(SPRINGHILL TOWNSHIP, Penn.) — A worker is dead after a stone mine collapsed in southwestern Pennsylvania Friday, officials said.
The roof of the Laurel Aggregates’ Lake Lynn mine in Springhill Township collapsed Friday afternoon, trapping a miner, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Late Friday night, the miner was pronounced dead at the scene after being pulled from the debris, Pennsylvania DEP said.
“DEP believes this was caused by a portion of the mine roof falling onto equipment that the individual was working in,” the agency said in a statement.
The miner’s identity hasn’t been released, but next of kin have been notified.
Pennsylvania DEP’s Bureau of Mine Safety rescue team responded to the scene after the mine operator reported the collapse, and crews from the rescue team and company worked to remove loose rock to reach the equipment, officials said.
The miner was not responsive when reached and was extricated from the mine by the Smithfield Volunteer Fire Department and mine rescue team shortly after 11 p.m. local time, Pennsylvania DEP said.
The American Red Cross of Greater Pennsylvania also responded to the scene to provide mental health services and support, the organization said.
Pennsylvania DEP, safety regulator for underground non-coal mines, is investigating the cause of the roof collapse.
Laurel Aggregates, a limestone and sandstone mining company in Lake Lynn, said in a statement to ABC Pittsburgh affiliate WTAE: “At this time, we are focused on responding to an emergency incident at our Lake Lynn, Pennsylvania aggregate facility. The safety of our employees is our number one priority. More information will be shared when appropriate.”
ABC News’ Victoria Arancio contributed to this report.
(PHILADELPHIA) — The Philadelphia School District announced on Friday that 46 of its schools will switch to virtual learning as the omicron variant and a winter storm take a toll on staffing.
“Based on today’s data review, we know that at least 46 schools definitely will be 100% virtual next week, Monday, January 10th through Friday, January 14th, 2022,” William Hite, the superintendent of Philadelphia’a school district, said in a statement.
The district will continue to make daily assessments on a school-by-school basis taking into consideration COVID-related staffing data, temporary measures schools can make and how central office staff can be deployed to maintain safe and orderly school environments, Hite said.
The district will be monitoring staffing data over the weekend and will provide another update by Sunday at 4 p.m., according to Hite. Next week, they will offer updates at least twice a day, he said.
“Staffing challenges due to the Omicron surge coupled with the winter storm have made this an incredibly challenging first week back to school for the 2022 new year,” Hite said. “We will continue to keep as many of our school buildings open as consistently as possible as long as we are confident we can do so safely.”
On Tuesday, the number of grab-and-go meal sites in Philadelphis schools and other locations throughout the city will double in number, from 12 to 24. Students who are quarantining or whose schools have gone virtual can pick up five-day breakfast and lunch meal boxes.
“We are doing everything we can to safely keep as many of our schools open as consistently as possible for our students and families. By continuing to work together, and by being flexible and patient with one another along the way, we can help our young people through these difficult times,” Hite said.
(NEW YORK) — The University of Pennsylvania came under fire this week after a law professor made inflammatory comments about Asians and the Asian-American community during an interview.
Amy Wax, in speaking to Brown University professor Glenn Loury on “The Glenn Show,” said: “Maybe it’s just that Democrats love open borders, and Asians want more Asians here. Perhaps they are just mesmerized by the feel-good cult of diversity. I don’t know the answer, but as long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.”
Those comments sparked outrage on campus, with the dean of the law school calling them “anti-intellectual and racist.”
“Like all racist generalizations, Wax’s recent comments inflict harm by perpetuating stereotypes and placing differential burdens on Asian students, faculty and staff to carry the weight of this vitriol and bias,” Dean Theodore Ruger said in a statement.
Penn students created a petition demanding the school take action against Wax, a tenured professor.
“I think that the university needs to suspend her from all teaching duties,” said Apratim Vidyarthi, a third-year law student. “She shouldn’t be allowed to come on campus, she shouldn’t be allowed to interact with students while this investigation is ongoing.”
Wax didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment from ABC News.
She’s been accused of making racist comments previously.
“We know she said similar things in the past,” Vidvarthi continued. “She said that white European cultures are better than non-white European cultures in the past. She’s lied about Black students’ performance in class. So it wasn’t surprising, and it’s about time that we do something about this.”
Soojin Jeong, co-president of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Associated, expressed disappointment in the Penn administration.
“As much as Amy Wax has said these things,” Jegon added, “we also know right now that it is a pattern, as we said in the petition.”
(NEW YORK) — Just a few minutes after the clock struck midnight, James “Roe” Williams was fatally shot by police on New Year’s Day.
The Canton Police Department has now released body camera footage that shows the moments leading up to the fatal incident as the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation begins its investigation.
Williams, 46, was firing celebratory shots into the air from his rifle just outside his home in Canton, Ohio, on Jan. 1 when police arrived, his wife, Marquetta Williams, told ABC News.
Canton Police said they were called to investigate a shots-fired incident.
In body camera footage, an officer can be heard saying, “I saw the male’s head through the fence. After I heard the shots, I got in my cruiser, went up to the porch and I saw him putting the rifle away.”
Then, several shots are fired and the officer appears to walk toward the sound. The officer approaches the fence of Williams’ home. In the audio of the body camera footage, shots can still be heard. That’s when the officer shoots toward the fence and fatally strikes Williams, who, Marquetta said, was on the other side.
According to Marquetta Williams, her husband was bleeding as he walked into their home. Body camera footage then shows Marquetta Williams coming out of the front door, yelling, “My husband’s been shot!” Another officer can be heard in the footage noting there are children inside the house.
Officers then ordered all of the people in the house to come out and get on the sidewalk, according to the video.
First aid was administered when Williams was encountered in the home, and he was transported by Canton Fire paramedics to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to officials.
All evidence has been turned over to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, according to the Canton Police Department. The officer involved, who has not yet been named, has been placed on administrative leave.
A statement from the Canton Police Department said the officer was “in fear for his safety” when he shot Williams.
Marquetta Williams called the shooting “unjustified” and “senseless,” adding that the officer shot through a fence that’s intended for privacy and hard to see through.
“My husband and my family and my kids are going to get justice,” she said. “This could have been avoided.”
She described her husband as a “good man” and a loving father.
“All he did was take care of his kids,” Marquetta Williams said. “He’d give you the shirt off his back, and they took that away from me and my babies.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.4 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 833,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 62.4% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-1 in 5 Americans have tested positive for COVID-19
-Half of NYC COVID hospitalized patients were admitted for other reasons
-COVID vaccines can cause temporary menstrual cycle changes: Study
-CDC director responds to criticism of COVID-19 guidance
-Florida allowed up to 1 million COVID-19 tests to expire, official says
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Jan 07, 6:38 pm
LA County records record over 43,000 new cases in single day
Los Angeles County saw over 43,000 new cases in one day, a new record, health officials announced Friday.
This beats Thursday’s previous record high of 37,000.
There are 2,902 people with COVID-19 currently hospitalized in the county, according to health officials.
L.A. County Director of Public Health Dr. Barbara Ferrer noted that vaccinated individuals are “between 10 and 30 times less likely to need hospital care than those unvaccinated.”
“Every resident can also do their part to protect our healthcare personnel and hospitals. Please get vaccinated or boosted as soon as possible if eligible,” she said in a statement.
ABC News’ Alex Stone
Jan 07, 4:36 pm
1 in 5 Americans have tested positive for COVID-19
The U.S. recorded more than 705,000 COVID-19 cases Thursday and is currently averaging 586,000 new cases per day — the highest ever recorded during the pandemic. new federal data shows.
With a total confirmed case count of 58.8 million COVID-19 infections, this means one in approximately every five Americans have tested positive for the virus.
New York City is currently recording the country’s highest case rate, followed by New Jersey and New York state
Meanwhile, the U.S. is reporting an average of about 1,200 new COVID-19 deaths per day, up by about 10% in the last week.
The death toll currently stands at 834,000, meaning about 1 in every 393 Americans has died from COVID-19.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 07, 5:00 pm
Pfizer vaccine lowers risk of inflammatory condition in teens: CDC
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine dramatically reduces the risk of teenagers developing MIS-C, a dangerous inflammatory condition, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Friday.
MIS-C is a condition in which different body parts can become inflamed such as the heart, lungs and kidneys. It tends to appear in kids and adolescents two to six weeks after becoming infected with COVID-19.
Researchers looked at children and teens between ages 12 and 18 from 24 hospitals across the country.
They found that the vaccine was 91% against MIS-C. Of the children who were critically ill with MIS-C and required life support, all were unvaccinated.
“No fully vaccinated patients with MIS-C required respiratory or cardiovascular life support, as opposed to 39% of unvaccinated MIS-C patients who did,” the authors wrote.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman
Jan 07, 2:17 pm
Half of NYC COVID hospitalized patients were admitted for other reasons
About half of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in New York City were originally admitted for other reasons, Gov. Kathy Hochul said.
Across the state, 42% of COVID-19 patients entered hospitals for reasons unrelated to the virus, such as a car accident, and only learned they were positive during their stays, Hochul said during a press conference Friday.
This is the first time that New York has differentiated between patients who go to hospitals to get care for COVID-19 and those who seek out care for other issues but test positive upon arrival.
Hochul also asked New Yorkers who have mild symptoms to not go to emergency rooms to get tested or treated because many hospitals are currently understaffed.
“If you’re an adult with very minor symptoms, you can handle a runny nose. You can handle the throats being a little sore, a little bit of a cough. Just treat as if you would the flu, all the protocols,” she said. “But please don’t overburden our emergency rooms.”
Hochul added that nearly 20% of all emergency rooms in the state are made up of people who are there only to get tested for COVID-19.
(DENVER) — Officials have identified the first confirmed casualty of a devastating wildfire in Colorado.
Partial human remains found Wednesday at a home in unincorporated Boulder County destroyed by the Marshall Fire have been identified as Robert Sharpe, 69, “based on DNA analysis and scene circumstances,” the Boulder County Coroner’s Office said in a statement Friday.
The cause and manner of death are still under investigation, the coroner’s office said.
Sharpe was one of two people reported missing in the wake of the wind-fueled wildfire, which began Dec. 30 and forced 35,000 people to evacuate homes across Louisville, Superior and unincorporated Boulder County.
Sharpe was a longtime resident of Boulder who worked in construction, his family said in a statement to ABC Denver affiliate KMGH-TV.
“Robert will be greatly missed by his family and friends,” the family said, remembering him as a naturalist who was concerned with children’s rights. “The total devastation of this event has shocked and impacted so many in the community. Our hearts go out to the many others who have suffered losses.”
Sharpe is survived by three brothers, one sister and “many nieces and nephews,” said the family, who asked that anyone wishing to donate in his memory do so to the Boulder County Wildfire Fund.
A woman from Superior also was reported missing by her family in the fire, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday. The sheriff’s office has not yet provided any updates on that search.
Authorities are continuing to investigate the cause of the fire, which destroyed 1,084 homes and damaged another 149, according to the Boulder Office of Disaster Management.
The investigation and recovery process have been impeded by recent snowfall, the sheriff’s office said this week. Debris in impacted areas, including glass, sharp metal and unstable structures, also continue to pose hazards, officials warned Friday.
(NEW YORK) — The Amber Alert for Lina Sardar Khil, a missing 3-year-old girl in San Antonio, was suspended on Friday afternoon, but police stressed that the investigation is ongoing.
“While the Amber Alert for Lina has been suspended, it’s critical to communicate that Lina is still a missing person, and, once again, we continue to follow up on leads and actively search for Lina,” a San Antonio Police Department spokesperson told ABC News on Friday.
“We will continue to diligently continue combing through leads in hopes of locating Lina and reuniting her with her family,” the spokesperson added.
Lina was last seen Dec. 20 between 4:30 p.m. and 5:10 p.m. local time at a park on the 9400 block of Fredericksburg Road in San Antonio, according to police. The park is near the family’s home.
Lina’s family is part of an Afghan refugee community in San Antonio and speaks Pashto. Police have issued alerts in multiple languages.
An FBI dive team ended a search for Lina on Wednesday without finding any trace of the girl, police said.
Police Chief William McManus said a day earlier that SAPD’s investigation had led the FBI to an area not previously searched — a creek bed near the family’s apartment complex. An 11-person FBI team spent two days combing the area.
“We don’t want to leave anything to chance,” McManus told reporters on Tuesday evening at the scene of the search. “Everything that we get that has any kind of potential at all, we follow it up. And that’s what we’re doing here today.”
Lina has brown eyes and brown hair and was last seen wearing a black jacket, a red dress and black shoes. Before the Amber Alert was discontinued, police issued multiple alerts saying that the child could be in “grave danger.”
The Islamic Center of San Antonio is offering a $100,000 reward for anyone who can help find Lina. The Crime Stoppers of San Antonio also has offered $50,000 for information resulting in the arrest or indictment of any suspect connected to Lina’s disappearance.
Anyone with information on Lina’s case is urged to contact the department’s Missing Persons Unit at 210-207-7660 or Crime Stoppers at 210-224-7867.
(NEW YORK) — James and Jennifer Crumbley’s motion to amend their bond was denied by a judge on Friday. Both are charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter in a Michigan school shooting. Their 15-year-old son, Ethan Crumbley, is charged with the shooting and killing of four classmates at Oxford High School.
District Court Judge Julie Nicholson denied the request, citing their ties to Florida, the seriousness of the crimes and their failure to turn themselves in when they were charged.
The parents’ bond is set at $500,000 each and they were trying to get it reduced to $100,000 each. ABC News has reached out to James and Jennifer Crumbley’s lawyers for comment. Prosecutors allege the parents gave their son a gun that was later used in the school shooting.
The parents hid in an abandoned warehouse in Detroit and had concealed their car by hiding their license plates instead of turning themselves in the day they were charged, prosecutors allege.
The couple put their house on the market, drained their son’s bank account and asked family members to sell their horses, according to prosecutors.
Video on Ethan’s phone from August showed him holding his father’s pistol and sent messages to a friend which included: “It’s time to shoot up a school. Jk, jk, jk,” prosecutors also claim.
Ethan Crumbley, on Friday, waived his right to a preliminary examination, sending his case to trial. No date is set for his trial.
The Crumbley’s preliminary examination is scheduled for Feb. 8
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.4 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 833,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 62.4% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-Half of NYC COVID hospitalized patients were admitted for other reasons
-COVID vaccines can cause temporary menstrual cycle changes: Study
-CDC director responds to criticism of COVID-19 guidance
-Florida allowed up to 1 million COVID-19 tests to expire, official says
-Global COVID cases top 300 million
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Jan 07, 3:08 pm
Pfizer vaccine lowers risk of inflammatory condition in teens: CDC
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine dramatically reduces the risk of teenagers developing MIS-C, a dangerous inflammatory condition, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Friday.
MIS-C is a condition in which different body parts can become inflamed such as the heart, lungs and kidneys. It tends to appear in kids and adolescents two to six weeks after becoming infected with COVID-19.
Researchers looked at children and teens between ages 12 and 18 from 24 hospitals across the country.
They found that the vaccine was 91% against MIS-C. Of the children who were critically ill with MIS-C and required life support, all were unvaccinated.
“No fully vaccinated patients with MIS-C required respiratory or cardiovascular life support, as opposed to 39% of unvaccinated MIS-C patients who did,” the authors wrote.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman
Jan 07, 2:17 pm
Half of NYC COVID hospitalized patients were admitted for other reasons
About half of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in New York City were originally admitted for other reasons, Gov. Kathy Hochul said.
Across the state, 42% of COVID-19 patients entered hospitals for reasons unrelated to the virus, such as a car accident, and only learned they were positive during their stays, Hochul said during a press conference Friday.
This is the first time that New York has differentiated between patients who go to hospitals to get care for COVID-19 and those who seek out care for other issues but test positive upon arrival.
Hochul also asked New Yorkers who have mild symptoms to not got to emergency rooms to get tested or treated because many hospitals are currently understaffed.
“If you’re an adult with very minor symptoms, you can handle a runny nose. You can handle the throats being a little sore, a little bit of a cough. Just treat as if you would the flu, all the protocols,” she said. “But please don’t overburden our emergency rooms.”
Hochul added that nearly 20% of all emergency rooms in the state are made up of people who are there only to get tested for COVID-19.
ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Jan 07, 1:27 pm
White House and USPS finalize deal to mail out 500 million COVID tests
The White House and USPS have finalized a plan to mail out 500 million free at-home rapid COVID-19 tests to Americans, a source briefed on the plan told ABC News.
It comes as the first contract to produce the tests was awarded to a testing company Thursday night, a White House spokesperson confirmed.
The main issue that was delaying the finalization of the plan was whether or not USPS can retain 40,000 temporary holiday season workers to help deliver the tests.
However, it’s not clear how many tests will be available from the first contract or how exactly USPS will deliver them. The White House has been vague on the timeline and has yet to launch a website through which Americans can order the tests.
The USPS-White House deal was first reported by The Washington Post.
ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman, Cheyenne Haslett and Sasha Pezenik
Jan 07, 12:45 pm
COVID vaccines can cause temporary menstrual cycle changes: Study
COVID-19 vaccines can cause temporary changes to menstrual cycles, a new study from Oregon Health and Science University suggests.
Researchers looked at nearly 4,000 women who use Natural Cycles, a Food and Drug Administration-approved birth control app.
They found that some women who received COVID-19 vaccines experienced changes, with the most common being periods starting late by about one day.
However, the effects were temporary with a normal menstrual cycle returning within one or two months after getting the shot.
The team emphasized the findings do not mean COVID-19 vaccines have an impact on current or future fertility.
(MEMPHIS) — New details have surfaced about Justin Johnson, the man who is wanted for allegedly shooting and killing rapper Young Dolph at a bakery in Memphis on Nov. 17 as he continues to evade capture.
The Memphis Police Department issued a first-degree murder warrant for Johnson, 23, on Wednesday — a Memphis man with a history of violence who is allegedly a local Memphis rapper known as Straight Drop or Straight Dropp, according to ABC Memphis station, WATN, and other local media outlets.
“This is just the beginning,” Dolph’s longtime partner Mia Jaye said in a statement posted to Instagram, following law enforcement’s announcement of the alleged suspect. “We are still prayerful that all attacks, plots and plans that were made against Adolph’s life are revealed and justice is diligently served.”
Young Dolph, whose real name was Adolph Robert Thornton Jr., was shot and killed in Memphis on Nov. 17 while visiting Makeda’s Homemade Butter Cookies, a bakery in South Memphis the rapper was known to frequent. He was 36 and shared two young children with Jaye, Tre and Ari, both of whom shared an emotional tribute to their father at a memorial in Memphis last month.
Young Dolph’s aunt Rita Myers told Rolling Stone in an interview on Wednesday that the family is reeling from her nephew’s killing.
“There’s not any closure for us with this news, because [Johnson] is not in custody, and we still don’t have all the facts,” she said. “We still feel the same. This news just made me feel worse. I thought it would make me feel better, but it didn’t. All I know is, anyone who could walk up and take the life of another person for no reason is someone with hate in their heart, a person who has no regard for life, a person who cares about nothing.”
Surveillance video released by police appears to show two suspects on the scene of the shooting, but no information has been released by MPD regarding the identity of a second potential suspect.
Johnson, who has a history of violence according to court records, is wanted by police in connection with a number of alleged charges, including first-degree murder, criminal attempted first-degree murder and property theft, the Memphis Police Department said on Wednesday.
Asked by ABC News to verify that Straight Drop’s known Instagram account, which is unverified and has over 50 thousand followers, belongs to Johnson, Memphis police declined to comment.
The phone number and email linked to the Instagram account are associated with Johnson, according to records reviewed by ABC News, and Straight Drop’s verified Spotify account mentions Justin Johnson in the writing credits of several songs.
Straight Drop released a song called “Stepped On,” featuring Big Homiie G, on his YouTube page on Nov. 22 — five days after Dolph was killed. The rapper shared a clip on his known Instagram account of the song and linked to the YouTube video in his profile.
In the video, Straight Drop appears to be wearing a chain with the acronym “PRE,” which resembles those worn by Dolph and artists who are associated with Dolph’s label, “Paper Route Empire,” which he founded in 2010.
This led to some confusion among fans regarding Straight Drop’s potential connection to the label. Whether he had a relationship with the late rapper or other PRE artists is unclear and ABC News has reached out to a representative of Dolph for comment.
According to the U.S. Marshals Service, Johnson had an outstanding warrant related to a weapon offense out of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee for violation of federal supervised release, and both cases are being investigated by the U.S. Marshals Two Rivers Violent Fugitive Task Force.
According to Shelby County court records reviewed by WATN, Johnson, who was 18 years-old at the time, shot three people at the Billy Hardwick Bowling Alley in 2017 – two of whom were injured.
Young Dolph honored by his kids at memorial as Memphis grapples with his death
Shelby County Judge Christopher Craft, who presided over the case, told WATN that Johnson had no record at the time, which is why he was given a second chance.
“The first time he used a gun, we gave him some slack because of him immediately cooperating and doing everything,” Craft said.
He was sentenced to five years in prison but after a few months he was released on probation, Craft said, but his probation was later revoked after Johnson faced a federal weapons charge for which he served additional time in prison.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons told ABC News on Friday that Johnson was sentenced in the Western District of Tennessee and committed to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons on March 11, 2019 and was released on May 25, 2021 via Good Conduct Time release.
Law enforcement urged the public to share any information regarding Johnson’s whereabouts and said that the suspect is a fugitive who “has ties to organized criminal gangs,” and “should be considered armed & dangerous.”
A spokesman for MPD told ABC News that as of Friday morning there are no updates to share regarding this case.
Johnson is 5-foot-8, 190 pounds and has black hair and brown eyes, police said. A combined reward of up to $15,000 is being offered by MPD, the U.S. Marshals Service and Crime Stoppers for information leading to his arrest.
