(MIAMI) — A 23-year-old man featured in a video that went viral after he groped two flight attendants, punched a third, screamed his parents had $2 million and was duct taped to a seat of a Frontier Airlines flight was sentenced Tuesday to 60 days in jail followed by one year of supervised release.
Max Berry pleaded guilty to three counts of assault within maritime and territorial jurisdiction and faced 1.5 years and a $15,000 fine. Berry had been drinking on a Frontier Airlines flight in August from Philadelphia to Miami when he spilled his drink on himself and a flight attendant. Berry went to the bathroom and came out without his shirt.
As flight attendants tried to help him, he groped them.
A fight ensued and Berry was eventually restrained with duct tape. The incident racked up more than 13 million views online.
In court documents, Berry’s attorney said, “Max Berry is a good man who committed a bad act, that was not planned, it was committed in an unsophisticated manner, and it is an aberration.”
According to WPLG, in court Tuesday, Berry apologized, took full responsibility for his actions and explained how he has been remorseful from the very start.
Two of the flight attendants gave victim impact statements about how this experience has affected them. After the hearing, both victims said the 60-day sentence was not enough, but better than nothing.
Before issuing the sentence, the judge said to Maxwell there’s “no delete button” and people can’t think they’re able to go on a plane and do this, adding that flight attendants shouldn’t feel unsafe at their job, WPLG reporter Annaliese Garcia told ABC News.
Court documents show several character witnesses’ statements detailing Berry’s hard work, good grades, leadership and volunteer service in the community.
Documents show he has received substance abuse treatment and therapy for depression and anxiety since the incident.
Berry, who recently graduated from college has struggled to find work.
“Due to the tremendous media attention that this case garnered, Max’s efforts to find a job utilizing his recently obtained college degree in finance economics were futile, as he was constantly being denied positions that he was applying for in the finance world and elsewhere without an explanation,” Berry’s attorney wrote in court documents.
(WASHINGTON) — With the bombshell leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion indicating a reported majority of conservative justices is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, all eyes were once again on Republican Sen. Susan Collins Tuesday over her support for Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
The draft opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito and not yet final — first reported Monday night by Politico — showed the court is poised to topple the landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion across the U.S.
In the draft, dated Feb. 10, Alito wrote, “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”
Reporters flocked to Collins’ office on Tuesday morning for her reaction, given she cast a vote pivotal to Kavanaugh’s ascension to the court in 2018.
Collins said at the time that Kavanaugh assured her Roe v. Wade was “settled law.”
“If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office,” Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement Tuesday morning. “Obviously, we won’t know each Justice’s decision and reasoning until the Supreme Court officially announces its opinion in this case.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were more direct, accusing the court’s recently appointed conservative justices of deceiving lawmakers about their views on Roe v. Wade.
“Several of these conservative Justices, who are in no way accountable to the American people, have lied to the U.S. Senate, ripped up the Constitution and defiled both precedent and the Supreme Court’s reputation — all at the expense of tens of millions of women who could soon be stripped of their bodily autonomy and the constitutional rights they’ve relied on for half a century,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a joint statement Monday night.
At his Senate confirmation hearings in September 2018, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee pushed Kavanaugh on what his then-current position on Roe v. Wade was — in light of a reported 2003 email he wrote as a lawyer in the Bush White House challenging that the landmark decision was the “settled law of the land.”
“As a general proposition I understand the importance of the precedent set forth in Roe v. Wade,” Kavanaugh told senators.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.: “What would you say your position is today on a woman’s right to choose?”
“As a judge it is an important precedent of the Supreme Court,” he replied. “By ‘it,’ I mean Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, been affirmed many times. Casey is precedent on precedent.”
At confirmation hearings for Neil Gorsuch in March 2017, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois pressed him for his views on abortion, using what he wrote in a book he authored on euthanasia. In the book, he wrote that “the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.”
“The Supreme Court of the United States has held that Roe v. Wade, that a fetus is not a person for purposes of the 14th Amendment. And the book explains that,” Gorsuch testified.
“Do you accept that?” Durbin asked.
“That’s the law of the land, I accept the law of the land, senator, yes,” Gorsuch answered.
Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, vowed to hold a vote on codifying abortion rights, although the path forward for Democrats on the issue remains limited due to not having enough vote overcome a filibuster.
The House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act to codify abortion rights in September 2021 but the bill has failed to move forward in the Senate.
“A vote on this legislation is not an abstract exercise,” Schumer said. “This is as urgent and real as it gets. We will vote to protect a woman’s right to choose and every American is going to see which side every Senator stands.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a Republican who is a leading abortion rights moderate, excoriated the leak, calling it “absolutely reprehensible,” but added, “If it goes in the direction that this leaked copy has indicated, I will just tell you that it it it rocks my confidence in the court right now.”
The senator batted away questions about whether she would support ending the Senate’s filibuster in order to codify Roe, legislation she has sponsored, but she didn’t rule it out, saying only, “I’m not going to talk about the filibuster.”
Asked directly if previous conservative nominees like Kavanaugh had lied to her when they affirmed that Roe is “settled law,” Murkowski repeated that the draft opinion has “rocked my confidence in the court.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden weighed in Tuesday morning on the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion showing the panel’s conservative majority of justices is poised to overturn nearly 50 years of established abortion rights in America.
“It concerns me a great deal that, after 50 years, we’re going to decide that a woman doesn’t have the right to choose,” Biden told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, en route to Alabama to visit a facility that manufactures Javelin anti-tank missiles. “But even more equally profound is the rationale used — and it would mean that every other decision relating to the notion of privacy is thrown into question.”
“The idea that we’re going to make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child, based on a decision by the Supreme Court, I think goes way overboard,” he said.
Biden called the decision “radical” if it holds, and added, “The codification of Roe makes a lot of sense.”
In an earlier written statement, Biden began with a caveat — lightly acknowledging the unprecedented nature of seeing a draft opinion before the court’s formal ruling — before launching into a three-part defense of Roe v. Wade by his administration.
“We do not know whether this draft is genuine, or whether it reflects the final decision of the Court. With that critical caveat, I want to be clear on three points about the cases before the Supreme Court,” Biden said in a rare statement on an even rarer event.
“First, my administration argued strongly before the Court in defense of Roe v. Wade,” Biden said, referencing oral arguments in December before the justices. “We said that Roe is based on “a long line of precedent recognizing ‘the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty’… against government interference with intensely personal decisions.”
“I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental, Roe has been the law of the land for almost fifty years, and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned,” Biden said.
He said his administration was already preparing for the outcome — but called on American voters to elect pro-choice candidates in November and on congressional lawmakers to codify Roe into law.
“Second, shortly after the enactment of Texas law SB 8 and other laws restricting women’s reproductive rights, I directed my Gender Policy Council and White House Counsel’s Office to prepare options for an Administration response to the continued attack on abortion and reproductive rights, under a variety of possible outcomes in the cases pending before the Supreme Court. We will be ready when any ruling is issued,” he continued.
“Third, if the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose. And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November,” he said. “At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.”
The court has since acknowledged the draft is “authentic” but said it was not a decision of the court and not final.
The document, which Politico said Monday night it obtained from a “person familiar with the court’s proceedings,” is marked “first draft” and dated Feb. 10, 2022 — two months after oral arguments were heard in the case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito, the draft opinion’s author, in a copy posted online.
If Alito’s opinion were to hold, as written, it would dramatically upend abortion rights across America, effectively allowing each state to set its own policy.
“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion,” the draft concludes. “Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”
The stunning leak comes as Tuesday marks the first multi-state contest of the 2022 midterm election season and as several states have already enacted restrictions on abortion rights.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military last month launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, attempting to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and to secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 03, 10:24 am
Civilians evacuated from plant have arrived safely in Zaporizhzhia: UN
Civilians trapped for weeks inside the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant in Mariupol have arrived safely in Zaporizhzhia, according to the United Nations.
“I’m relieved to confirm that the safe passage operation from Mariupol has been successful,” tweeted Osnat Lubrani, the U.N.’s resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine. “The people I travelled with told me heartbreaking stories of the hell they went through. I’m thinking about the people who remain trapped. We will do all we can to assist them.”
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Irina Vereshchuk, said 156 civilians were part of the convoy, organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Many more people remain trapped at the plant. The sprawling industrial site is the last holdout for the Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol, as Russian forces accelerate their efforts to fully capture city. The Mariupol City Council has previously said there are at least 1,000 people, including Ukrainian troops, on the grounds of the Azovstal plant. Vereshchuk has said that civilians, including women and children, are also sheltering there.
-ABC News’ Zoe Magee and Christine Theodorou
May 03, 9:47 am
‘He’s the main war criminal of the 21st century’: Ukrainian prosecutor on Putin
Ukraine’s lead prosecutor, Iryna Venediktova, said Russian President Vladimir Putin should “absolutely” be prosecuted for the war crimes she says occurred in the town of Irpin and surrounding communities.
“He’s the main war criminal of the 21st century,” she said.
“We all know who started this war. And this person is Vladimir Putin,” she said.
Venediktova said the first phase of the war crimes investigation in Irpin has ended. She said investigators found evidence of rape, torture and the use of banned weapons of war in the city.
May 03, 5:32 am
Russia’s military ‘now significantly weaker,’ UK says
Russia’s military is “now significantly weaker, both materially and conceptually,” than it had been prior to its invasion of Ukraine, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday.
“Recovery from this will be exacerbated by sanctions,” the ministry said in an intelligence update. “This will have a lasting impact on Russia’s ability to deploy conventional military force.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 03 May 2022
(NEW YORK) — Even though the U.S. successfully negotiated the release of Trevor Reed from a Russian prison, after nearly three years of captivity, the brother of another detained American isn’t sure that his family member will follow suit.
David Whelan, the brother of Paul Whelan, who’s been held by Russian officials since 2019, gave an update on his sibling’s condition to ABC News on Monday.
Paul Whelan spoke with his parents after Reed’s release and said the news was hard for him, according to David Whelan.
“He asked, ‘Why was I left behind?’ And we still don’t really have a good answer for that,” David Whelan told ABC News.
Paul Whelan was discharged from the Marines for bad conduct in 2008 after being convicted of larceny. He later worked as a global security executive for the auto parts supplier BorgWarner.
He was arrested in December 2018 while visiting Moscow for a friend’s wedding and charged with espionage by Russian intelligence officials.
Paul Whelan and American officials have denied the charges.
Paul Whelan, an avid traveler who has Irish, British and Canadian citizenship, visited Russia numerous times in the 2010s, and previously told ABC News he was intrigued by the country’s the language and culture.
In June 2020, Paul Whelan was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in a Russian prison camp. His family has repeatedly called for his release.
Reed was also arrested in Moscow in 2019 after Russian authorities said he struck an officer. Reed and American officials refuted the charges.
Reed’s parents pushed President Joe Biden to bring him back home with a prisoner transfer. Last week, that request was fulfilled.
Reed was exchanged for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, a convicted drug trafficker.
Joey and Paula Reed, Trevor Reed’s parents, also advocated for Whelan during their discussions with the president and other officials.
David Whelan said now that Yaroshenko has been released to the Russians, he is concerned there are fewer concessions the U.S. can make.
“I think those sorts of negotiations, they take time, and they’re also very sensitive. It’s not just a matter of who’s involved,” David Whelan said. “It’s not really clear what their next steps are going to be.”
Biden has repeatedly called for Paul Whelan to be released and reiterated his commitment to bringing him back last week after Reed was released.
David Whelan said he hasn’t spoken with Biden recently but did talk with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the weekend.
“Hearing President Biden last summer in Geneva say that he wouldn’t walk away from Paul’s case, [and] hearing him this week on Wednesday say that he was still going to be working to bring Paul home to his loved ones, that’s really important for us,” David Whelan said. “That sort of outreach, both in private and in public is huge for us.”
The U.S. has also called on Russia to release WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was arrested in Russia in February, right before the invasion of Ukraine, on drug charges.
David Whelan said he hopes the U.S. can bring back American citizens who are in similar situations.
“Paul is one of dozens and dozens who are arbitrarily detained by sovereign nations around the world. And they’re all very tricky, each one.” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Roberts put out rare, written statements Tuesday to address the leak of a draft opinion showing the panel’s conservative majority of justices is poised to overturn nearly 50 years of established abortion rights.
The statement on behalf of the court said, “Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”
In a separate statement but released together, Roberts called the leak a “singular and egregious breach” of trust — but defended the court’s workforce and integrity, saying this will not undermine its operation.
“To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed. The work of the Court will not be affected in any way,” Roberts said.
“We at the Court are blessed to have a workforce — permanent employees and law clerks alike — intensely loyal to the institution and dedicated to the rule of law. Court employees have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court,” he said. “This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.”
Roberts said he’s directed the Marshal of the Court — its chief operations and security officer — to launch an investigation into the leak.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Politicians and organizations are reacting to an unprecedented leaked draft opinion suggesting the U.S. Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide nearly 50 years ago.
While some conservatives were quick to praise the draft opinion, many liberals decried it and people on both sides criticized the extraordinary breach of the covert deliberation process of the nation’s highest court.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a joint statement late Monday, warning: “If the report is accurate, the Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past fifty years — not just on women but on all Americans.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., however, had not commented as of Tuesday morning.
The 98-page document, obtained by Politico and published online Monday night, was dated Feb. 10, 2022, and labeled a “1st Draft” of the “Opinion of the Court” in a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which is challenging Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks.
Politico said it received “a copy of the draft opinion from a person familiar with the court’s proceedings in the Mississippi case along with other details supporting the authenticity of the document.” ABC News has not independently confirmed the draft. A Supreme Court spokeswoman declined to comment.
The draft opinion, apparently written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., appears to show the court’s conservative majority voted to strike down the 1973 ruling on Roe v. Wade as well as a subsequent decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. That 1992 case upheld Roe’s finding of a constitutional right to abortion services but allowed states to impose some restrictions on the controversial practice. The immediate impact of the ruling as drafted would be to end the federally guaranteed right to abortion and effectively allow each state to decide whether to restrict or outright ban it, according to Politico.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito appeared to write in the draft opinion.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he added. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
In the wake of the Politico report and the rare leak, elected officials from both sides of the aisle are speaking out.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., along with a number of congressional Democrats, including Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Patty Murray, D-Wash., as well as Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., all called for Congress to codify Roe v. Wade into law, even if that meant eliminating the filibuster.
If #SCOTUS is going to legislate from the bench and turn back the clock 50 years on #RoeVWade, then the Senate needs to pass my Women’s Health Protection Act, and if we need to eliminate the filibuster to get it done, we should do that too. #WHPA
— Sen. Tammy Baldwin (@SenatorBaldwin) May 3, 2022
We need to fight back with everything we’ve got right now. The right to abortion is on the line, and I’ll never stop fighting to protect it.
— Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) May 3, 2022
We must fight. We fight by passing the House-passed Women’s Health Protection Act in the Senate. We fight by getting rid of the filibuster. We can’t go back, we must fight. https://t.co/w1ysGzDrAh
— Rep. Peter Welch (@WelchForVT) May 3, 2022
Gubernatorial Democrats from California to Maine vowed to protect abortion rights in their respective states.
Our daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers will not be silenced.The world is about to hear their fury.California will not sit back. We are going to fight like hell. https://t.co/EhwSWXiZhx
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) May 3, 2022
Hell no! In Illinois, we trust women. We cannot let their most profound and personal rights be violated. https://t.co/ksvR0vkgw1
— Governor JB Pritzker (@GovPritzker) May 3, 2022
I want to be very clear: unlike an apparent majority of the Supreme Court, I do not consider the rights of women to be dispensable. As long as I am Governor, I will fight with everything I have to protect reproductive rights and to preserve access to reproductive health care. https://t.co/RYSnxxJVb9
— Governor Janet Mills (@GovJanetMills) May 3, 2022
While the co-chairs of the House Pro-Life Caucus had not commented as of Tuesday morning, the leaders of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Co.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), released a joint statement, saying: “Such a move would be an unconscionable rollback of a fundamental right and would have devastating impacts throughout the country.”
Some Republicans, including Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), condemned the leak as an attempt to “intimidate” the court, while others, such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), hailed the draft opinion.
The Supreme Court’s confidential deliberation process is sacred & protects it from political interference. This breach shows that radical Democrats are working even harder to intimidate & undermine the Court. It was always their plan. The justices cannot be swayed by this attack. https://t.co/S5eMGO0dxd
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) May 3, 2022
The Supreme Court is preparing to overturn Roe—the most significant and glorious news of our lifetime. Join me in praying to God for the right outcome. Life begins at conception. Let’s protect it. pic.twitter.com/SNdb6WUBXO
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) May 3, 2022
If the reports are true about the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming decision, this is a major victory for the pro-life movement.My full statement⬇️https://t.co/QDcy5kyw9K
— Rep. Mike Kelly (@MikeKellyPA) May 3, 2022
Gubernatorial Republicans in Alabama, Arkansas and South Dakota expressed their hope that Roe v. Wade would in fact be overturned.
I have advocated for the reversal of Roe v. Wade all my political career. The leak from someone within the court is reprehensible and should lead to an investigation but I do hope the court returns authority to the states.
— Gov. Asa Hutchinson (@AsaHutchinson) May 3, 2022
If this report is true and Roe v. Wade is overturned, I will immediately call for a special session to save lives and guarantee that every unborn child has a right to life in South Dakota. https://t.co/oIiGibCP7B
— Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) May 3, 2022
Meanwhile, anti-abortion organizations March for Life and Susan B Anthony List are withholding comment until the final decision is announced; though the latter noted that it would “wholeheartedly applaud the decision” if the leaked draft opinion was the final opinion.
Friends, @March_for_Life will not be providing comment on an official decision of #scotus possible leak until a decision is officially announced.
— Jeanne F. Mancini (@jeannemfl) May 3, 2022
Regarding the SCOTUS leak on Dobbs, SBA List will not be commenting until an official decision is announced by the Court.
— Susan B. Anthony List #ModernizeOurLaw (@SBAList) May 3, 2022
Abortion-rights organizations Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America emphasized that the leaked draft opinion “is not final” and “abortion is still legal.”
Let’s be clear: This is a draft opinion. It’s outrageous, it’s unprecedented, but it is not final. Abortion is your right — and it is STILL LEGAL. https://t.co/s9R7w99n71
— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) May 3, 2022
The leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is not final. While this leak is unprecedented, it’s important to know that Roe still stands and abortion is still legal. But it’s clear that we need to fight harder than ever before.
— NARAL (@NARAL) May 3, 2022
(LONDON) — An intruder infiltrated the barracks housing the soldiers who protect Queen Elizabeth in Windsor, The Sun newspaper revealed Tuesday.
The man, who was posing as a priest, talked his way into the Victoria Barracks, situated just outside the confines of Windsor Castle. According to The Sun, the man, who has not been named, claimed to be a friend of the chaplain for the Cold Stream Guards — one of the regiments that protects the queen. Soldiers allowed him in without checking for any identification.
The UK’s Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying it’s taking the breach “extremely seriously,” adding “it will be thoroughly investigated as a matter of priority.”
The intrusion took place while the Queen was away at Sandringham. The imposter was reportedly entertained by officers, eating and drinking with them before being offered a bed for the night. The police were eventually called the following morning, April 27.
“We received a report of an intruder at Victoria Barracks in Sheet Street, Windsor, at 9.20am on Wednesday,” Thames Valley Police said in a statement. “Officers attended and removed the intruder from the barracks. No further action was required.”
According to The Sun, which quoted TalkTV sources, “The man was known to local police as having mental health issues.”
An anonymous source told the newspaper: “The guy turned up at the gate, said his name was Father Cruise and claimed to be a friend of the battalion’s Padre, the Rev. Matt Coles. He was invited in and offered something to eat.”
The source added: “It was only later when he started talking about how he had worked as an ejector-seat test pilot and had some organs replaced that the chaps started to get suspicious.”
The incident was not the first security breach in Windsor; a man was apprehended last year on the grounds of the castle with a crossbow, police said.
ABC News Royal Contributor Robert Jobson explained that it’s harder to protect the Queen at Windsor Castle than it is at Buckingham Palace.
“Buckingham palace is like the White House; it has a strong parameter with very stringent security protocols and Scotland Yard officers within the compound,” Jobson said. “But Windsor Castle is more difficult to protect — it’s open to the public and it’s a vast area with many different entrances.”
Jobson added, “But it’s important to note that in this instance the castle grounds weren’t penetrated. That said if this had been a serious terrorist intent on causing mayhem the consequences could have been catastrophic.”
An increase in security ahead of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June is therefore likely as a result of this incident, according to Jobson.
The UK will celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years on the throne with a holiday weekend in June. There will be a special Trooping of the Colour, a thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s cathedral and a concert at the palace. The finale to the four days of celebration will be a pageant through the streets of London.
(NEW YORK) — In the sun-baked 66 miles between Tucson and Nogales at the Arizona-Mexico border, there’s only one place that’s able to provide the intensive, hands-on care so many patients need after they leave the hospital: Santa Rita Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
But since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, providing that kind of care has been an uphill battle, Amy Malkin, the facility’s operations chief, told ABC News. Since March 2020, Santa Rita has faced a staffing exodus as scores of employees have gotten sick, burned out, or left to care for their kids or other family members.
Now, as inflation has put the squeeze on staffers’ commuting costs, that exodus has only intensified, Malkin told ABC News.
To fill the vacancies, the facility has had to rely on staffing agencies that charge several times more per worker than what they’d been previously paying — all while insurers’ reimbursement rates have remained all but fixed.
Accordingly, Santa Rita is “losing money every month,” Malkin told ABC News — forcing the facility into a vicious cycle of cost-cutting that prevents it from hiring the staff it sorely needs.
“We don’t make profits anymore,” Malkin told ABC News. “It’s just not sustainable.”
The result: For months, Santa Rita has been forced to turn patients away — leaving them to travel miles away to find the care they need.
Santa Rita is among hundreds of long-term care facilities nationwide — from large chains to mom-and-pop operations — that are fighting for their survival. Many are being forced to close their doors, while others are having to turn patients away in order to survive.
According to the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL), which represents more than 14,000 long-term care facilities, more than 75% of operators had to limit admissions in 2021. And more than 300 nursing homes have closed since the pandemic began.
Officials say hundreds more facilities are expected to close this year — and if the federal government’s COVID-19 emergency funding expires in July, advocates say, the situation will only get worse.
AHCA/NCAL calls the current staffing shortages “historic.” The long-term care industry overall was already expected to face shortages of millions of workers before the pandemic, according to PHI National, a nonprofit research organization. And according to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), over 400,000 workers — nearly 10% of the workforce — left the long-term care industry between March 2020 and January 2022.
“It won’t be long until the system is overrun,” April Verrett, president of SEIU 2015, which represents over 400,000 workers in California, told ABC News. “We’re running out of time.”
The human face of shortages
For Fernanda Carley, the staffing shortages aren’t just an abstract number.
Carley, who is Nogales-born and raised, is a certified nursing assistant at Arroyo Gardens, the sister facility to Santa Rita. She long aspired to be a caregiver; at 16, Carley was already taking classes on medical terminology.
But the pandemic tested that calling — and recent months have only pushed Carley further toward the brink. As spring turns to summer, her electricity bill is way up, and gas is costing her upwards of $150 per week. To pay her bills, she’s had to pick up side hustles washing cars.
All the while, she has watched countless colleagues leave for less strenuous, safer and higher-paying jobs at retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Target.
“I’ve been doing a lot of life contemplating,” she told ABC News.
In the coming months, she plans to leave her job and return to nursing school.
If and when that happens, “my hope is other great caregivers get hired,” Carley said.
But, she said, “at this point, I don’t see the end of the pandemic or the inflation — and I don’t think either helps the situation. I don’t know when people would be willing to work in this industry anymore.”
The high cost of shortages
Like Santa Rita, many long-term care providers are combatting the workforce shortage by relying on staffing agencies to fill their vacancies.
“Provider organizations are left with few options to ensure they have the staff needed,” said Colleen Knudsen, a spokesperson for LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit aging services providers.
But that approach comes with its own consequences. Labor is the main line-item for long-term facilities, accounting for about 70% of expenses, Christina Crawford, spokesperson for AHCA/NCAL, said in a statement. And agencies are charging two to three times more than pre-pandemic staff rates, according to AHCA/NCAL.
For many facilities, those costs are wholly unaffordable.
Aria Healthcare, which operates three facilities in Wisconsin, simply will not hire agency providers. According to their calculations, in order to fully staff a unit with agency providers, they’d need to keep more beds completely full with patients all day, every day, than is possible based on the number of admissions they get.
“The math just doesn’t work out,” Aneillo Lindsay, Aria’s chief innovation officer, told ABC News.
Similar patterns are playing out across the country.
In Florida, long-term care facilities’ use of employment agencies is up by nearly 300%, according to the Florida Health Care Association. Facilities have seen an increase of $275 million annually in staffing costs resulting from paying overtime, contract labor, and other costs associated with hiring additional in-house staff, Kristen Knapp, spokesperson for FHCA, told ABC News.
And yet, the median pay for certified nursing assistants in 2020 was $14.82 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Robert Oronia, a certified nursing assistant in Los Angeles, says that’s not enough. And while Oronia says some of his colleagues have seen raises after shifting to agency work, those raises often come at the cost of benefits.
Marginally higher wages, in the absence of benefits, are still “un-liveable,” Oronia told ABC News.
“It’s just one vicious, vicious cycle that’s going on now,” he said. “People are just getting tired of it — they don’t want to do this work.”
Forced closures
All this financial strain has taken a toll on facilities across the country. Some, like Aria in Wisconsin, have stayed open at a reduced capacity. During the pandemic, Aria was forced to leave over 100 beds across its facilities empty, Lindsay told ABC News.
Others have been forced to close entirely.
According to a recent AHA/NCAL report, the more than 300 nursing homes that have closed during the pandemic have displaced nearly 13,000 patients.
An additional 400 facilities are projected to close in 2022.
“Ultimately, these staffing and economic challenges are resulting in limited access to care for our nation’s seniors,” Crawford, with AHCA/NCAL, told ABC News.
The situation will likely get worse when Medicare reimbursement rates drop upon expiration of the public health emergency declaration by the Department of Health and Human Services. The emergency declaration is scheduled for expiration on July 15.
The resulting 5% funding loss would put another one-third of long-term care facilities at risk of closing, according to a recent audit by CliftonLarsonAllen, a financial advisory firm. That could leave up to 417,000 patients and families scrambling to find the care they need.
“The financial pressures are just too much,” Malkin, in Arizona, said. “Places are going to close … places are definitely going to close.”
But so far, Santa Rita and Arroyo Gardens are braving the storm, Malkin told ABC News.
