(CLARK COUNTY, Nev.) — A Nevada child died after being infected by a brain-eating amoeba in an “extremely rare” occurrence, the Southern Nevada Health District announced on Wednesday.
The district said that the Clark County, Nevada, resident might have been exposed to the amoeba, which it identified as Naegleria fowleri, on the Arizona side of Lake Mead in October.
“My condolences go out to the family of this young man,” Dr. Fermin Leguen, the district health officer for SNHD, said in a press release. “While I want to reassure the public that this type of infection is an extremely rare occurrence, I know this brings no comfort to his family and friends at this time.”
People can become infected by the amoeba when contaminated water enters the body through the nose, usually from swimming, diving or putting their heads underneath the water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
An infection from Naegleria fowleri can cause headaches, fever, nausea, vomiting, stiff neck, seizures and coma that can lead to death, according to SNHD.
According to SNHD, the patient began to develop symptoms a week after exposure.
“Once symptoms start, the disease progresses rapidly and usually causes death within about five days,” the district said.
Once diagnosed, Naegleria fowleri is very difficult to treat, Darien Sutton, a Los Angeles emergency medicine physician and ABC News medical contributor, said last year. Once it enters the brain, it causes a form of meningitis, and once the patient is exhibiting symptoms it’s often too late to save them.
According to the CDC, Naegleria fowleri is found in warm fresh water and soil around the world. In the U.S., it thrives during the warmer months.
Experts said that climate change might contribute to life-threatening risks for swimmers as waterborne pathogens flourish and multiply faster in increasingly warming waters.
Scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about the possibility of dangerous pathogens, such as Naegleria fowleri, and Vibrio vulnificus, a flesh-eating bacteria, Dr. Sandra Gompf, an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the University of South Florida, told ABC News last year.
The National Park Service will still allow recreational swimming at Lake Mead since the amoeba is natural to the environment and rarely causes disease, NPS said in a news release.
“However, recreational water users should always assume there is a risk anytime they enter warm fresh water,” Dr. Maria Said, a U.S public health service officer with the NPS, added.
ABC News’ Julia Jacobo contributed to this report.
Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images, FILE
(LAS VEGAS) — A former Nevada county official accused of fatally stabbing a Las Vegas journalist who was investigating his office has been indicted by a grand jury on murder.
Robert Telles, 45, was arrested and charged last month in connection with the death of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German, who police said was found stabbed to death outside his home on Sept. 3.
He has now been formally indicted by the Clark County grand jury on the charge of murder with use of a deadly weapon.
The indictment, filed Thursday, alleges that Telles, “with malice aforethought,” killed German by stabbing him multiple times.
The murder was “willful, deliberate and premeditated,” and “perpetrated by lying in wait” for the 69-year-old German, the indictment alleged.
Telles, who served as the Clark County public administrator, blamed German for ruining his career in politics and his marriage, according to prosecutors.
Telles lost his bid for re-election following an investigation by German in the Review-Journal that exposed turmoil in his office and accusations of bullying, retaliation and an “inappropriate relationship” between Telles and a staffer.
Police said the day before German’s murder, Telles was seen approaching the journalist’s home, where he allegedly had an altercation with him.
On the day of the murder, Telles allegedly wore a disguise — described by police as a straw hat and reflective vest — before stabbing German outside his home, police said.
Telles was arrested on Sept. 7 after DNA evidence found by a SWAT team at his home linked him to the crime scene, police said.
Telles has been held without bail in Clark County Detention Center. He was denied bail again during a court appearance this week, despite his attorney’s argument that he is not a threat to the community or a flight risk, ABC Las Vegas affiliate KTNV reported.
Judge Karen Bennett-Haron said she will “reconsider” bail during the preliminary hearing, scheduled for Oct. 26, according to KTNV.
Telles’ term as public administrator didn’t expire until Jan. 1, 2023, though he was officially removed from office on Oct. 5, KTNV reported.
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — The motive remains unknown for the mass shooting along a Raleigh, North Carolina, nature trail that killed five people and injured two others even as police released a five-day report on the incident Thursday.
The suspect, 15-year-old Austin Thompson, was critically injured in the Oct. 13 shooting. Raleigh police have not said if the suspect was shot by officers or himself.
The suspect’s 16-year-old brother, James Thompson, was among those killed, according to the Thompson family.
James Thompson was shot before the other victims, Raleigh police said in a new statement Thursday. The teen was found in a house with a gunshot wound and stab wounds, police said.
Raleigh police said there’s no apparent connection between the slain victims “other than they lived in the same neighborhood.” The other victims were identified as Susan Karnatz, 49, who was on a run; Gabriel Torres, 29, an off-duty police officer headed to work; Mary Marshall, 34, who was walking her dog; and Nicole Connors, 52, who was on a front porch with her dog.
Connors’ dog was also shot and killed, according to police.
Marcille Gardner, who was shot in a driveway, remains in the hospital in critical but stable condition, police said Thursday.
The police department said that it’s “limited in how much information” it can release “due to both the suspect’s age and the ongoing criminal investigation.”
Police did say that at one point the suspect fired at police, injuring officer Casey Clark, and the authorities returned fire. When the teen was taken into custody, he was wearing camouflage clothing and had a shotgun, handgun, ammunition and knives, according to police.
The Thompson family said in a statement Tuesday, “We are overcome with grief for the innocent lives lost … and we pray for everyone who was traumatized by these senseless acts of violence.”
“We have so many unanswered questions,” the family said. “There were never any indications or warning signs that Austin was capable of doing anything like this.”
(HAZELWOOD, Mo.) — A Missouri elementary school located near a contaminated creek in St. Louis County has closed after a private study found high levels of radioactive waste inside the building and its playground area.
The Hazelwood School District announced this week that Jana Elementary School in Florissant will pivot to virtual learning while school officials work on transferring students to different schools in the district in the coming weeks.
“The Hazelwood School District Board of Education will be working with our legal counsel to communicate to the appropriate agencies responsible, the necessity to immediately clean up and remediate any and all hazardous waste at Jana Elementary and any other District sites,” the school district said in a statement Wednesday.
The closure follows years of requests for testing. The school is located near Coldwater Creek, which was contaminated with uranium and other radioactive waste from a World War II nuclear weapons program, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
The school district warned parents in August, weeks before the start of the school year, about potential risks and possible disruptions after U.S. Army Corps of Engineer testing found radioactive contamination on the banks of the creek, at the edge of the school’s property.
The latest findings, from Boston Chemical Data Corp., have sparked calls for cleanup from parents and officials and concerns about potential exposure, while families also figure out next steps.
Creek’s history of contamination
Coldwater Creek, a 19-mile tributary of the Missouri River, passes near sites that were used in the development of nuclear weapons for the Manhattan Project, including radioactive waste storage piles.
The creek is contaminated with “uranium processing residues” that were improperly stored near it, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which in 2019 released a public health assessment report that found an increased risk of certain cancers for residents who “regularly played or lived along the creek for many years in the past.”
Jana Elementary sits on the flood plain of Coldwater Creek. The Corps, which is charged with the creek’s remediation, first detected radioactive contaminants near the school in 2018 and again in 2019, 2020 and 2021, according to the Boston Chemical Data Corp. report.
Following the latest testing, the Corps notified school officials in January that soil sampling conducted on the school’s property “showed the presence of low-level radioactive contamination” on the banks of Coldwater Creek, the Hazelwood School District said in an Aug. 5 letter to the school community.
“They further informed the district that the contamination did not pose an immediate risk to human health or the environment because the contamination was below ground surface,” the letter stated.
The school district gave parents the option for virtual learning while it awaited the results of further testing.
Latest testing sparks closure
The decision to close the school comes a week after the release of the Boston Chemical Data Corp. report, which found radioactive waste in the school and its playground. The report was funded by law firms involved in a class action lawsuit alleging illnesses and deaths caused by the creek contamination.
The school district granted the request for the testing, which was conducted in August, according to the Jana Elementary PTA, which alerted families to the report’s findings on Oct. 14.
Testing of dust and soil samples indicated high levels of radioactive lead in the school, including the library, and playground, according to the report. The levels in the kindergarten play area were “22 times the expected background,” according to the report.
“The most outstanding result of August 2022 testing at the Jana School was that levels of the radioactive isotope lead-210 found on school grounds were entirely unacceptable,” the report stated.
The Corps has not corroborated the findings of the private report.
In a statement Tuesday, the Corps’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program for the St. Louis District said the school property has contamination that is “isolated” to the creek bank, and that sample locations in the floodplain between the bank and playground area “aren’t contaminated.”
“The team will evaluate the report that Boston Chemical Data Corp. compiled on Jana Elementary School and the methods used to create these results,” it said in a news release. “That report isn’t consistent with FUSRAP’s accepted evaluation techniques and must be thoroughly vetted to ensure accuracy.”
Calls for cleanup, answers
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley has called on the Corps to review the findings of the independent report, conduct further testing on the school grounds and publicly report their findings.
“It should go without saying that hazardous, radioactive contamination has no place in schools, or anywhere near schools, or anywhere near any place where children are. And it should also go without saying the federal government must be honest and transparent about the facts,” Hawley wrote in a letter to Corps Lt. Gen. Scott Spellmon on Tuesday.
The senator has also urged President Joe Biden to declare a federal emergency and authorize “immediate relief” for all impacted families and to expedite the cleanup.
Missouri Rep. Cori Bush has also demanded an “urgent response” to the emergency.
“The federal government is responsible for this waste, and we need answers from them on their plan to immediately begin cleanup of Jana Elementary and the surrounding areas so our kids’ health and education is not further disrupted by the presence of toxic chemicals,” she said in a statement earlier this week. “Inaction is not an option. The safety of our children and our communities must come first.”
The Missouri Coalition for the Environment has called on the school district to “act swiftly to secure a comprehensive cleanup of all radioactive bomb waste at the school.”
“In the interim, they must provide parents with options to continue students’ education with minimal disruption,” the group said. “We are approaching 80 years since this nuclear bomb waste has been allowed to plague our neighborhoods.”
What’s next for frustrated, worried families
Some 400 students attend Jana Elementary. Amid the remediation, the school will transition to virtual learning starting on Monday, with plans to redistrict students into other schools by Nov. 28 “if feasible,” the school district said.
Two pre-K classrooms will be transferred to another elementary school to continue in-person learning.
“We recognize that you are being faced with a situation not created by anyone in this District, over which you have no control, and that this is causing a disruption to our students’ education and school climate. For that we sincerely apologize,” the school district said in a statement to families. “Please know that Hazelwood School District will work hand-in-hand with you to provide the support that is needed as we transition through these very difficult times.”
Families are now scrambling to figure out next steps. During a packed meeting with the Hazelwood School Board on Tuesday, parents expressed frustration with the district.
“Just communicate with us,” said Patrice Strickland, who said she has two children who have been attending school virtually since August after learning about the contamination. “We don’t blame you all, but we want to hear what’s going on because these are our babies.
“Help us to make the right decisions for us, and we can’t make the right decisions if we don’t know what is going on,” she continued.
Former students and families of students who now attend the school also expressed concerns for their health during the meeting.
Kimberly Anderson told the board she had bloodwork done for her three grandchildren who attend the school to test their lead levels.
“This can cause long-term effects with children,” she said.
Others want to find a way to keep the community intact amid redistricting plans.
“Our kids should not be strung out through the district unless there was absolutely nothing suitable,” Jana Elementary PTA president Ashley Bernaugh said. “You cannot tear our community apart to punish us for something that our kids have no burden for.”
(PRINCETON, N.J.) — Princeton student Misrach Ewunetie was found dead on campus Thursday nearly one week after she went missing, officials said.
The 20-year-old’s body was found around 1 p.m. “outside on the Facilities grounds behind the tennis courts” by a facilities employee, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office said.
“There were no obvious signs of injury and her death does not appear suspicious or criminal in nature,” prosecutors said.
An autopsy will be conducted, prosecutors said.
The university said in a statement, “The Department of Public Safety has been working closely with local and state law enforcement and does not believe there is any related threat to campus or the surrounding area.”
“Misrach’s death is an unthinkable tragedy,” the university added. “Our hearts go out to her family, her friends and the many others who knew and loved her.”
Ewunetie was last seen at about 3 a.m. on Friday near Scully Hall on the school’s New Jersey campus, according to the university.
One of her suitemates saw her at home at about 3 a.m. Friday, but when her direct roommate came home around 4:30 a.m., Ewunetie wasn’t there, her brother, Universe Ewunetie, told ABC News.
On Saturday, Misrach Ewunetie was supposed to have an interview about 45 minutes away from campus regarding her U.S. citizenship application, and the family was concerned when she didn’t show up, her brother said.
By Sunday, text messages weren’t getting delivered, and her phone went straight to voicemail, he said.
Her phone’s last ping was at 3:30 a.m. Sunday near an off-campus housing complex that’s about a 30-minute walk from her dorm, according to Universe Ewunetie. The last time her phone pinged to a cell tower was 6 a.m. Sunday, he said.
Law enforcement swarmed the campus searching for her, using helicopters and drones.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy tweeted earlier Thursday that he was in touch with officials “who are doing everything they can to find her.”
Later on Thursday, the governor tweeted, “We are heartbroken by the tragic news that missing @Princeton University student Misrach Ewunetie was found dead this afternoon. Our hearts go out to her family, friends, and fellow students who knew and loved her.”
(NEW YORK) — College enrollment in the United States fell for the third consecutive year, deepening the woes endured by universities nationwide since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a report released on Thursday showed.
However, the pace of the decline in enrollment slowed this autumn, suggesting that the pandemic-induced student exodus has begun to wane, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Student enrollment dropped 1.1% this fall, compared with a combined 5.5% decline in 2020 and 2021.
In a key point of concern, the rate of decline in enrollment among freshmen exceeded that of students overall, with implications for universities that could last over the next several years.
The decline in freshmen enrollment befell every category of four-year institutions, whether public or private, for-profit or non-profit, the data showed.
“After two straight years of historically large losses, it is particularly troubling that numbers are still falling, especially among freshmen,” Doug Shapiro, the executive director at the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, said in a statement.
“Although the decline has slowed and there are some bright spots, a path back to pre-pandemic enrollment levels is growing further out of reach,” he added.
The decline in enrollment extended beyond undergraduate students, as graduate school enrollment fell 1%, reversing a 2.7% gain last fall. Graduate student enrollment fell in 26 states, according to the report.
While the report delivered sobering news for many institutions of higher education, it offered a sign of optimism for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
Enrollment at HBCUs grew 2.5% this fall, bouncing back from a decline of 1.7% last year, the data showed. The rise in enrollment owed to a 6.6% increase in freshmen enrolling at HBCUs.
In a sign of shifting educational norms amid the pandemic, undergraduate students enrolled exclusively online grew by 2.5% this autumn.
(STOCKTON, Calif.) — Police, community members and families of victims of the suspected Stockton, California, serial killer congregated at Stockton City Hall Wednesday night for a vigil to remember the six lives lost.
The six slayings — all fatal shootings of men — spanned from April 2021 to September 2022, according to police. Five of the killings were in Stockton; one was in Oakland, about 70 miles away. All of the shootings were at night or in the early morning.
“My brother was my everything. I’m going to never hear his laughter,” Pia Lopez, sister of the final victim, 54-year-old Lorenzo Lopez Sr., said at the vigil.
The musician — who was shot in the early hours of Sept. 27 — leaves behind six children.
Stockton police chief Stanley McFadden was among those at Wednesday’s vigil.
“Everyone came together to get this person off the street,” the chief said.
In an emotional moment, Lorenzo Lopez Sr.’s mother thanked the chief.
“I want to thank him so much, because he lifted my spirits and he held me up when I felt like I was falling down and falling apart,” she said.
“It hurts deep inside and it never goes away,” she added. “But we got justice.”
The suspected serial killer, 43-year-old Wesley Brownlee, was arrested this weekend while he was allegedly on the prowl for another victim, according to police. Brownlee was apprehended while wearing dark clothing and a mask around his neck, according to McFadden. Brownlee was also armed with a gun, police said.
“He was on a mission to kill. He was out hunting,” McFadden said in a statement. “We are sure we stopped another killing.”
Brownlee appeared in court Tuesday and was charged with three counts of murder, with more charges expected, San Joaquin County District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar said. He has not entered a plea.
(NEW YORK) — As Princeton University intensifies its search for Misrach Ewunetie, the undergraduate student who’s been missing for almost a week, her brother says that time is “of the essence.”
“We can take any help we can find. And we just want the law to be faster because time is of the essence,” Universe Ewunetie said on ABC News’ Good Morning America on Thursday.
Misrach Ewunetie, 20, was last seen at about 3 a.m. on Friday, the school said. She was last seen near Scully Hall on the school’s New Jersey campus, according to an alert sent to the Princeton community on Monday.
Universe said his sister’s phone last pinged a location near an off-campus residence about a 30-minute walk from her dorm after 3 a.m. on Friday. His sister being at a location like that so late was out of character, Universe said.
“It’s pretty far away,” he said. “And Princeton is a big campus and it’s very insular. Right. So it’s very odd that her phone would be off campus like everything is on campus.”
The university sent an email to students on Wednesday, urging anyone with info to come forward. There’s an increased police presence on campus, the school said.
(UVALDE, Texas) — In a surprise move, Hal Harrell, the superintendent of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, officially retired Wednesday night during a school board meeting. An interim replacement was named as a search for a new district chief continues.
Harrell, a 30-year employee of the school district, stunned the small grieving community two weeks ago when he announced he would retire but said “no defined timelines” had been set.
In a Facebook post shared by Harrell’s wife earlier this month, he wrote: “I will remain here throughout the school year until a new superintendent can be named.”
“My decision to retire has not been made lightly,” he wrote. “My heart was broken on May 24th and I will always and [sic] pray for each precious life that was tragically taken as well as their families.”
Harrell — along with other school officials and local law enforcement — has faced intense scrutiny over the handling of the May 24 massacre at Robb Elementary School, where a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
Nearly 400 law enforcement officers rushed to the scene, but “egregiously poor decision-making” resulted in allowing the 18-year-old shooter to remain active inside a classroom for more than 70 minutes before he was finally confronted and killed, according to a damning investigative report released by Texas lawmakers in July.
The Uvalde native announced his departure from the district on the same day that the district reassigned all five UCISD police officers who were on the scene of the shooting from campus security duties, pending an independent review by a private investigation firm out of Austin.
The district-wide statement said that the UCISD administration will “suspend all activities of the Uvalde CISD Police Department for a period of time.”
The series of announcements came after 11 continuous days of a sit-in protest at the UCISD administration building staged by families of the victims, and after news broke that UCISD police hired Crimson Elízondo, who is currently suspended from the Texas Department of Public Safety for her response at Robb Elementary on May 24.
Harrell began working for the district in 1992 as a special education teacher, the same year that his father, John Hal Harrell, was promoted to Uvalde superintendent.
The younger Harrell worked his way up to principal at Uvalde High School and was appointed unanimously by the Board of Trustees as superintendent in October 2018, following in his father’s footsteps.
The elder Harrell, who died in August 2020, was known to many as “Mr. Uvalde” and served at various points as a two-term city council member, mayor of Uvalde, UCISD superintendent and Uvalde city manager.
In 2014, UCISD even renamed the John H. Harrell High School Auditorium, both Harrells’ alma mater, in his honor.
Walsh Gallegos, an education-focused law firm, was hired by the school board to search for the retiree’s replacement.
(CLEVELAND, Ohio) — The Ohio Supreme Court issued an opinion removing a Cleveland Municipal Court judge from the bench, citing multiple “unprecedented” incidents of misconduct.
In a 5-2 vote on Tuesday, the justices voted to indefinitely suspend Judge Pinkey S. Carr’s law license, precluding her from being a judge.
The justices agreed with the court’s Board of Professional Conduct that Carr “ruled her courtroom in a reckless and cavalier manner, unrestrained by the law or the court’s rules.”
Carr, who had been a judge since 2012, was suspended without pay.
According to the board, Carr did not reschedule her cases when the municipal court was closed at the start of the coronavirus pandemic and issued warrants for defendants who didn’t show up to court and waived court costs and fines for defendants who did appear.
She regularly conducted hearings to “avoid complying with the requisite procedural safeguards” that were in place and referenced the Starz show “P-Valley” which is about a strip club in Mississippi, while in court, according to the justices.
The joked about accepting bribes from defendants and spoke in an “undignified manner in her courtroom,” according to the court.
She also allegedly wore clothes deemed inappropriate by the court’s rules, including T-shirts, shorts, tank tops and sneakers.
According to the justices, Carr, through a forensic and clinical psychologist who evaluated her, said that menopause and sleep apnea exasperated her mental health issues, which caused her professional misconduct.
Rich Koblentz, Carr’s attorney, told ABC News they respect the court, but they’re not pleased about the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision.
“We believe the sanctions were too harsh,” he said.
Short of disbarment, an indefinite suspension is one of the harsher penalties that the Ohio Supreme Court could deliver, according to Koblentz.
Carr must wait two years before applying for readmission to practice law in Ohio since readmission isn’t automatic after an indefinite suspension.
