(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden, has tested positive for COVID-19, according to a White House official.
The first daughter, 40, was scheduled to travel to Latin America this week with first lady Jill Biden.
The president and first lady are not considered a close contacts, according to the first lady’s spokesperson, Michael LaRosa.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reaffirmed in Wednesday’s briefing that the president was not considered a close contact of his daughter, who he hasn’t seen in “about a week.” She did not have guidance on when the president was last tested for COVID-19.
“[T]he president tests regularly throughout the week as part of a cadence as determined by his doctor,” Jean-Pierre told reporters. “If his testing were to change because of the close contact, we’d let all of you know, but his cadence has not changed.”
Ashley Biden will no longer be joining the first lady on her trip to Ecuador, Panama and Costa Rica, LaRosa said. Jill Biden was scheduled to depart Wednesday afternoon for Quito, Ecuador.
This is the second foreign trip Ashley Biden has had to drop out of in recent weeks. She was considered a close contact of someone who tested positive for COVID-19 before the first lady’s trip to Poland, Romania and Ukraine earlier this month.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who is currently meeting with health officials from G-7 countries in Germany, also tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, the agency said. The president is not considered a close contact, it said.
As the BA.2 subvariant has spread around Washington, several people within the president’s inner circle have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent weeks, including Vice President Kamala Harris, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield, former press secretary Jen Psaki and Jean-Pierre herself.
The president has never been deemed a close contact. When asked how this was possible, Jean-Pierre reiterated Wednesday that “extra precautions” are taken around meetings with the president. Because she had a meeting with the president today, Jean-Pierre said she was tested, masked and the meeting was socially distanced.
Masks are now optional at the White House campus, though meetings with the president are often socially distanced, officials said. White House officials have also stressed that the president is up-to-date on COVID boosters.
Someone is considered a close contact if the person was within 6 feet of an individual with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 for at least 15 minutes over a 24-hour period, per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
(NEW YORK) — NASA’s Mars lander, called Insight, is slowly losing power because its two solar panels are covered in dust and it will need to mostly shut down by the end of May.
NASA is being forced to end its Mars lander mission early because of dust.Officials announced Tuesday the InSight spacecraft is slowly losing power because its two solar panels are covered in dust.Morever, the dust levels in the atmosphere are only increasing and sunlight is decreasing as Mars enters winter, which is speeding up the loss of power.
Power levels will likely die out in July — effectively ending operations — and, by the end of the year, project leaders expect InSight will be “inoperative.”
“People can obviously relate to, in their own homes, they have to dust because dust settles,” Chuck Scott, InSight’s project manager, told ABC News. “It’s the same sort of thing with these solar panels. We have dust in the Mars atmosphere that gets kicked up because of the local weather … storms where you get the dust kicked up because you have lot of wind.”
“Since Mars’s atmosphere is thinner, it goes up into the upper atmosphere and it can get distributed more widely than it would on Earth and it’ll deposit back down on whatever’s below including our spacecraft and the solar panels,” he added.
InSight is currently generating about one-tenth of the power it was when it landed on Mars in November 2018.
When the spacecraft first landed, the solar panels were producing 5,000 watt-hour for each Martian day, enough to power an electric oven for an hour and 40 minutes, NASA said. Currently, the panels are producing 500 watt-hour per Martian day, only enough to power an electric oven for 10 minutes.
Project leaders had expected the gradual dust buildup on the solar panels, but had hoped passing whirlwinds on Mars might have cleaned some of it off, but none have so far.
“Two rovers we sent back in 2003, they both experienced what we would call ‘natural cleaning’ or ‘dust cleaning events,'” Scott said. “Those winds went over the vehicles and cleared a lot fo the dust off the solar panels of those vehicles. We were were kind of hoping this would occur with a stationary lander.”
Due to the lower power, the team will put InSight’s robotic arm in a resting position known as “retirement pose” later this month. Then, by the end of the summer, the lander’s seismometer will only be turned on at certain times, such as night when winds are not as high.
Because energy is being preserved for the seismometer, NASA said non-seismic instruments “will rarely be turned on” starting next month.
InSight has detected more than 1,300 quakes since its landing, the most recent of which occurred on May 4. The data gathered from the marsquakes have helped scientists understand the composition of Mars’s deep interior, including the planet’s crust, mantle and core.
NASA said the lander had completed its primary goals during its first two years on Mars and was currently on an extended mission.
“There wasn’t really anything known about the interior of Mars,” Scott said. “Why that’s important is NASA had been looking at how our own planets formed in the Solar System. especially the rocky ones like Venus, Earth, Mars and even our own Moon.”
This is not the first time NASA has ended a Mars lander due to dust.
Opportunity, a robotic rover, landed on the planet in 2004 and was in operation until June 2018, when a global dust storm completely covered its solar panels, which ended communications with project leaders.
Heather Charles/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images, FILE
(CHICAGO) — The mother of a Chicago student faces child endangerment charges after the student brought a loaded gun to school in a backpack and the weapon accidentally discharged, police said.
The incident occurred at Walt Disney Magnet School on the city’s North Side shortly before 10 a.m. Tuesday, according to the Chicago Police Department.
“The weapon accidentally discharged in the backpack while inside a classroom, with a bullet striking the ground and ricocheting, resulting in a classmate being grazed in the abdomen,” the department said in a statement.
The classmate was taken to a local hospital in “good condition,” the department said. Information on the ages of the students involved was not given.
Following the incident, Tatanina Kelly, 28, was charged with three misdemeanor counts of child endangerment, police said.
Kelly appeared in court Wednesday, where a judge set bond at $10,000, Chicago ABC station WLS reported.
Her attorney, Rodger Clarke, argued that Kelly had no criminal record and that this was a “one-time incident, not soon to be repeated,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Walt Disney Magnet School has students in preschool through eighth grade.
In a letter obtained by WLS that was sent to parents on Tuesday, the school’s principal, Paul Riskus, addressed the incident.
“This morning during school hours, a gun was accidentally discharged on school grounds,” he wrote. “The gun discharged in a backpack and hit the floor, causing some damage and releasing debris.”
Riskus said no one was “seriously injured” and that school staff secured the gun and contacted police and and the Chicago Public Schools’ Office of Safety and Security. Police confiscated the weapon.
“We are working closely with the CPS Office of Safety and Security to make a safety plan moving forward,” he wrote. “Please know that we are taking this situation extremely seriously, and CPD is investigating this incident.”
Worried family members of students who attend the school rushed to the campus in the wake of Tuesday’s incident.
“All I heard was there was a gun and I came flying,” Jennifer Uribe, whose daughter texted her about the incident, told WLS. “I wasn’t going to text her because if she had to hide, I didn’t want her doing that. So I said, ‘Stop texting me’ and I came here.”
Edwina Watkins, whose 12-year-old grandson attends the school, told WLS she was shocked.
“It is shocking for one, for a little kid to have a gun, something that should be hard for an adult to have at a school,” Watkins said.
Victor Garcia, whose son is in pre-K, told WLS he was “freaking out.”
“Gun shootings going all over the country,” he said. “This is crazy.”
(WASHINGTON) — In the wake of the Buffalo, New York, supermarket shooting that left 10 Black people dead, the House on Wednesday is expected to pass a measure to beef up federal efforts to combat domestic terrorism and white supremacy.
The bill from Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Illinois, would create new offices within the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation to “monitor, analyze, investigate, and prosecute domestic terrorism.”
Suspect fired 50 rounds in Buffalo supermarket hate crime shooting that killed 10: Police
The bill is expected to have broad support among Democrats for passage. Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., and other progressives were initially wary of the measure earlier this year but reached an agreement on language in talks with leadership and the American Civil Liberties Union to address concerns about the potential infringement on Americans’ First Amendment rights.
“I was proud to lead my colleagues in a successful effort to strengthen protections in this bill for protesters, narrow the domestic terrorism definition, and enhance the scope of Congressional oversight to ensure that civil rights and civil liberties continue to be protected,” Bush said in a statement to ABC News. “As an activist, I know first-hand the ways in which law enforcement agencies have targeted, surveilled and prosecuted marginalized communities.”
Republicans, however, are expected to oppose the bill, arguing that the measure is duplicative and could be used to target parents raising concerns at local school board meetings.
That could jeopardize its passage through the Senate, where Democrats have pledged to hold a vote but need the support of ten Republicans to advance legislation past the 60-vote threshold.
“By diverting resources that could be used to actually combat domestic terrorism and mandating investigations into the armed services and law enforcement, this bill further weaponizes and emboldens the DOJ to target Americans’ First Amendment rights and go after those who they see as political threats,” House GOP Whip Steve Scalise’s office wrote to Republican lawmakers in a memo encouraging them to vote against the measure.
The Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland have said Republicans are mischaracterizing a memo issued last fall to the FBI and U.S. attorneys’ offices around the country encouraging them to meet with local law enforcement partners to address a rising number of threats against local school board officials.
Even Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who co-sponsored the original resolution introduced with Schneider, said he was “torn” on the bill and unsure how he would vote.
“Maybe for four months after I put my name on that bill, every meeting I went to, I had people upset I was on that bill,” he told ABC News. “They said, ‘Will I be investigated because I am pro-life?’ I heard overwhelming feedback.”
The Justice Department has already established a domestic terrorism unit, and the Biden administration has requested funding from Congress to support 60 attorneys focused on domestic terrorism cases.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has called domestic terrorism one of the greatest threats to the United States.
The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now and it’s not going away anytime soon,” Wray told a Congressional panel in March of 2021. “At the FBI, we’ve been sounding the alarm on it for a number of years now.”
ABC’s Luke Barr and Alex Mallin contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and two years into a global pandemic that has highlighted the need for increased access to mental health care, 570 counties across the United States still have no psychologists, psychiatrists or counselors.
They’re known as mental health care deserts.
Most are considered rural, meaning your ability to access care may differ greatly depending on where you live.
“While this country has given resources for healthcare over the decades, it has never been enough,” said Dr. Saul Levin, chief executive officer and medical director for the American Psychiatric Association.
Rural areas, in particular, Levin said, “have not gotten the resources to keep up.”
Seventy-five percent of rural counties across the country have no mental health providers or fewer than 50 per 100,000 people, according to an ABC News analysis of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data.
A majority of counties with no or few providers per capita are located in the Midwest and Southeast regions of the U.S.
ABC News data journalists developed this interactive map showing the ratio of patients to providers in counties across the nation.
Problem worst in Texas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota
The ABC News analysis shows Texas has the highest number of counties with no providers.
Texas Health and Human Services Public Information Officer Kelli Weldon explained in an email that the state has 39 local mental and behavioral health authorities providing care to residents.
Of the state’s 254 counties, 172 are considered rural, according to Weldon.
She wrote that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission “places a high priority on identifying mental health and substance use service availability at the right time and right place.”
The state is currently working on increasing access to mental health care for residents in rural areas with an initiative called All Texas Access, which includes efforts to decrease costs to local government for crisis care services and address incarceration of and the number of emergency room visits by people with mental illness.
The ABC News analysis also found that Nebraska (49.5%), North Dakota (49.1%) and South Dakota (47%) have the highest percentage of counties with no providers.
Laurie Gill, Cabinet secretary for the Department of Social Services in South Dakota, said the state faces infrastructure issues that can complicate access to mental healthcare.
“We are, I think, classified as a frontier state, and we have this challenge across many, many different avenues,” Gill told ABC News. “When we come to talking about mental health services, we want all South Dakotans, regardless of where they live, to have access to at least short-term comprehensive behavioral and mental health crisis stabilization. Our goal is to try to keep people as close to home as possible in the least restrictive settings that we can.”
The mental health care system in South Dakota, Gill said, operates mainly through contracting with 11 nonprofit community mental health centers located across the state, which provide services including therapy and crisis intervention. Each center serves multiple counties, meaning residents may not always have a center nearby.
In communities where accessing care is more difficult, Levin says, people may find their illnesses progress before they are able to receive it and, “the comorbidity is a lot more severe.”
Gill acknowledged that sometimes a lack of options at the local level has sometimes led to people in the state needing more intensive, inpatient psychiatric care, but said her department has been doing a gap analysis to identify needs in the mental healthcare system and fill them.
Native Americans at higher risk
Native Americans are also more likely to live in a mental health desert. South Dakota is home to nine tribes, and Native Americans make up about 9% of the state’s population, according to U.S. Census data for 2021.
Gill said the state recognizes this population struggles with a disproportionately high rate of suicide and is working on increasing access to mental healthcare on reservations.
Dr. Karen Severns, Behavioral Health Director for the Indian Health Service Great Plains Area, explained that more resources are needed to meet mental health care needs on reservations.
“Just in the last 2 years, the need for mental health and substance abuse services, they actually surged due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Severns said.
She explained that the trauma of the pandemic compounds on the historical trauma this population struggles with, adding to the need for care. As is the case across much of the nation, however, Severns said COVID enabled expanded access to telehealth services on reservations.
“We just need more resources and now that behavioral health has become the forefront not only within our community, but also nationally,” Severns said. “The biggest [challenge] is the stigma. There’s rural challenges as well, but people don’t want to go into a clinic, so we have seen high success when there was an audio [option] allowed for them to just touch base with their therapist.”
Special focus on young people
Concern has also been heightened recently for the mental health of young people in America, with the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy telling the Senate Finance Committee in February that the obligation to act is, “not just medical, it’s moral.”
Some organizations are working to address mental health impacts on youth, particularly amid the last two years of increased stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Save the Children, a nonprofit organization focused on improving outcomes for children through education, health care, and other avenues.
“One of the components to ensure that children are able to survive and thrive is to provide for their mental health,” said Greta Wetzel, Senior Advisor of Psychosocial Support for Save the Children. “[It’s by] providing those psychosocial support, social-emotional learning opportunities, that they are able to develop into that strong and holistic child and have it be able to thrive.”
One of the programs the organization provides is a psychosocial support program called “Journey of Hope,” which was designed to help children build resilience.
Cathryn Miller, West Virginia State Director for Save the Children, explained that the program has been very beneficial in her state, where many children and families struggle with things like poverty and substance abuse.
“I think it’s really important to remember that kids aren’t just little adults,” Miller said. “And so, when we as adults are struggling through the pandemic and a lot of these challenges we’re facing, it’s amplified for children.”
Director of ABC News Digital Journalism John Kelly contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Parents of babies on specialized baby formulas are continuing to sound the alarm as the nationwide formula shortage in the U.S. persists, three months after major manufacturer Abbott temporarily shuttered production at their Sturgis, Michigan, facility and pandemic supply chain issues compounded the growing problem.
It’s an urgent issue Emily and Mac Jaehnert know all too well. Their daughter, MacKenzie, needs a special type of baby formula, Similac’s NeoSure (made by Abbott), that’s intended for babies like MacKenzie who were born prematurely.
Mac Jaehnert told “Good Morning America” he’s had to scour store after store in his local region of Richland, Washington, to try to track down much-needed formula for MacKenzie.
“Every morning, I go through and I search online for all of the stores in the area that have local inventory available,” Mac Jaehnert said. “If I see one of them, I go to that store first. A lot of times, it’s unreliable. It’s probably 50-50 at best.”
He went on, “I’ve gotten lucky one or two times where I have found NeoSure on the shelf … that is where I just start my six-store run. And I’ll do that three or four times a week. Just go and find a store and then hit as many as you can on the way home to make sure that you haven’t missed an opportunity to find this food for your kid or potentially the food that could keep your neighbor’s kid out of similarly dire straits.”
MacKenzie was born three months early, at 27 weeks, and had to spend over 100 days in the neonatal intensive care unit before she became healthy enough to go home with her parents.
Mom Emily Jaehnert said the impact of the baby formula shortage on families like hers is not something many understand.
“If you’re not in the position that us and other parents are in, it’s really hard to understand just how serious and scary it is,” Emily Jaehnert said.
Mac Jaehnert put it another way. “Imagine all of the taps in your house have run dry, and now every bottle of water is off the shelf. It’s what it feels like,” he said.
People who assume MacKenzie can be breastfed or have substitute formula are not getting the full picture, Emily Jaehnert said.
“As a mom, as a woman, as somebody who, I have pumped and produced milk for MacKenzie, but I can’t anymore,” she told “GMA.” “And even if I could, she can’t have 100% breast milk. There’s a lot of people that do not understand the complexity behind feeding a medically complicated child.”
“Typical infant formulas, the ones that aren’t made for preemies will not provide her with the essentials that she needs,” she continued. “This is something that her doctors have put her on, it is not a choice we’ve necessarily made, it is something that is basically equivalent to a medication for her.”
The Jaehnerts, who live in Richland, Washington, have been on a mission to raise awareness for what MacKenzie and other preemies are facing ever since they brought their daughter home in March.
“There should be mechanisms in place to prevent this from happening,” Mac Jaehnert said. “Because this is mission critical for keeping this kid healthy and growing and out of the hospital right now.”
“It is one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever experienced in my life,” he added. “I mean, we get this kid home, after what she’s been through … and the problem is, we can’t keep something as basic as baby formula on the shelf. It is disappointing to the point of angering.”
The couple say they’ve been able to secure enough NeoSure for MacKenzie for the time being, with the help of social media and MacKenzie’s grandfather, who shipped them some formula from Milwaukee, but tell “GMA” they know other families need critical help.
“We were lucky enough to find fellow parents on Facebook who had a preemie who had recently transitioned onto solid foods, and had a month’s supply worth of NeoSure formula that they were willing to share with us,” Mac Jaehnert said. “That was incredibly generous. So we’re doing everything we can to track things down in the area and provide it to other families in need, because I know of at least 10 families who have less than a week supply of NeoSure in this area.”
For other families in need, the Jaehnerts recommend starting with family and friends, going online and checking local resources like food banks for formula.
“There are Facebook groups that are popping up, ‘Find My Formula’ groups,” Mac Jaehnert said, but he also warned parents to be careful too. “This is very dangerous stuff, not getting it through an approved source. But you know, these are the times we’re in right now and parents are doing it if you can.”
(NEW YORK) — As the nation’s COVID-19 resurgence reaches its highest point since mid-February, daily hospital admission levels and new COVID-19 related deaths in the U.S. are projected to continue increasing over the next four weeks, according to newly updated forecast models used by the CDC.
The forecast now predicts that nearly every U.S. state and territory is projected to see increases in new hospitalizations over the next two weeks.
Models also show that about 5,300 deaths will occur over the next two weeks. California, New York, Georgia and Florida are projected to see the largest death tolls in the weeks to come.
In the weeks after the U.S. surpassed 1 million confirmed COVID-19 related deaths, models estimate that a total of 1,010,800 fatalities will be recorded by June 11.
The projected increases come as infection rates continue to rise across the country, with a growing number of COVID-19 positive patients, once again, entering hospitals and requiring care, federal data shows.
There are now more than 24,300 virus-positive Americans currently receiving care in the U.S. — the highest total since mid-March, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Although totals remain significantly lower than during other parts of the pandemic, when there were more than 160,000 patients hospitalized with the virus, more than 3,000 virus-positive Americans are entering the hospital each day — an average that has increased by 18.7% in the last week, and approximately doubled in the last month.
Admission levels are now on the rise in every region of the country, and the number of virus-related emergency room visits are now at their highest point since February.
Pediatric hospital admissions have also increased by about 70% over the last month.
Nationally, new infection rates have reached their highest point in nearly three months. An average of 94,000 new cases are being officially reported each day, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. In the last six weeks, new cases nationally have nearly quadrupled.
In the last week alone, the U.S. has reported nearly 660,000 new cases.
President Joe Biden’s new coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha, acknowledged during a White House press briefing on Wednesday that the U.S. is currently seeing “a lot of infections,” which he said is largely the result of highly infectious omicron subvariants spreading across the country.
“Right now, [there are] some areas of increased infection and hospitalization in the Northeast and Eastern corridor as well as in the Upper Midwest,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Wednesday. “But we’ve seen with prior increases, different waves of infection have demonstrated that this travels across the country and has the potential to travel across the country.”
The Northeast remains the nation’s most notable COVID-19 hotspot. Many of the states with the highest case rate per capita over the last week — Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., New Jersey, and New York — are located in the Northeast. Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Hawaii, have also all seen high case rates.
According to the CDC’s community levels, 32% of Americans live in an area with a medium or high COVID-19 community level. Since the prior week, an additional 8% of the US population is living in a county with the medium or high COVID-19 community level, Walensky reported.
The high community level suggests there is a “high potential for healthcare system strain” and a “high level of severe disease,” and thus, the CDC recommends that people wear a mask in public indoor settings, including schools.
Officials noted that with more at-home COVID-19 tests now available, most Americans are not reporting their results to officials, and thus, infection totals are likely significantly undercounted.
“We know that the number of infections is actually substantially higher than that. It’s hard to know exactly how many but we know that a lot of people are getting diagnosed using home tests,” Jha explained.
However, even with the rise in infections and hospitalizations, Jha stressed that the U.S. is “in way better place than where we were two years ago,” thanks to key tools such as vaccines, therapeutics and testing access.
“We’ve got to keep using [those tools] as the virus evolves and as the virus continues to do what it’s doing,” Jha said, noting that he remains concerned about the U.S. outlook for the fall and winter, as he reiterated his call for Congress to approve $22.5 billion in COVID-19 funding.
“There’s a range of models out there of what we might see in the fall and winter,” Jha said. “We have got a plan for a range of scenarios…we have to plan for a scenario where we don’t get any more resources from Congress. I think it’d be terrible. I think we’d see a lot of unnecessary loss of life, if that were to happen. But we’re looking at all the scenarios, and planning for all of them.”
(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul unveiled proposals Wednesday afternoon to strengthen the state’s gun laws and close “loopholes” in the wake of the deadly Buffalo mass shooting over the weekend.
The announcement was planned before the weekend shooting, and was delayed by President Joe Biden’s Tuesday visit to Buffalo, Hochul’s hometown.
However, the issue takes on increased urgency as her administration reviews how the 18-year-old suspect, Payton Gendron, legally purchased his weapons and then made modifications that are illegal in New York, already home to some of the nation’s strictest gun laws.
Gendron was able to buy a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle in part because he was never subjected to New York’s red flag law, which would have prevented the store from selling him a weapon. He had undergone a mental health evaluation in June 2021, after New York State Police responded to his high school to investigate a report that the then-17-year-old Gendron made reference to murder-suicide in a paper he submitted as part of a class.
Broome County, New York, District Attorney Michael Korchak said during a news conference Wednesday that Gendron was participating in an online class when he “made some disturbing comments about murder and suicide,” which prompted the teacher to follow up to “get clarification.”
“[Gendron] indicated he was just joking and said L-O-L,” Korchak said. He said the teacher still reported the incident to the police.
Because Gendron was not on campus at the time, state police went to his home to interview him, where he again “indicated that this was a joke,” according to Korchak.
State police then took Gendron to Binghamton General Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, Korchak said, adding that Gendron stayed at the hospital overnight but was ultimately cleared.
“This defendant had been interviewed by a mental health professional and professional who deemed him to be not dangerous or not at risk,” Korchak said. “[Gendron] was released to the custody of his parents and returned home. He was actually cleared and went back to school and participated in his high school graduation.”
Korchak defended the school and state police, saying a review of the incident found it was handled “appropriately.” Neither police nor his school applied for a court petition that would have resulted in a red flag.
“The unfortunate thing is the New York State Police, school officials and mental health professionals, they don’t have a crystal ball,” Korchak said. “They can’t read into the future. They can only evaluate the subject on the information that they had at that time.”
On Wednesday, Hochul sought to take the guesswork out of what should be reported as red flag behavior. She said she is requiring state police to file an “extreme risk” order of protection when they encounter someone they believe poses a risk to himself or others.
Because no red flag warning was issued against Gendron, he was able to legally purchased the Bushmaster at a gun store in Endicott, New York, which authorities said he modified with an extended magazine that is illegal to own in New York. Investigators said he purchased the magazine at a Pennsylvania gun store 10 minutes from his home in Conklin.
Hochul also formally requested New York State Attorney General Letitia James investigate “the online resources that were used to amplify the acts and intentions of Payton Gendron,” according to a letter from the governor obtained by ABC News.
“The investigation should be directed at those platforms that may have been used to stream, promote or plan the event including, but not limited to Twitch (owned by Amazon) 4chan, 8chan and Discord,” the letter said.
The shooting was partly livestreamed on Twitch. The suspect allegedly posted chronological details of the attack online using Discord, according to law enforcement sources. He also posted on 4chan and 8chan, the sources said.
“Think about all the people who saw the livestream,” Hochul said. “The virus spreads and they find others to share their worldview, radicalizing others.”
The investigation by James could result in a civil lawsuit or a criminal prosecution.
“The terror attack in Buffalo has once again revealed the depths and danger of the online forums that spread and promote hate,” James said. “The fact that an individual can post detailed plans to commit such an act of hate without consequence, and then stream it for the world to see is bone-chilling and unfathomable.”
The attorney general’s office is sending a letter to the social media companies instructing them to retain relevant documents.
“We extend our deepest sympathies to the victims and their families,” a Discord spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News. “Hate and violence have no place on Discord. We are doing everything we can to assist law enforcement in the investigation.”
Hochul also announced the creation of a new domestic terrorism unit within the state Department of Homeland Security, meant to establish best practices to confront the intersection of guns and racially motivated threats.
Even before the mass shooting in Buffalo, there was a focus on guns in the state. Illegal gun possession statistics were up last month in the state and country’s largest city, New York City. New York police made 146 more arrests for illegal guns in April 2022 versus April 2021, a 65% increase, according to the NYPD. Shooting incidents, however, did drop 29% in April 2022 versus April 2021.
Proposals already under discussion in the state Capitol include requiring local law enforcement to report recovered weapons to a federal database in a timely manner, and allowing the state to conduct its own background checks.
New requirements could also be put in place for gun dealers, beefing up training for staff and record keeping.
Gendron is expected to make his next court appearance on Thursday.
Meanwhile, loved ones of those killed in the attack were preparing for the first funeral on Friday.
Civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton is expected to speak at the funeral of Hayward Patterson, 67, a church deacon. Sharpton’s National Action Network has agreed to cover the funeral costs of all 10 victims killed.
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday it was pausing its short-lived Disinformation Governance Board pending a review of the larger strategy behind it. The person tapped to lead the group, former Wilson Center fellow Nina Jankowicz, said she had resigned as a result.
Both Jankowicz and a DHS spokesperson said the group had itself become a target of disinformation since its creation was announced in late April. A DHS official went further on Wednesday, saying Jankowicz was “the subject of some particularly vicious and unfair attacks.”
As the official suggested, Jankowicz became the face of conservative-fueled criticism, some of it in personal terms. Others voiced concerns about her background: Jankowicz, who is routinely outspoken on Twitter, had publicly criticized Republicans and sowed doubt about the accuracy of press reports critical of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
More broadly, the disinformation board found detractors in the GOP and some leading civil liberties groups over the scope of its work. That scrutiny was fueled by an admittedly clumsy rollout — such as a confusing name — as well as an initial lack of specifics about the board’s operations.
In an interview with ABC News last week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the board wasn’t rolled out “effectively,” but that its work was “exactly contrary” to how it was being portrayed.
“It was intended to ensure coordination across the Department’s component agencies as they protect Americans from disinformation that threatens the homeland,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday. “The Board has been grossly and intentionally mischaracterized: it was never about censorship or policing speech in any manner. It was designed to ensure we fulfill our mission to protect the homeland, while protecting core Constitutional rights.”
“However,” the spokesperson continued, “false attacks have become a significant distraction from the Department’s vitally important work to combat disinformation that threatens the safety and security of the American people.”
The board is now on hold awaiting a report and a review of strategy for how the department can combat disinformation effectively while still protecting civil liberties. That work will be handled by members of the recently revamped Homeland Security Advisory Council. The DHS said that former Secretary Michael Chertoff and former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick were tapped by Mayorkas to produce recommendations on the future of the group within 75 days.
“During the HSAC’s review … the Department’s critical work across several administrations to address disinformation that threatens the security of our country will continue,” the DHS spokesperson said.
In her own statement on Wednesday, Jankowicz said, “With the Board’s work paused and its future uncertain, and I have decided to leave DHS to return to my work in the public sphere. … It is deeply disappointing that mischaracterizations of the Board became a distraction from the Department’s vital work, and indeed, along with recent events globally and nationally, embodies why it is necessary.”
“I maintain my commitment to building awareness of disinformation’s threats and trust the Department will do the same,” Jankowciz said.
Administration officials emphasized that the decision to temporarily suspend the board was in part due to the “extreme” reaction from those who disagreed with it.
“There have been gross mischaracterizations of what the board what the board’s work would be and there have been grotesque personal attacks,” one official said Wednesday. “And the reaction has candidly become a distraction to the department’s important work in addressing disinformation to security.”
Mayorkas himself ultimately made the move to reassess the board before the group ever hosted its first meeting, according to the official. Asked if the decision was politically motivated, the official said the broader point was to ensure the success of the department’s mission to counter misinformation campaigns, which the government believes compromise security.
The DHS had been on the defensive about the board for weeks, with Mayorkas being pressed by Republicans about it during a Senate hearing earlier this month.
The department previously admitted that “there has been confusion about the working group, its role, and its activities” and vowed to work on building greater public trust.
DHS has said the the panel would not be involved in managing department operations and Mayorkas said the group would “bring together the experts throughout our department to ensure that our ongoing work in combating disinformation is done in a way that does not infringe on free speech, a fundamental constitutional right embedded in the First Amendment, nor on the right of privacy or other civil rights and civil liberties.”
Addressing disinformation is a major homeland security priority and DHS had said the new board would help counter false claims from human smugglers and Russia. A homeland security spokesperson stressed that work again on Wednesday, noting “malicious efforts spread by foreign adversaries, human traffickers, and transnational criminal organizations.”
Some Republicans cheered the board’s suspension, renewing attacks that it was “Orwellian” in nature and would, despite DHS’ statements otherwise, be “policing” U.S. citizens.
“This board was only successful in reinforcing that the Department of Homeland Security’s priorities are severely misplaced,” Rep. Mike Turner, of Ohio, and New York Rep. John Katko said in a joint statement Wednesday. “When the border crisis is worsening daily, cyber-attacks from adversaries are threatening to cripple our critical infrastructure, the rise in violent crime is putting Americans across the country in danger, and disrupted supply chains are having devastating impacts on Americans, DHS is focused on policing Americans’ free speech.”
But the group was warily received by some civil liberties advocates, too.
“The burden is on the government to explain why a Homeland Security Department needs a disinformation board in the first place,” Ben Wizner, director of ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told ABC News on Wednesday. “They really have only themselves to blame for the political backlash, given that they announced this without offering any clarity about the mission or scope of the board.”
A group of First Amendment-focused organizations wrote to Mayorkas earlier this month asking for the type of re-evaluation that DHS has now announced.
“The Department has demonstrated a readiness to cross the legal bounds of privacy and speech rights. Coupled with the Department’s checkered record on civil liberties, the Department’s muddled announcement of the Board has squandered the trust that would be required for the Board to fulfill its mission,” the groups, led by the nonprofit Protect Democracy, said in a statement.
Former Acting Head of Intelligence and Analysis at DHS John Cohen, who is also an ABC News contributor, said the responsibilities of the board were widely misunderstood.
“The intention of the board was to facilitate the discussion on policy issues impacting the department, it was meant to ensure that the department protected privacy and civil liberties, as they move to evaluate threat related online content,” Cohen said.
Cohen, who helped stand up the disinformation board and left the department last month, said earlier in May that the board addressed a communication issue within the department.
“It didn’t coordinate operational activities, it wasn’t governing intelligence operations, it had no input on how organizations collect intelligence or information,” he said then. “It was simply intended to be a working group that would gather on an ad hoc basis to address matters of policy.”
(NEW YORK) — Martin Shkreli, who was derided with the nickname “Pharma Bro” after he hiked the price of a lifesaving drug, and who flaunted his pricey purchase of a one-of-a-kind Wu Tang Clan album, is out of prison, his lawyer said Wednesday.
Shkreli had been convicted of securities fraud and other offenses and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
He was released Wednesday after serving about five years.
“I am pleased to report that Martin Shkreli has been released from Allenwood prison and transferred to a BOP halfway house after completing all programs that allowed for his prison sentence to be shortened. While in the halfway house I have encouraged Mr. Shkreli to make no further statement, nor will he or I have any additional comments at this time,” defense attorney Benjamin Brafman said in a statement provided to ABC News.
Shkreli earned widespread condemnation in 2015 when he raised the price of Daraprim — an anti-malaria medication often prescribed for HIV patients — by 4,000%. He also initiated a scheme to block the entry of generic drug competition so that his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, could reap the profits from Daraprim sales for as long as possible, according to a federal judge that ruled earlier this year he should pay $64 million for his actions.
He was convicted of securities fraud in August 2017 in connection with his work at hedge funds MSMB Capital Management and MSMB Healthcare Management prior to founding Turing Pharmaceuticals. Shkreli, prosecutors said, used bogus information that defrauded investors in the hedge funds to pay back more than $10 million to disgruntled investors.
He had called the trial a “witch hunt” and blamed his increase in the cost of Daraprim for making him a target of federal investigators.
In addition to getting sentenced to seven years in prison for securities fraud, Shkreli was ordered to pay a $75,000 fine and $7.3 million in forfeiture.
Shkreli had unsuccessfully lobbied to be released from prison early on May 2020 after claiming his expertise could be used to find a cure for COVID-19.
ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
