(NEW YORK) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that social media companies have to address and track down extremism on their platforms, after a gunman who reportedly espoused white supremacist ideology opened fire at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket on Saturday, killing at least 10.
Among the 13 victims shot, 11 were African American and two were white, authorities said.
“There has to be vigilance,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said on ABC’s “This Week.” “People have to alert other authorities if they think that someone is on a path to domestic terrorism, to violence of any kind.”
Investigators are looking at multiple online postings that may be associated with the shooter, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, that include praise for South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof and the New Zealand mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant, sources told ABC News.
“Obviously you have to balance the free speech issues,” Pelosi said. “Freedom is so important to us but that freedom also carries public safety with it and we have to balance that.”
The California Democrat said her party in Congress is “of course trying to do something about gun violence” but noted that efforts to address mass shootings on Capitol Hill have fallen short in the Senate, where Republicans have opposed gun control measures, making it impossible for Democrats to advance legislation over the 60-vote threshold in the chamber.
(MILWAUKEE) — Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson imposed a two-night curfew for individuals under the age of 21 within the city’s entertainment district on Saturday. The curfew is from 11 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Police will be enforcing the curfew and individuals found in violation will be arrested and fined $691, according to police.
The curfew comes after three shootings in the entertainment district left 21 people injured on Friday.
“I fully expect that when people cause death, harm and destruction in Milwaukee that they should be held fully accountable under the law,” Johnson said during a press conference Saturday.
He later added: “What happened here in this neighborhood last night, it will not be tolerated.”
The Milwaukee Police Department is investigating a non-fatal shooting incident that occurred late Friday night. Police said the shooting occurred due to a “confrontation” between a “couple groups that exchanged in gunfire”
There were 17 victims, their ages raging from 15 to 47. They are all expected to survive, police said.
Police have arrested 10 people and nine guns have been recovered from at least five people who were armed.
Police are also investigating a triple shooting that occurred Friday. The victims were a 29-year-old male, a 16-year-old female and a 26-year-old male and are all expected to survive, according to police.
A 19-year-old male was taken into custody in connection with this incident and charges against him are pending review by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.
A third shooting injured one person on Friday. The victim, a 20-year-old Milwaukee man, was taken to the hospital and is expected to survive. Police said they are still looking for unknown suspect(s).
(NEW YORK) — Despite the U.S. recording more than 1 million COVID-19 deaths this week, few families have taken advantage of a government program to help cover the cost of funerals for victims.
In April 2021, the Federal Emergency Management Agency launched a funeral assistance program, offering to reimburse loved ones up to $9,000, which is the average cost of a funeral.
However, only about one-third of families who are eligible have received reimbursements.
In the year since the program began, FEMA has distributed $2.3 billion to 351,000 Americans to cover funeral costs for about 369,000 people who have died from the virus, averaging about $6,500 each, according to FEMA data released earlier this month.
To qualify for assistance, applicants are required to submit a death certificate that states the death “may have been caused by” or “was likely the result of” COVID-19 or COVID-19-like symptoms.
The death almost must have occurred on or after Jan. 20, 2020, which is the date the first laboratory-confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported in the U.S.
Applicants must apply over the phone and, following the call, can submit proof of funeral expenses — such as itemized receipts, invoices or funeral home contracts — or other assistance online, by mail or via fax.
Reimbursements can be used to cover any portion of funeral expenses including burial plots, caskets, preparation of the body, cremation, urns, clergy, services and headstones as well as costs related to state or local ordinances and producing death certificates.
Temporary tourist visa or work visa holders are not allowed to apply for assistance. Additionally, pre-planned or pre-paid funerals are not eligible for reimbursements even if the individual died of COVID-19.
“The majority of ineligibility decisions are due to funeral expenses being paid by another source, such as funeral or burial insurance,” FEMA Press Secretary Jeremy Edwards said in a statement to ABC News. “Any payment made specifically for a funeral prior to death is considered a duplication and is not eligible for reimbursement.”
An ABC News analysis comparing the number of FEMA applications to COVID-19 death tolls from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found North Carolina led the U.S. in applications for funeral assistance at 68%.
States in the South including Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and South Carolina had the highest rates with 58% or more deaths leading to applications. Meanwhile, states in the West had the lowest participation rates with Montana, Oregon and Washington seeing 37% or fewer deaths leading to applications.
To make more Americans aware of the program, FEMA launched an outreach campaign in March 2021 with paid advertisements and media roundtables held in several languages.
“FEMA will continue reaching out to all affected communities, including those that have been historically underserved, which is why we recently launched a targeted outreach campaign — in San Bernardino, California; Bronx County, New York; Philadelphia; and Hidalgo, Texas — all areas identified with high rates of COVID-19-related deaths, low funeral assistance application rates and high Social Vulnerability Index scores,” Edwards said in a statement.
The statement continued, “We’ve also sent over 780,000 letters, initiated nearly 190,000 auto-dialer contacts, and made 64,619 personal outreach calls to increase awareness of the COVID-19 Funeral Assistance Program.”
The agency also said it will provide special attention to California, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, all of which saw high death rates from COVID-19.
Some local community groups have taken it upon themselves to educate people about the process of applying. COVID Survivors for Change, a group that supports those “directly impacted” by COVID held a Facebook Live about the program last year to answer some frequently asked questions about the funeral assistance.
FEMA has provided funeral assistance in the past for Americans killed during federally declared disasters such as Hurricane Maria in 2017 and Hurricane Florence in 2018. However, the agency says this program is the “largest offering of funeral assistance in FEMA’s history.”
(NEW YORK) — During the early days of the pandemic, Cayci Weaver was able to hold on to her teaching job. Educating high school students, however, was not easy; the switch to remote learning was a challenge, she says.
“I think we were working 12-hour days for about a week, just trying to get everything set up,” she said, adding: “You know, you gotta do what you gotta do to make sure you’re not failing the students.”
But she says after those initial struggles, students adapted, and so did she.
Weaver said she didn’t always want to be a teacher. Even into her college years, she says she was still unsure of what career path to take.
But she said she had always loved history. That’s why, a little more than ten years ago, she applied for a job at a school in Jacksonville, Florida. After teaching middle school for a time, she eventually moved to the high school level, teaching American history to 11th and 12th graders.
It may not have been a lifelong dream, but Weaver says she came to love teaching.
“Nobody gets into teaching because you’re going to make a lot of money, because you know you’re not going to,” Weaver tells ABC Audio. “You get into it because you like what you’re doing. You care about what you’re doing.”
Though money was tight on a teacher’s salary, Weaver says she lived comfortably during the twelve years she spent in the classroom.
“I stuck it out for a while,” she said.
While many Americans lost their jobs in 2020, Weaver was still working and adapting to changes brought by the pandemic.
“After the ball got rolling, and the kids adapted to what the new normal was… I actually enjoyed it a lot more,” says Weaver.
She also says that time allowed her to discover something about her job that she didn’t fully see before the pandemic.
“For me, I think I thrived, a bit, in that environment,” she says.
She says working remotely illuminated the things she was missing during her days commuting back and forth to school.
“It was just better being at home, where I could spend more time with family and my pups, so I actually enjoyed that a whole lot more,” she says. “It felt like I had more time to enjoy what I wanted to do while still also being present for the students and still teaching.”
When the 2020 school year began, Weaver’s school had adopted a hybrid model for students, and she had to continue teaching students remotely while at the same time engaging the students who returned to school for in-person learning. Plus, with parents going back to work, coronavirus concerns began to mount, as well.
“The number of parents that would send their kids to school when they knew their kids were sick because they didn’t have day care for them, or they didn’t have an option – they didn’t have anyone to watch their kids – that happened quite frequently.”
For Weaver and her colleagues, all of that equaled burnout.
“We always called it the ‘April feeling,’ where you just wanted the end of the school year to get here because you’re worn out. That ‘April feeling’ came in September,” she says.
So at the end of that school year, in May 2021, after her students made it through state testing, Weaver quit her job.
“Twelve years later, I think I’m ready to just cut my losses and start looking out for more me, and my future long term, rather than just living paycheck to paycheck,” she says.
She’s now a real estate agent, and while it might not be as much history on a day-to-day basis, she says things have been easier. Weaver says in the first two months of 2022 she’s already made half of her full year’s salary as a teacher. And she says her finances aren’t the only thing that’s improved.
“I think I made the right choice,” she said. “I can get home a little early to make sure I have time to cook, or I can get home a little earlier to make sure that I can do the things that I want to do. I 100 percent think that this was the right call for me.”
(NEW YORK) — An Alabama judge has partially blocked the state’s gender-affirming trans youth care ban.
S.B. 184, the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, states that anyone who provides gender-affirming care to anyone under 19 could be convicted of a felony and face up to 10 years in prison and a $15,000 fine.
Judge Liles Burke blocked part of the Alabama law that banned prescriptions for gender-affirming puberty blockers and hormones, as the case is litigated.
He left in place other parts of the law, including the ban on gender-affirming surgeries that physicians say are already banned.
Burke will also allow the provision that requires school officials to tell parents if a minor discloses they are transgender.
The ban went into effect on May 8 and left physicians and families across the state rushing to figure out how best to provide care for their young transgender patients before the ban took place.
“It was a scramble, trying to gather as many names as possible of the kids that we see in our clinic and make sure that they do have refills called in before the law took effect,” pediatric endocrinologist Hussein Abdul-Latif told ABC News.
Burke held a two-day hearing before the ban went into effect to hear from doctors, researchers, families and more about the legislation and its impact.
Many at the hearing pointed out that the legislation is riddled with misinformation about hormone therapy, puberty blockers and gender reassignment surgery.
The claims made in the legislation — including the falsehood that hormone and puberty blockers have negative health impacts or cause infertility in trans youth — have been debunked by physicians who spoke to ABC News, as well as researchers at Yale University and the University of Texas Southwestern.
GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), alongside other LGBTQ advocacy groups, is suing Gov. Kay Ivey, alongside the state attorney general, in opposition of the trans care ban.
“A state cannot criminalize parents and doctors for following medical guidelines and providing needed medical treatments,” NCLR Senior Staff Attorney and Transgender Youth Project Director Asaf Orr said in a statement on the lawsuit.
Orr continued, “This is a blatantly unconstitutional bill that will cause enormous stress and harm to Alabama families and cost Alabama taxpayers millions of dollars to defend.”
Ivey’s office did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
A similar law was halted in Arkansas last year when a federal judge issued an injunction.
(WASHINGTON) — Hundreds of pro-abortion rights protests are planned nationwide Saturday in the wake of a bombshell leak of a U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion that indicated the court’s conservative majority could soon overturn Roe v. Wade.
Women’s March and Planned Parenthood are among the organizations behind more than 450 demonstrations nationwide, which are anticipated to draw hundreds of thousands of people.
Washington, D.C., is expected to be the site of the largest turnout, with 17,000 people anticipated to gather on the grounds of the Washington Monument, according to a permit issued by the National Park Service to Women’s March.
“Losing the right to abortion has consequences. Women will pay the price,” Women’s March executive director Rachel O’Leary Carmona said in a statement. “We can stop this tragedy, and the time is now.”
The “Bans Off Our Bodies” rally, which kicked off at noon, will be followed by a march to the U.S. Supreme Court at 2 p.m. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren will be among the rally’s speakers, according to the permit. There will also be a performance from musician Toshi Reagon, organizers said.
A counter-protest is also being organized by Students for Life that is scheduled to begin at noon Saturday at the Washington Monument and also march to the Supreme Court.
New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Austin are also expected to have large turnouts for “Bans Off Our Bodies” demonstrations.
A rally organized by the Women’s March Foundation at the Los Angeles City Hall will feature speakers including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, U.S. Rep. Karen Bass and the attorney and women’s rights advocate Gloria Allred, according to organizers.
The demonstrations join recent protests by abortion rights activists — and some anti-abortion protesters — following the leak of the draft SCOTUS decision on the Mississippi case that challenges Roe, the landmark decision that has guaranteed a woman’s right to abortion for nearly 50 years.
Amid the demonstrations, an eight-foot-high fence was erected at the Supreme Court last week.
The high court is expected to rule publicly on the case in question — Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — by the end of June.
A majority of Americans believe Roe should be upheld, according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll. But if Roe is overturned, at least 26 states would either ban abortion or severely restrict access to it, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization.
This week, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have enshrined abortion rights into federal law. The legislation failed in the Senate 49-51, lacking the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP-led filibuster.
President Joe Biden condemned Senate Republicans for failing to act “at a time when women’s constitutional rights are under unprecedented attack — and it runs counter to the will of the majority of American people.”
Ahead of the planned protests, House Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi gathered Friday to call on the justices to defend abortion access.
“Americans are marching and making their voices heard,” Pelosi said. “Public sentiment is everything. We will never stop fighting for patients and their health care.”
(NEW YORK) — The first case against a member of the Russian military is set to go to trial on May 18. 21-year-old Russian serviceman Vadim Shishimarin is accused of killing an unarmed Ukrainian civilian in the Sumy region on Feb. 28, according to Iryna Venediktova, Ukraine’s prosecutor general.
The civilian was a resident of Chupakhivka who was riding a bike on the roadside when he was shot, Venediktova alleged.
Shishmarin is charged with murder and two counts of robbery. He surrendered to Ukrainian law enforcement on the same day and has been a prisoner of war since, Ukrainian prosecutor Andriy Syniuk said.
Shishmarin’s lawyer and a public defender, Viktor Ovsiannikov, refused to disclose his strategy, but said the fact the soldier was following orders does not legally constitute a defense. It’s up to the judges whether to take that under consideration.
The length of the trial will depend on how the defendant will plead, but the prosecution has sufficient proof regardless, Syniuk told ABC News.
Syniuk also said Shishmarin has cooperated throughout the investigation.
Shishimarin is the first member of the Russian military to be facing a criminal trial, Venediktova said in a post on Facebook.
Prosecutor Andriy Syniuk told ABC News that trying this case should set the standard and prove that Ukraine is a country with a rule of law and respect for human rights. He said this case is important and that more hearings will be starting soon.
Three other people are involved in these crimes, but Shishmarin is the only one facing charges for now, according to the prosecutor.
ABC News’ Tatiana Rymarenko contributed to this report.
(DALLAS) — The shooting of three Korean women in a hair salon in the city’s Koreatown on Wednesday afternoon could be hate motivated, Dallas police said, and may be linked to a series of recent shootings at Asian run businesses in the city.
The shooting victims at the Hair World Salon in a historically Asian district were all Korean women — the salon owner, an employee and a customer, according to ABC affiliate station WFAA in Dallas. The women suffered nonfatal injuries and were transported to a local hospital, according to police.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said at a press conference on Friday that initially police “did not have any indication that this crime was hate motivated,” but as of Friday afternoon, “that just changed.”
Garcia said that amid the investigation, law enforcement “concluded three recent shootings of Asian run businesses may be connected” and the suspect in each incident was driving a similar vehicle.
On 5/11/22 at 2:20 p.m. 3 female victims were shot at the World Salon on Royal Ln. The suspect is described as a Black male 5’7” to 5’10” thin build with curly hair and beard. Contact Detective T. Johnston at 214.671.3523 or timothy.johnston@dallascityhall.com if you have info. pic.twitter.com/gZ81P62BN7
The Dallas Police Department released a security camera image Thursday of the assailant dressed all in black running from the salon following the 2 p.m. shooting. The man appeared to be holding a semiautomatic rifle with an extended magazine clip.
Police said they learned from a witness report that an unknown Black male parked what appeared to be “a dark color minivan-type vehicle” on Royal Lane and then walked across the parking lot into the establishment and allegedly opened fire as soon as he entered the salon.
“The suspect then fired multiple rounds inside the business, wounded all three victims,” police said.
Police also released a security image of a maroon minivan they said the gunmen fled the scene in. The gunman was described by police as 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10, thin with curly hair and a beard.
Garcia said that the shooting at the salon may be linked to a shooting that happened a day before and one that took place last month.
Police learned from witness reports that on April 2 a driver in a red minivan drove past a strip mall of Asian run businesses and fired shots at three businesses, but no one was injured.
And on Tuesday a suspect in a burgundy van or car drove by and shot into Asian run businesses near 4849 Sunnyvale Street, but no one was injured.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we have reached out to our partners to make them aware of the possible connection and ask for their assistance,” Garcia said. “This includes the FBI and member agencies of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. We are also working with North Texas police partners to determine if this criminal action has or is taking place in their jurisdictions.”
Garcia said that police will be increasing the presence of high visibility patrol officers in areas in the city where there are large Asian American populations.
“We are turning to every resident of the city of Dallas to keep an eye out and safeguard our city,” Garcia said. “Hate has no place here.”
These incidents in Dallas come amid a spate of attacks targeting Asian Americans across the nation, which spiked amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The possibility that we are dealing with a violent gunman who is motivated by hate is chilling and deeply disturbing,” Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said in a statement on Friday.
“And I want our Asian American community – which has appallingly faced increased vitriol in recent years – to know that the city of Dallas and the people of Dallas stand with them,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — Federal regulators warned months ago of potential problems at a manufacturing plant for baby formula, according to documents and a public timeline of the events, raising questions about whether more could have been done sooner by the government to address operational issues and prevent a nationwide shortage.
Inspection reports by the Food and Drug Administration, as well as a 34-page whistleblower report from a former employee of Abbott Laboratories, suggest the FDA first became aware last fall of suspected sanitation issues at an Abbott facility in Sturgis, Michigan. But it wasn’t until mid-February after the agency detected deadly bacteria inside the plant, that Abbott issued a voluntary recall – a drastic move that syphoned off a significant portion of the nation’s supply.
Months after that, concerns still remain about what is taking so long to get the facility running again safely, as families scramble for access to formula.
“We know there have been questions about the timeline,” the FDA said in a statement released Friday. “However, this remains an open investigation with many moving parts. We are continuing to investigate and will continue to update you as information becomes available. Once the immediate risk to the public has been addressed, we will conduct a review and, as outlined in our recently released Foodborne Outbreak Response Improvement Plan, we will build in performance measures across the FDA’s foods program to better evaluate the timeliness and effectiveness of outbreak and regulatory investigation activities.”
For its part, Abbott said it has been working to resolve the FDA’s concerns and, subject to federal approval, could restart operations at the Michigan plant within two weeks.
Abbott says there is no evidence its products contributed to the cases of two infant deaths.
“We are confident that we can continue to produce safe, high-quality infant formula at all of our facilities as we have been doing for millions of babies around the world for decades,” the company said.
Here’s what to know about the timeline of the agency investigation.
September 2019: The FDA conducts an inspection of the Sturgis plant, with one infraction on testing.
Sept. 20, 2021: The FDA conducts an inspection of the plant, noting that personnel working directly with formula didn’t properly wash their hands when needed and didn’t change gloves after touching “non-food” contact surfaces.
“You did not maintain a building used in the manufacture, processing, packing or holding of infant formula in a clean and sanitary condition,” the FDA concludes in its September 2021 report.
On the same day that FDA inspectors are inside the Sturgis plant, the Minnesota Department of Health alerts the agency that an infant was sickened by a bacteria called Cronobacter sakazakii after drinking formula produced in the Sturgis plant. Investigators later, however, do not find a substantive link between the plant’s formula and the child’s illness.
Oct. 20, 2021: In a 34-page document, a whistleblower at the plant alleges to the FDA that Abbott has been releasing untested infant formula, hiding information during past FDA audits and imposing lax cleaning practices. None of these claims have been independently verified. According to Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, who later releases the whistleblower report, the FDA interviews that person in late December.
Feb. 1, 2022: The FDA collects samples at the plant that confirm the presence of the dangerous Cronobacter bacteria and cite several violations, according to an inspection report.
Feb. 17, 2022: The FDA says it is investigating reports of four illnesses in three states, including one baby who died. Abbott announces a voluntary recall of potentially affected products, including Similac, Alimentum and EleCare powdered formulas manufactured in its Sturgis facility.
Feb. 28, 2022: The FDA announces a second death and Abbott expands its recall.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As North Korea rattles its foreign rivals by escalating shows of firepower, the coronavirus could be attacking the Hermit Kingdom from within.
In a rare admission this week, North Korean state media announced its first COVID-19 cases, including six deaths from the virus and an additional 350,000 infections since April (although experts say those figures are likely much higher.)
After insisting for more than two years that the country was untouched by the global pandemic, its leader Kim Jong Un locked down all cities and counties as part of a “maximum emergency” response, and was spotted wearing a mask for the first time.
Despite the outbreak, North Korea test launched three short-range ballistic missiles this week—evidence of Pyongyang’s commitment to expanding its military arsenal and hardening stance against the West.
While the country has ramped up its nuclear weapons program, its health care system remains under-resourced and ill-equipped to handle an influx of patients. According to the World Health Organization, it’s one of only two countries that has yet to start a COVID-19 vaccine campaign.
Pyongyang has declined assistance even from its close allies, like China, so offers to share vaccines from its sworn enemies are all but certain to prove futile.
The State Department confirmed the U.S. has no plans to give doses to North Korea, but a spokesperson told ABC News “we strongly support and encourage the efforts of U.S. and international aid and health organizations in seeking to prevent and contain the spread of COVID-19.”
The spokesperson added that should COVAX — a global initiative to which the U.S. has pledged to donate over 1 billion doses by the end of next year — decide to allocate vaccines to North Korea, the department would support the decision.
However, Pyongyang has yet to accept a single shot from COVAX.
“We urge the DPRK (North Korea) to work with the international community to facilitate the rapid vaccination of its population,” the spokesperson added.
In addition to vaccines, North Korea is believed to lack adequate testing capabilities and anti-viral treatments to treat COVID-19. Its isolation also means it’s likely that very few of its citizens have been previously infected and recovered, giving them some level of immunity.
The capital city hosted a massive military parade late last month that could have contributed to the virus spreading.
President Joe Biden is slated to travel to South Korea and Japan next week, his first trip to the region since entering office. Both North Korea’s nuclear provocations and the added instability the coronavirus might bring to country are likely to be top items on the agenda.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke over the phone with his newly appointed counterpart in South Korea on Friday. According to a readout provided by the State Department, both officials condemned North Korea’s latest missile launches. The South Korean Foreign Ministry also said they discussed the country’s coronavirus outbreak.
