(PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago) — A French man has been charged in connection to a jet ski incident in St. Lucia that killed an American woman, authorities said.
The Royal St. Lucia Police Force said Evans Ramos, of Cosmellieur, France, has been charged with reckless manslaughter.
Police officers responded to a call about a jet ski accident on April 7. It involved what’s called a tube — a floating device attached to a vessel on water, a police source said.
“The jet ski collided into the tube, resulting in the death of the young lady,” the police source told ABC News.
Jazmine Chandler-Tabb, who was a passenger in the tube, was taken to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead, according to a police statement.
“I’m just devastated, she was my friend, my partner, she was just my everything,” Natiya Joseph, who was married to Chandler-Tabb, told ABC News.
The Bronx, New York, couple would have celebrated their second wedding anniversary in May, Joseph said.
Joseph, her wife and their daughter Aniya arrived in St. Lucia on April 6. According to Joseph, they went there to celebrate Joseph’s father’s 80th birthday on April 8.
The day before the birthday celebration the family went to Reduit Beach, in the northern part of the island, where tragedy struck.
“Jazmine was very loving, very supporting, she was encouraging,” Joseph said. “She was always smiling, huge smile.”
Ramos, the jet ski’s driver, was visiting the Caribbean nation as a passenger on a cruise ship, according to the police source.
After being charged, Ramos, 21, was remanded in custody on the island, according to police.
“I hope that he gets the justice that he deserves,” Joseph said.
Authorities and other stakeholders in St. Lucia have since met with owners and operators of jet skis and are reviewing the policies in place to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
(WASHINGTON) — A new report from Senate Republicans doubles down on the theory that COVID-19 emerged from an accidental lab leak in Wuhan — and possibly, even more than one leak.
While their investigation concedes that “both hypotheses are plausible,” the nearly 300-page document released by the minority on the Senate health subcommittee makes a circumstantial case that the “preponderance of circumstantial evidence” points to “an unintentional research-related incident” — an undetected aerosol leak — likely at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), as the first spark which would ultimately ignite the pandemic.
The WIV has long been known for not just its extensive research on bat coronaviruses, but also poor biosafety conditions while dealing with risky contagion samples which need proper containment, investigators wrote.
The document says an initial leak may have occurred “sometime before September 2019” and began circulating in Wuhan. Then, once WIV and Chinese government authorities realized what had happened, officials scrambled to quickly and quietly develop a vaccine that could be deployed to contain the outbreak — all before the world could learn the truth, according to the authors.
That rush to develop a vaccine may have led to a second accidental lab leak — one which, in turn, would lead to the global pandemic, the investigators believe.
No definitive conclusion has yet been reached on the origins of COVID but the intelligence and scientific communities remain split on whether the most likely scenario is a natural spillover or an accidental lab leak.
How, where and when the pandemic began that has killed nearly seven million people still remains a highly contentious and unsolved geopolitical debate.
The latest report unpacks the theories the committee originally shared last November which, they say, requires further investigation. The investigators said they were “concerned” that possible vaccine experiments at the WIV were conducted under “inadequate biosafety containment conditions” and “may be the proximate cause of the initial outbreak in Wuhan.”
And while they “could not determine whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus was a product of nature alone or possible genetic manipulation,” the “preponderance of information affirms the plausibility of a research-related incident that was likely unintentional resulting from failures of biosafety containment during vaccine-related research,” investigators continued.
“The nature of the identified biosafety vulnerabilities increased the likelihood that such containment failures were not immediately recognized,” and, combined with COVID’s propensity for asymptomatic spread, the initial outbreak may have gone unnoticed at first, according to the report.
“Such initial unrecognized infections could serve as the nidus of the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan and is a plausible proximate cause of the pandemic,” the report said.
The Huanan wet market in Wuhan has long been viewed as a potential early epicenter of the pandemic — the place where an animal disease jumped to humans. But the team that worked on this new report said they believe the market could well have been a “super spreader,” where the virus exploded once it was already coursing through the region.
This is not a peer-reviewed scientific study. It is a report released by Republicans on the Senate health subcommittee.
The report says their core investigative team was comprised of two attorneys, three research assistants, a China foreign area specialist along with one medical and one veterinarian epidemiologist.
That core group was “supported by an outside scientific advisory group consisting of three former U.S. national high- containment laboratory directors, a medical infectious disease physician, medical epidemiologist, two veterinarians, two biosafety experts, and two molecular biologists. Additionally, technical experts were consulted on topics ranging from specific biosafety equipment and processes, vaccine development and production and animal experimentation.”
The core team on this report — which numbered 60 experts — cite several parallel timelines indicating that COVID infections may have begun to swirl in the population months before the Chinese government told the World Health Organization or the world.
That timeline puts initial infections far earlier than December clusters at the wet market — suggesting an animal spillover from there may not have been the origin. Additionally, the report says, the outbreak began to gather steam at the same time as Chinese scientists were beginning to develop a vaccine, according to their experts’ analysis of early Chinese vaccine patents.
Among the clues this report cites that COVID was brewing months earlier than has been publicly admitted, it nods to some of ABC’s early reporting:
• Satellite data from the fall of 2019 showing a dramatic and unusual spike in auto traffic around major hospitals in Wuhan.
• Keyword queries on Chinese search engines substantially increasing in October and November 2019 for symptoms of COVID, like “cough.”
• A “significant” and “abnormal increase” in mysterious flu-like illnesses confirmed by Chinese epidemiologists. Public schools began to close.
• Officials on the ground began to worry, according to the report, and the team at the American embassy in Beijing may have received early word of that concern.
• As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population.
• By mid-October 2019, the “dedicated team at the U.S. Consulate General in Wuhan knew that the city had been struck by what was thought to be an unusually vicious flu season. The disease worsened in November. When city officials began to close public schools in mid-December to control the spread, the team passed the word to Embassy Beijing and continued monitoring,” the report says.
Congressional investigators spent 18 months interviewing dozens of subject matter experts, digging into hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, public reports and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
This report does not include the still-classified intelligence that may shed more light on the pandemic’s origins but that intelligence is due to be released within the next two months.
The investigation was originally commissioned as a bipartisan effort but ended up becoming a Republican document after the leadership of the Senate HELP Committee changed, said Dr. Robert Kadlec, the lead investigator who ran the pandemic response in 2020-2021 as assistant secretary of HHS.
Sen. Roger Marshall tells ABC News he has reviewed some of that classified intelligence and thinks it will not contradict the conclusions in this report.
“I think number one is that the facts are solid in this investigation,” Marshall told ABC News, adding the team had set out to pressure-test and “shoot down” both theories. Having done that, he said, “a preponderance of evidence” points to that unintentional lab leak, he claims.
“I think that this– if it was a civil lawsuit, I think that the jury would say, ‘Yes, indeed, we think that this came from a laboratory, an unintentional laboratory leak in Wuhan, China,'” he said.
When pressed by ABC News, Marshall conceded the case might not stick in criminal court.
“These are theories, these are not facts,” Kadlec told ABC News, but acknowledged there are potential telltale clues that point to the possibility of an accidental lab incident.
“I would fully expect that there may be some insights that can be shared with the American public that would give them greater confidence as to what was known, when it was known, and provide, hopefully — at least some — collaboration or corroboration of our study,” Kadlec said. “I think to move onto the next phase of this conversation, which is, how do we work collectively with China and other countries around the world to prevent the next pandemic, whether it be deliberate, accidental or natural?”
Said John Brownstein, Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s and an ABC News Medical Contributor: “We have to remember that most evidence still is circumstantial and inconclusive. And unfortunately, the scientific community has had its hands tied because of the lack of data. So we need more data to unlock this mystery, to really for once and for all figure out what took place in Wuhan.”
(NEW YORK) — Dominion Voting Systems, in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit, has accused Fox News of knowingly pushing false conspiracy theories that the voting machine company rigged the 2020 presidential election in Joe Biden’s favor, in what Dominion claims was an effort to combat concerns over declining ratings and viewer retention.
Fox has defended its coverage, dismissing the suit as a “political crusade in search of a financial windfall.”
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 18, 9:30 AM EDT
Jury selection underway
Jury selection is underway Tuesday morning at Delaware Superior Court in Wilmington, Delaware.
The jury is expected to be seated by the end of the morning, with opening statements expected to begin shortly thereafter, according to the judge in the case.
(NEW YORK) — McDonald’s burgers have been an American classic since 1955.
Now, the iconic fast food chain is planning some changes, including how they cook their quintessential burgers.
For their signature Big Mac, McDouble, cheeseburger and hamburger, McDonald’s is promising softer buns, caramelized patties cooked with white onions on the grill, cheese slices that melt more and even an extra special sauce.
McDonald’s claims the improvements are so good even the Hamburgler is coming out of retirement to steal a bite.
The updated menu items have already been rolling out in restaurants along the West Coast, according to McDonald’s, and a few lucky ABC staffers and their families stopped by the Golden Arches in Los Angeles for a taste test.
Staffers agreed the food was indeed “very saucy” and “very cheesy” and one staffer’s young daughter added, “Yeah, very good!”
The McDonald’s changes are coming at a time when the burger business is heating up and McDonald’s continues to hang on to its market shares amid competition from other popular chains like Shake Shack, In-N-Out Burger and Five Guys.
Business experts like strategist Kathleen Griffith said these tweaks may help McDonald’s keep up with its rivals.
“Being that burger that people know, pulling out the original mascots, that sort of strategy is never going to get you into trouble when you work on driving a consistent customer experience. It’s a good recipe,” Griffith said.
The rolling launch is anticipated to be completed by 2024 and while McDonald’s is not planning to increase prices for these burgers, some individual franchises may update prices.
State Department Photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that an American diplomatic convoy was attacked in Sudan, where forces loyal to two rival generals are battling for control of the resource-rich North African nation.
“I can confirm that yesterday we had an American diplomatic convoy that was fired on,” Blinken told reporters during a trip to Japan. “All of our people are safe and unharmed, but this action was reckless, it was irresponsible and, of course, unsafe. A diplomatic convoy with diplomatic plates, a U.S. flag being fired upon.”
Since heavy fighting erupted in Sudan on Saturday, at least 185 people have been killed and more than 1,800 others have been wounded, according to United Nations Special Representative for Sudan Volker Perthes. The Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, a pro-democracy group monitoring casualties, put the civilian death toll at 144 and said 796 others were injured. The number of casualties was expected to continue to climb with the ongoing violence.
The fighting started in Khartoum and quickly spread to other parts of the country, though “the heaviest concentration of fighting” remains centered in the densely populated capital, according to the World Health Organization, the global health arm of the U.N.
Among those killed were three World Food Programme employees who were working in Sudan’s hunger-stricken North Darfur state. Two other employees were injured in the same incident on Saturday, according to the World Food Programme, the food assistance branch of the U.N., which was forced to temporary halt all operations in Sudan due to the violence.
The widespread clashes are the culmination of weeks of tensions between Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a Sudanese paramilitary group. So far, neither has shown any indication of backing down. The two men were once allies who had jointly orchestrated a military coup in 2021 that dissolved Sudan’s power-sharing government and derailed its short-lived transition to democracy, following the ousting of a long-time dictator in 2019.
Blinken said he spoke separately with Burhan and Dagalo via telephone on Tuesday morning, making “very clear that any attacks, threats, dangers posed to our diplomats were totally unacceptable.” While Monday’s attack on the American diplomatic convoy remains under investigation, the secretary said the initial reports suggest “it was undertaken by forces associated with the RSF.”
During his conversations with both generals, Blinken said he urged “them to agree to a 24-hour ceasefire to allow Sudanese to safely reunite with their families and to obtain desperately needed relief supplies.”
“Indiscriminate military operations have resulted in significant civilian deaths and injuries, and are recklessly endangering the Sudanese people, diplomats including U.S. personnel, and humanitarian aid workers,” the secretary told reporters. “If implemented successfully, a ceasefire for 24 hours can create a foundation to build upon for a more sustained halt to the fighting and a return to negotiations on a durable end to the hostilities.”
Dagalo, who is also known as Hemedti, took to Twitter on Tuesday to confirm his “vital conversation” with Blinken.
“We discussed pressing issues in Sudan and our shared dedication to freedom, justice, and democracy for our people,” the RSF commander tweeted. “Although reluctant participants in this war, it is necessary to protect our people and defend our values.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Burhan said in a statement Tuesday that all those fighting for the RSF who lay down arms will be pardoned and absorbed into the Sudanese Armed Forces.
Perthes, the U.N. envoy for Sudan, told a virtual press briefing on Tuesday that he’s been in near-constant contact with leaders on both sides as the fighting continues “almost uninterruptedly.” He said U.N.-brokered, short-term ceasefires were put in place on Sunday and Monday but that clashes broke out again before the time was up.
“It’s a very fluid situation, so it’s very difficult to say where the balance is shifting to,” Perthes said. “There are objective difficulties with access to this country and mediators would not easily be able to come here and, to be very honest, the two sides that are fighting are not giving the impression that they want mediation for a peace between them right away.”
Since the fighting began, virtually all U.N. operations on the ground have seen their staff and facilities caught in the crossfire, Perthes said, making it “extremely difficult if not impossible for humanitarian agencies to deliver aid.”
“We cannot deliver when our staff is attacked, when they’re thrown out of their offices, when their offices are destroyed and their vehicles looted,” he added.
A number of hospitals in Khartoum and other Sudanese cities have been severely damaged or destroyed, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, which called the issue “a clear violation of international humanitarian law.” The group said in a statement Monday that some facilities are now completely “out of service” after being bombed, while others lack power or adequate staff and are running dangerously low on medical supplies, food and water.
During Monday’s press briefing in Washington, D.C., White House spokesperson John Kirby called for de-escalation and an “immediate ceasefire without conditions” between the warring parties in Sudan, while warning any Americans there to “treat this situation with the utmost seriousness”
“This dangerous escalation jeopardizes the progress made to date in the negotiations to restore Sudan’s democratic transition and it undermines the aspirations of the Sudanese people,” Kirby told reporters.
(LONDON) — A Russian judge denied the appeal of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who has been charged with spying, in a Moscow court on Tuesday.
The reporter, a correspondent with the paper’s Moscow bureau, stands accused of “acting on the instructions of the American side” and collecting state secrets about the military.
Moscow City Court was expected to hear an appeal of the espionage charge from Gershkovich’s legal team, Tatyana Nozhkina and Maria Korchagina of the ZKS law firm, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Gershkovich arrived after noon local time, wearing a checkered shirt and jeans. He stood inside a glass detention area within the courtroom, a standard practice for criminal defendants in the Russian court system. Members of the press were escorted out of the courtroom and into a nearby viewing area before the hearing began.
Lynne Tracy, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, was present in the courtroom. Speaking outside the court following the denial, Tracy said the charges were “baseless” and called again for Russian authorities to release Gershkovich.
“I can only say how troubling it was to see Evan, an innocent journalist, held in these circumstances,” Tracy said.
Russia’s FSB intelligence agency said on March 30 that it had detained the WSJ journalist for spying.
“It is established that Evan Gershkovich, acting on the instruction of the American side, was collecting information consisting of state secrets, about the activity of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex. He was arrested in Ekaterinburg during an attempt to receive secret information,” according to Interfax, a Russian state-affiliated news agency, which quoted FSB officials.
The Wall Street Journal said the same day that it “vehemently denies” the spying allegations brought by Russia’s intelligence service against its reporter.
The paper “seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter,” a WSJ spokesperson said in a statement, adding, “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”
“He is a distinguished journalist and his arrest is an attack on a free press and it should spur outrage in all free people and governments around the world,” Emma Tucker, WSJ editor-in-chief, and Almar Latour, WSJ publisher and Dow Jones CEO, said in a joint statement.
U.S. officials on April 10 said they determined Gershkovich had being “wrongfully detained” by Russia, a designation that would allow the U.S. government to more aggressively advocate for his freedom.
Tracy visited the detained reporter on Monday, according to the State Department.
“I can report based on what Ambassador Tracy has said, he’s in good health and good spirits considering the circumstances,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters. “We continue to call for his immediate release from this unjust detention.”
Speaking outside the court on Tuesday, Tracy called for the release of both Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, another American detained in Russia.
“We also call for the immediate release of Paul Whelan,” Tracy said. “Paul has been held for more than four years in Russia. Both men deserve to go home to their families now.”
(NEW YORK) — The leak of dozens of highly classified documents on the social media platform Discord has elicited concern over online spaces where users can post sensitive government material without notice of authorities.
Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old airman in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, allegedly posted documents as early as December in a private Discord server, akin to a members-only chat room, according to charging documents.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was first informed of the leak months later in early April, he said at a press conference last week.
Teixeira was charged on Friday with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and willful retention of classified documents, which collectively carry a maximum of 15 years in prison.
The blockbuster leak underscores the challenge posed by social media platforms like Discord on which sensitive material can spread from private chat rooms into the public square, legal and national security experts said.
However, some experts and civil liberties advocates cautioned that expanded government surveillance of social media could violate privacy protections and limit free speech.
In an online statement on Friday, Discord Chief Legal Officer Clint Smith acknowledged the difficulty posed by the presence of sensitive government material but said the company had removed posts in connection with the Russia-Ukraine leak.
“Classified military intelligence documents pose a significant, complex challenge for Discord as they do for other online platforms – only authorized government personnel can determine whether a document is classified, unclassified, or even authentic,” Smith said.
“However, what is clear is that unauthorized disclosure of classified government documents violates Discord’s Terms of Service, which prohibit the posting of illegal content on our platform. Because of this, in connection with this incident, we have removed content, terminated user accounts, and are cooperating with the efforts of the United States Departments of Defense and Justice in their investigation of this incident,” he added.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, is considering an expansion of its surveillance of social media sites and chat rooms in the aftermath of the leak, NBC reported last week.
Discord, a platform with more than 150 million users worldwide, grew in popularity during the pandemic. Popular with young people and gamers, the site hosts different servers, or online communities, many of which are private.
In a 2021 cybersecurity report, the app drew scrutiny over its potential for enabling data theft.
“The Discord domain helps attackers disguise the exfiltration of data by making it look like any other traffic coming across the network,” a study from Cisco’s Talos cybersecurity team found.
The federal government faces robust legal limits in monitoring sites like Discord, however, since the U.S. cannot surveil private domestic communications without a warrant, James Lewis, a former senior intelligence official and a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told ABC News.
“Here’s an easy rule of thumb: Can you get it in a Google search?” Lewis said. “If the answer is ‘yes,’ it’s public; if you can’t, it’s private. Then you go down the route of a warrant.”
“If you had a private club and gathered around the table to talk, the government doesn’t have a right to break into that club,” he added.
In turn, social media platforms such as Discord face government pressure to monitor for illicit material but they encounter formidable challenges due in part to user preferences for data privacy, Eric Goldman, a Santa Clara University law professor who studies social media and content moderation, told ABC News.
“Social media providers are stuck in the middle. On the one hand, we want them to police against the dissemination of classified information,” Goldman said. “On the other hand, we don’t want them removing documents at the government’s request.”
While the images of the documents appeared to originate on a private Discord server, they later spread on publicly accessible social media platforms, such as 4chan and Twitter.
Enhanced government surveillance online could hinder free speech across social media, Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, told ABC News.
“The disclosure of classified documents on one gaming website doesn’t justify pervasive monitoring of our social media by intelligence agencies,” Toomey said.
“Suspicionless monitoring of social media chills speech and threatens Americans’ right to live without fear of constant government scrutiny,” he added.
Focus on social media in the aftermath of the leak overlooks the issue of how Texeira got a hold of the trove of documents in the first place, said Lewis, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Why did a 21-year-old air national guardsmen have access to this material?” Lewis said. “That’s probably a better place to start because it doesn’t raise as many civil liberties concerns.”
While reexamining the pool of employees with access to highly classified information, the U.S. could also reconsider how it monitors such employees after granting them access, Lewis said.
“When you work for the government, particularly if you’re given security clearance, they usually make you sign a form giving them a right to access your bank account and other information,” he said.
“It seems like there’s a need for employees to expand that to include some monitoring of social media,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — Are you gearing up for one of the biggest shopping events of the year? Here’s what we know about Amazon Prime Day right now.
Though the company has not made its official announcement, Amazon Prime Day historically is in mid-July originally celebrating Amazon’s Birthday, which is July 5.
As we creep towards the big day we are breaking down everything you need to know to prepare for Prime Day 2023.
Be sure to check back as more information is released and deals start becoming available to shop.
What is Amazon Prime Day?
The 48-hour shopping event gives Prime members exclusive access to deals on Amazon.com across all categories including fashion, home, kitchen products and more.
When is Amazon Prime Day 2023?
Though the company has not made its official announcement, Amazon Prime Day historically is in mid-July.
Best prime day deals 2022
In past years, Amazon devices such as Echo systems, Fire Sticks and Kindles were deeply discounted. It is a great time to make purchases on electronics that you have been waiting to snag.
How do I score the best deals during Prime Day?
During the 48 hours of sale fun, there will be multiple discounts to explore. If you take bargain hunting seriously, be sure to look out for what Amazon calls “flash deals” or “lightning sales” that are time-sensitive. While some items are on sale all day long, lightning deals will only last as long as selected products remain in stock.
Do I need to have a prime membership?
Yes, Prime Day is for Amazon Prime members only. Not a member just yet? Amazon offers a 30-day free trial of Prime membership for shoppers who want to be able to participate in Prime Day. If you are looking to make the most out of this 48-hour spectacular, signing up for a membership is the best way to go. For those online shopping lovers who are looking to save all year round, the membership is $14.99/month or $139/year. Students can register at half price for $7.49 per month.
(NEW YORK) — YouTube , the largest video-sharing platform, announced Tuesday a new policy framework for eating disorder-related content, in the company’s latest effort to address the growing mental health crisis, especially among teens, who can often be “vulnerable viewers.”
“Mental health issues like eating disorders can be isolating and stigmatizing for people around the world. YouTube is an important platform for raising awareness and understanding of eating disorders from a variety of perspectives, and we want to empower creators to continue to share their stories,” Dr. Garth Graham, director of YouTube Health, said in part of a statement Tuesday.
The new policies outline prohibiting content that features “imitable behavior” for “at-risk viewers,” including content that shows or describes behavior like restricting calories, setting age restrictions on content that discusses disordered eating behavior and adding information about mental health resources under videos related to eating disorders.
The Google-owned global video-sharing platform, which boasts over two billion users, said it worked with the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) and Asociación de Lucha contra la Bulimia y Anorexia to expand the scope of Community Guidelines.
“In developing the new policies, we worked closely with NEDA and other groups to enhance understanding of what constitutes imitable behavior, how it can show up in content, and how it can impact vulnerable viewers,” said Graham.
Disordered eating behaviors include binge-eating, purging, laxative abuse and fasting for weight loss, are nearly as common among males as they are among females. Nearly 28.8 million Americans will suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their lives, according to NEDA .
The updated policy comes nearly a month after researchers reported that an increased time spent on social media platforms, like YouTube, was identified as a risk factor for disordered eating.
Andrea Vazzana, a child psychologist who specializes in the treatment of eating disorders in children, adolescents and adults at NYU Langone, spoke to ABC News’ Good Morning America about young social media users and eating disorders last month. She said the negative influence of social media is largely due to the social comparisons that are part of engaging in these social media platforms, including filtered photos, weight loss challenges and videos of purging techniques.
However, social media can be helpful and used to educate and provide resources to those who may need them.
“We know from the data that YouTube had over 1.4 billion views on mental health content in the US in 2021 and we know that the earlier a person with an eating disorder reaches out and seeks treatment, the greater the likelihood of physical and emotional recovery,” said Sarah Chase, the vice president of communication for NEDA, in part of a statement. “YouTube is taking a further step in the right direction toward helping NEDA with our mission.”
(WASHINGTON) — Border Patrol apprehensions in the Southwest increased last month, as warming spring temperatures allowed migrants to more easily make their way to the U.S., according to Customs and Border Protection.
Migrant encounters by Border Patrol agents increased 25% from February to March, according to CBP, marking the lowest February to March rate of increase since President Joe Biden took office.
Historic Border Patrol data shows that increases in migration from February to March have been common across administrations — an indication of the seasonal trends.
“The January border enforcement measures continue to hold strong even against the typical migration patterns seen as we enter the warmer months,” a senior administration official told ABC News. “This month’s encounters are down 23% from last year, and the month-over-month change is the lowest seasonal increase seen in two years.”
The data released Monday shows that nationwide, authorities apprehended or detained migrants more than 250,000 times. Significant increases were reported by CBP in southern Florida, where some migrants land boats illegally, as well as along the northern border.
The Biden administration is under intense pressure to keep migrant apprehensions as low as possible. Some Republicans have seized on the record high levels of unauthorized migration seen last year, claiming it proves the border is not secure under Biden’s watch.
The number of apprehensions can also serve as an indicator of success for the administration’s recent dual-track approach of restricting asylum for some while opening alternative legal pathways for those applying for entry from outside the U.S.
The number of times Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans were apprehended decreased by 72% since early January, according to CBP data, when the administration announced it would send many unauthorized migrants from those countries back to Mexico.
Under a court ruling, the Biden administration continues to implement a controversial public health order issued by the Trump administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The order requires border authorities to expel large numbers of migrants rapidly from the border, usually in a matter of hours.
In January, the Mexican government agreed to accept the rapid return of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. Administration officials at the time said they intend to carry out these plans even if Title 42 ends. Immigration experts have said removing non-Mexicans to Mexico under standard immigration processes and outside of the emergency pandemic order would require full cooperation from Mexican authorities.
There may be fewer people from those four countries reaching the Southwest — but they’re still migrating, according to one country’s data. Panama recorded more Venezuelans crossing the notorious Darien Gap this March than compared to last year. Although not as high as the fall, those numbers have climbed back up — an indication that many are being forced to stay in Mexico now or go elsewhere along the way.
