springfield-Greene County Health Department.

Of the 231 patients currently being treated in Greene County hospitals, 104 are in critical care and 61 are on ventilators, the health department said.

“The Springfield-Greene County Health Department continues to urge anyone not fully vaccinated continue to take precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including wearing a mask,” Aaron Schekorra, a spokesperson for the health department, told ABC News. “Businesses and organizations are encouraged to implement policies in order to protect their staff, clients, and guests, such as requiring masking for all.”

The spike in Springfield is part of a larger wave of COVID in the state that has top health officials worried.

“Missouri is at the top of our list,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institute of Health, said during an interview with ABC News Kansas City affiliate KMBC, in reference to concerning COVID hotspots. “It seems to be now expanding more and more (to other areas) of Missouri,” Collins added.

Missouri’s vaccination rate trails the national average. As of Wednesday, 46% of residents had received at least one dose, and 40% were fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with 56% of all Americans who’ve gotten at least one shot and 48% who are fully vaccinated.

In Greene County, where Springfield is located, vaccination rates are even lower than the statewide average. Just 40% of Greene County residents have received one dose of the vaccine, and only 35% are fully vaccinated, according to state health department data.

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(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — A major children’s hospital in Tennessee is the latest to announce a requirement that all employees be vaccinated against COVID-19, which comes at a time when workplace mandates have sparked showdowns and lawsuits.

In a memo to staff sent Wednesday afternoon, employees of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and its fundraising offshoot ALSAC, were informed of the requirement and given a Sept. 9 deadline to get vaccinated.

“By September 10, employees who have refused vaccination or do not have an approved medical or religious exemption will be put on an unpaid administrative leave for two weeks,” wrote Dr. James R. Downing, president and CEO of the Memphis hospital.

“During this time, they have the opportunity to begin the vaccination process,” he added. “Those who fail to start the vaccination process will be terminated at the end of the two-week period.”

Downing noted the rapid spread of the delta variant, which he said is now responsible for some two-thirds of all COVID-19 cases in Memphis and Shelby County. He also expressed concern over the recent uptick in cases in the area and the potential of a corresponding surge in hospitalizations.

“Hundreds of millions of people around the world have safely received the COVID-19 vaccine,” Downing wrote. “The benefits far outweigh the risks.”

In statement to ABC News, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital said the decision to mandate vaccines was reached “after much research, analysis and discussion.”

“It is the right thing to keep our campus safe,” the hospital added. “Our duty to our patients frames everything we do. This is the logical next step to ensure we stay one step ahead of the virus.”

The statement added that ALSAC and the hospital share a campus and thereby are jointly implementing the policy.

St. Jude has more than 3,600 employees, according to its website. The Memphis Business Journal reported that ALSAC had some 1,240 local employees.

The hospital is the latest in a slew of employers — from school districts to airliners — that have announced COVID-19 vaccine mandates as workplaces begin to reopen.

The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission said employers can legally require COVID-19 vaccinations to re-enter a physical workplace, as long as they follow requirements to find alternative arrangements for employees unable to get vaccinated for medical reasons or because they have religious objections.

Still, many employers have faced legal challenges and pushback from workers who refuse the shot.

More than 175 staffers at the Houston Methodist hospital were temporarily suspended without pay last month after not complying with a mandate, and a lawsuit was filed against the hospital. A Texas judge sided with the hospital, tossing out a lawsuit filed by 117 employees who were against getting the shot. Lawsuits over workplace vaccine requirements also have been leveled against a school district in California and a sheriff’s office in North Carolina.

Some 53% of the people 18 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine in Tennessee, and 47.2% are fully vaccinated, according to data released Friday.

Nationally, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 67.8% of the population over 18 has received at least one dose, and 59.1% are fully vaccinated. The public health agency has stated COVID-19 vaccines are “safe and effective,” as lawmakers and more implore more Americans to get vaccinated.

“Millions of people in the United States have received COVID-19 vaccines since they were authorized for emergency use by FDA,” the CDC said. “These vaccines have undergone and will continue to undergo the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history.”

ABC News’ Will Gretsky and Marlene Lenthang contributed to this report.

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(MIAMI) — Two men were found dead at the former Versace mansion in Miami just one day before the 24th anniversary of the death of fashion designer Gianni Versace there.

A member of the housekeeping staff at The Villa Casa Casuarina found the two men in a room Wednesday afternoon, and police and fire rescue arrived on scene around 1:30 p.m.

The victims were identified as Adam Rashap, 31, of New Jersey, and Alexander Gross, 30, of Pennsylvania, according to police.

Both had gunshot wounds to the head, and a preliminary investigation points to the incident being an “apparent double suicide,” Ernesto Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the Miami Beach Police Department, told ABC News.

The scene was contained to the hotel room, and detectives have launched a full investigation, Miami Beach police said in a statement on Wednesday.

The hotel did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Versace, the iconic Italian fashion designer, purchased the mansion in 1992, and today the Spanish-style villa operates as a restaurant and boutique hotel.

Thursday marks the 24th anniversary of Versace’s death. He was returning home to the mansion on his usual morning walk from the nearby News Cafe when he was shot in the head on the front steps of the home by Andrew Cunanan.

Cunanan went on a violent killing spree in which he killed four other men before targeting Versace, investigators said at the time. He died by suicide eight days after Versace’s shooting.

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(NEW YORK) — Days after an avid long-distance runner mysteriously vanished in Northern California, police are “further scaling down operations” to find him, they announced Wednesday evening.

Philip Kreycik, 37, drove to the Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park at about 11 a.m. Saturday, parking at the Moller Trail staging area, to go for an 8-mile run, according to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.

The Berkeley resident told his wife he’d be gone for an hour, police said. He has been missing ever since.

“Philip is an endurance athlete and is in top physical condition. He is also well versed on rural terrain and outdoor environments,” Sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Kelly said in a statement Tuesday. “Temperatures that day on the ridge were about 106 degrees but were not a deterrent for Phillip who thrives in extreme environments.”

“This is a very bright man who went to Harvard and MIT, a man that’s analytical in his thinking, a guy that runs ultramarathons,” Kelly told ABC San Francisco station KGO-TV.

Wednesday marked “the last fully operational day” of the “exhaustive” five-day search, Pleasanton Police Department said, announcing that the department and aiding agencies are “further scaling down operations” to find him.

The search included more than a dozen agencies from across the state and nearly 300 volunteers, police said. Dogs, drones, helicopters and an airplane with advanced thermal imagery were also deployed, the sheriff’s office said.

Kreycik is the father of a 3-year-old and 10-month-old with his wife, Jen Yao.

“I know in my heart of hearts he’s out there,” Yao told KGO. “He’s out there and he’s alive and he’s waiting for us. And maybe he’s dehydrated, maybe injured, delirious.”

Police said Kreycik is described as white with a thin build, brown hair and brown eyes. He has no known health conditions.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Pleasanton Police Department at (925) 931-5107.

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(NEW YORK) — A 23-year-old Wisconsin man is being held by authorities for allegedly shooting and dismembering his father, before hiding his remains.

Chandler Halderson reported his parents, Bart and Krista Halderson, missing last week, but was arrested a day later for providing false information to police, investigators said.

Human remains belonging to Bart Halderson, 50, have since been found.

Authorities confirmed the son is now being held on new tentative charges: mutilating and hiding a corpse and first-degree intentional homicide.

Krista Halderson, 53, is still missing.

The new accusations, listed on the Dane County Jail’s inmate roster, came as the Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office released a statement following an autopsy of the remains. It revealed that Bart died from “homicidal violence including firearm injury.”

The Dane County District Attorney’s office have not yet brought formal charges against Chandler Halderson in the death of his father. However, according to a probable cause statement released by the county, witnesses placed Chandler at an acquaintance’s address in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, on July 5, when he was seen “reversing his vehicle with the rear hatch open in a field near a wooded area.” A human torso identified as Bart was found nearby.

The suspect told police his parents had spent July Fourth weekend at their cabin in White Lake, Langlade County, with an unknown couple, and they never returned. But when authorities searched the lake house, they found no evidence that anyone had been there.

“Halderson reported that his parents, Krista and Bart Halderson, were picked up by an unknown acquaintance in the early hours of July 1, 2021, to travel to the family’s cabin in White Lake, Wisconsin,” the probable cause statement said. “Halderson reported that his mother Krista had sent him a text message on July 4, 2021, stating that they had arrived and were in White Lake, and were planning on attending a parade that day. Investigation revealed that where was no parade and that Krista and Bart Halderson did not travel to their cabin in White Lake.”

Once investigators discovered Bart Halderson’s remains, Chandler Halderson was arrested.

“Chandler Halderson did know that his parents didn’t travel to the cabin, and intentionally made false statements to law enforcement regarding his parent’s whereabouts,” the statement concluded.

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(NEW YORK) — “Sicker, younger, quicker” is how hospital executive Steve Edwards explained a sudden explosion this month in COVID patients in Springfield, Missouri.

It’s against this backdrop — rising COVID cases due to an aggressive new variant and lagging vaccination numbers — that the nation’s estimated 56 million students grades K-12 return to the classroom full-time in the coming weeks, many of them for the first time since the pandemic shuttered schools in March 2020.

Here’s what to know about schools reopening:

Only of a quarter of children ages 12-15 are fully immunized

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lowered the age of people eligible to receive the vaccine from 16 to 12 in May, citing evidence from clinical trials that the two doses were safe and effective in kids in preventing the symptoms caused by COVID-19. Studies also have shown that vaccination prevents the chances a teen could spread the virus.

But U.S. teens have been slow on the uptake.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 86% of people over age 75 are fully vaccinated. That’s compared to nearly 25% of children ages 12-15 and 37% of young people 16-17 who are fully vaccinated.

That leaves large populations of high schools and middle schools — which are often overcrowded, making social distancing difficult — unprotected against the virus, particularly as daily COVID cases have jumped 86% in the last three weeks.

For younger children, ages 5-11, Pfizer said its clinical trials are under way now to see if a smaller dose of the vaccine would be as effective. Company officials said they plan to seek authorization for kids younger than 12 in September or October, paving the way for elementary-age children to be fully immunized by the end of the year.

Several states are prohibiting schools from requiring masks

Last year, schools were found not to be super-spreaders so long as students and staff consistently wore masks and took other steps to prevent transmission.

The CDC now says vaccinated students and staff can forgo masks unless they are riding a school bus or if their school tells them otherwise. But verifying who is vaccinated will be up to schools and local officials — and many states don’t appear to be eager to mandate proof of vaccination.

According to the school tracker Burbio, seven states are prohibiting schools from mandating masks. Schools in Utah, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, Vermont and South Carolina can only recommend masks to unvaccinated staff and students.

In Arizona, Chandler Unified School District, which welcomes back students July 21 — one of the earliest start dates in the nation — already decided masks would be voluntary when Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed a law that prohibits local counties and school districts from requiring students or staff to wear face coverings.

In most states though, including Missouri, school districts have the option of requiring masks come fall — a decision that could change as COVID case numbers fluctuate.

In Springfield, Missouri, for example, the city had lifted the mask mandate in schools only to reinstate it for its July summer program when COVID case numbers climbed. The superintendent there has yet to say whether masks will be required when the district reopens full-time on Aug. 23, welcoming back more than 23,000 students into its classrooms.

Biden designated $10B for testing in schools, but not every state wants it

President Joe Biden has designated $10 billion in federal money as part of his $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan so schools can test students and staff. Under the program, states are required to report back how many tests are used and how many turn up positive.

Several of the nation’s largest school districts — Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago — plan to reopen with routine surveillance testing for students. Colorado’s health department also announced it wants to use federal dollars to implement a routine testing program.

But other parts of the country — including Idaho and Iowa — plan to forgo entirely their share of federal funding to test students for COVID-19.

Last April, Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds announced that she would reject the $95 million in federal funds offered to the state for in-school coronavirus testing.

“I think he (Biden) thinks that COVID just started,” Reynolds said in a Fox News interview. “I just returned $95 million because they sent an additional $95 million to the state of Iowa to get our kids back in the classroom by doing surveillance testing. And I said we’ve been in the classroom since August. Here’s your $95 million back.”

The CDC and Biden’s top health officials are still suggesting schools embrace the idea of routine testing, particularly if they want schools to stay open.

“Our nation’s top public health scientists are recommending that school districts consider adding screening programs into their overall strategy for protecting their kids and their staff from outbreaks of COVID and the administration is supporting that recommendation with this testing program,” said Tom Inglesby, a senior COVID-19 response adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services.

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(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — Nearly two dozen 911 calls released by the Miami-Dade Police Department Wednesday convey the confusion, panic and disbelief among residents and neighbors after the partial collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South condominium in the beachside town of Surfside, Florida, in the early hours of June 24.

“I’m in the Champlain Towers, something is going on here. You gotta get us out of here.”

“It seemed like there was an earthquake.”

“Oh my God, the whole building collapsed.”

Frantic 911 calls came in from residents who were trapped inside after approximately 55 of the oceanfront complex’s 136 units were destroyed in the collapse at around 1:15 a.m.

“Half the building’s gone!” a panicked woman told the operator from her apartment.

A woman calling from the second floor told the operator that she couldn’t find an exit.

“We didn’t know which stairs we can get out,” she said.

A man on the same call told the operator he heard people yelling from the collapsed portion of the building.

“There’s people yelling, saying that they’re stuck,” he said.

“Is it safe for us to stay here?” he later asked.

The operator stayed with him on the phone as he and his family went down to the basement looking for a way out.

“The entire garage is flooded,” he said, updating the operator that they were going to try to go back to the second floor and that other people had joined his family.

“There are people in the rubble yelling, by the way,” he later said, softly.

One person called 911 from the flooded garage.

“A bunch of us are in the garage but we cannot get out,” the caller said. “We’re going back up the stairwell, the garage is inundated with water. We don’t know where the water is coming from.”

A distressed woman called from outside the parking garage asking to be rescued.

“Can somebody help me get out?” she asked. “I was able to escape but I’m in the parking lot. If the building comes down it will come down on my head.”

Other calls came in from family members of those who lived in the condo begging for help.

“My sister lives there,” one person said. “I don’t know, something happened to it. I don’t know, half of the building isn’t there anymore. She is alive and she is there, she’s in apartment [muted]. If someone can get her out through the balcony.”

Witnesses who heard the collapse and saw the aftermath also called 911.

“What are you seeing sir because we are getting a lot of calls over there?” an overwhelmed operator asked in one call.

“A very large building collapse, like the building next to us is gone,” the caller replied.

Another caller a block and a half away reported hearing an explosion.

Others reported seeing smoke and flames following the collapse.

“A building collapsed a block away from me and there is major smoke everywhere. We don’t know if anybody is hurt,” a caller said. “I heard the explosion all the way and the building is collapsing.”

Several callers described hearing what sounded like an earthquake, as well as an explosion from the garage.

“I woke up because I was hearing some noise,” one caller said. “I looked outside and the patio area started sinking down.”

“The building just went into the sinkhole,” the caller said a few seconds later. “There will be many, many people dead.”

The full toll of the disaster still remains to be seen; after nearly three weeks of search efforts, at least 95 people have been confirmed dead, while 14 people remain unaccounted for, officials said Tuesday. The cause of the partial collapse is under investigation.

Documents released by the city of Surfside show there was structural damage to the concrete slabs on the condo building’s pool deck and failed waterproofing in parts of the tower, and that the pool deck and the ceiling of the underground parking garage beneath it had needed repairs as early as 1996.

ABC News’ Benjamin Stein contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — A judge has delayed the sentencing of a man convicted of murdering University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts after defense attorneys filed court documents accusing prosecutors of failing to disclose that police were investigating a sex trafficking “trap house” involving a man linked to a missing 11-year-old boy.

Instead of sentencing Cristhian Bahena Rivera, who was expected to receive life in prison without the possibility of parole, Judge Joel Yates will hold a hearing on Thursday on a defense motion to set aside the verdict and schedule a new trial.

A jury convicted Bahena Rivera, a 27-year-old Mexican national farmworker, in May of first-degree murder in the 2018 abduction and killing of the 20-year-old student.

On Tuesday, Bahena Rivera’s attorneys filed a motion, alleging prosecutors failed to disclose a separate investigation was occurring at the time of Tibbetts’ disappearance involving a man allegedly operating a sex trafficking “trap house” in New Sharon, Iowa, 27 miles from Brooklyn, Iowa, where Tibbetts went missing on July 18, 2018.

The 50-year-old man the defense attorneys identified by name in their motion was once the live-in boyfriend of the mother of 11-year-old Xavior Harrelson, who vanished from a rural Iowa trailer park on May 27, a day before the jury found Bahena Rivera guilty.

The motion also claimed that an investigation by the defense found that, in the past few years, at least 10 children have been reported missing in or near Poweshiek County, Iowa, the same county where Tibbetts was stabbed to death and dumped in a cornfield.

The defense attorneys filed court papers last week asking for a new trial based on information from two witnesses who came forward to law enforcement in May saying they independently spoke to a man who claimed he and a 50-year-old sex trafficker killed Tibbetts and framed Bahena Rivera.

One of the new witnesses purportedly claimed the real killer — who was in jail with the witness at the time — told him that he first saw Tibbetts bound and gagged at a sex trafficking “trap house” owned by his alleged accomplice. The man claimed, according to the defense motion, his alleged accomplice grew worried after federal authorities searching for Tibbetts showed up at a house next door to his.

“That Mexican shouldn’t be in jail for killing Mollie Tibbett, because I raped her and killed her,” the witness claimed the confessed killer told him, according to the earlier defense motion.

In their motion filed Tuesday, defense attorneys attached a police search warrant affidavit for the New Sharon home that they say “corroborates the ‘trap house’ account.”

A second individual contacted the Mahaska County, Iowa, Sheriff’s Office with a similar story involving the same man who reportedly confessed, but deputies said the witness appeared to be under the influence at the time and dismissed the story as not being credible.

Both witnesses contacted investigators within hours of each other on May 26, the same day Bahena Rivera testified at his trial that he was kidnapped by two masked men who forced him to drive them to where Tibbetts was expected to be jogging. He claimed that when they found Tibbetts, one of the men stabbed her to death, put her body in the trunk of Bahena Rivera’s car and made him drive to a cornfield, where the young woman’s badly decomposed remains were discovered a month after she went missing.

Bahena Rivera admitted on the witness stand that he placed Tibbetts’ body in the cornfield but was not involved in her murder. Bahena Rivera claimed during his testimony that he didn’t tell investigators about the masked men because they threatened to harm his former girlfriend, the mother of his daughter, if he did.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Scott Brown called Bahena Rivera’s testimony a “figment of his imagination.” A jury deliberated seven hours over two days before finding Bahena Rivera guilty.

Following the verdict, prosecutors informed the defense attorneys that the two witnesses had come forward.

The defense motion filed Tuesday argued that Bahena Rivera’s “claim based on newly discovered evidence has turned into a due process violation arising from the prosecution’s failure to turn over reports involving trap houses and kidnappings in or near the Poweshiek County area.”

Prosecutors from the Iowa State Attorney General’s Office have yet to comment on the new developments but are expected to file a response to the defense motion for a new trial on Wednesday.

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(ANNAPOLIS, Md.) — An arrest has been made in the slaying of a Houston mom who was shot and killed while in Maryland to drop off her son at the U.S. Naval Academy, authorities announced Wednesday.

Angelo Harrod, 29, allegedly shot Michelle Cummings, 57, while she sat on an Annapolis hotel patio in the early hours of June 29, according to Annapolis police.

Harrod was confined to home detention on May 3 and allegedly cut off his ankle bracelet before the shooting, Annapolis Police Chief Edward Jackson said at a news conference Wednesday.

A warrant had been out for Harrod for absconding home detection and authorities had been looking for him, Jackson said.

Harrod was identified as a suspect in the Cummings case after police reviewed videos and photos from the crime scene, according to the chief.

“The minute we knew he was wanted … we were looking for him and we just happened to find him on June 30,” Jackson said.

Cummings was not the intended target of the shooting, police said. The shots were fired on Pleasant Street and traveled a short distance, hitting Cummings, police said.

Charges filed Wednesday against Harrod include first-degree murder, second-degree murder and attempted murder.

The attempted murder charges are because the suspect allegedly attempted “to murder two other citizens that night on Pleasant Street,” the chief said.

Harrod is being held without bond, Jackson added.

Cummings and her husband were in Annapolis at the time of her slaying to bring their son, Midshipman Candidate Leonard Cummings III, to the U.S. Naval Academy. Their son, who goes by Trey, is an incoming freshman for the Naval Academy Class of 2025, the Academy said.

Jackson said he was desperate to solve this case.

“Some nights I couldn’t sleep. I felt rage,” he said.

Jackson said he called Cummings’ husband Wednesday morning with the news. Jackson said her husband “paused,” and then said, “Thank you, chief.”

Naval Academy Superintendent Sean Buck said at the news conference, “When Trey is ready … we will welcome him back with open arms.”

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(FORT HOOD, Texas) — A woman accused of helping Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen’s suspected killer dismember and dispose of Guillen’s body last year has been indicted by a grand jury.

Cecily Ann Aguilar was indicted Tuesday on 11 federal charges including accessory after the fact, destruction of records in a federal case, conspiracy to tamper with documents, tampering with documents and issuing false statements in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

The charges come one month after a Texas judge denied a motion from Aguilar asking her confession in the crime be thrown out.

Guillen was a Fort Hood Army specialist who disappeared in April 2020. Her remains were found along the Leon River in late June that year.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Texas said Guillen was bludgeoned to death with a hammer by fellow soldier Aaron David Robinson in the arms room of the Killeen, Texas, military base, according to the criminal complaint. He later died by suicide in July when confronted by police after Guillen’s remains were found.

Aguilar was his girlfriend at the time, according to the criminal complaint, and was taken into custody. In July 2020, she was charged with one federal count of conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

The Tuesday indictment stated Aguilar “did unlawfully and knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with another person to corruptly alter, destroy, mutilate, and conceal any record, document and other object,” such as Guillen’s body, “with the intent to impair its integrity and availability for use in an official proceeding.”

The documents stated she and Robinson dismembered Guillen’s body, destroyed some of it and concealed what was left of her remains. They further said she made false statements “to prevent” Robinson and herself “from being charged with and prosecuted for any crime.”

Lawyers for Aguilar did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Natalie Khawam, the attorney for Guillen’s family, told ABC News they are hoping for a “maximum sentence” for Aguilar.

“My clients, the Guillen family, and I believe that Cecily Aguilar is guilty. When the U.S. Attorney called me yesterday to tell us the news, we felt some relief knowing that justice is underway,” Khawam said. “We pray that this trial does not drag on but rather is put on a speedy trial calendar so that justice is not delayed. Vanessa was brutally murdered, in a way no one should ever be taken from this Earth.”

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