(BOSTON) — Boston public health officials are urging residents to take extra precautions as COVID-19 cases tick up ahead of the upcoming holiday weekend.
In a blog post Wednesday, the Boston Public Health Commission said the city’s test positivity rate currently sits at 6.2%, which is above the agency’s “threshold of concern” of 5%.
It’s also nearly three times higher than the 2.2% test positivity rate recorded one month ago.
Additionally, data shows young adults between ages 20 and 30 are driving the increase and have the highest case rate in Boston.
Ahead of several holidays — including Passover, Easter and Ramadan — and the 126th running of the Boston Marathon Monday, the BPHC recommended wearing a well-fitting mask, getting tested before attending indoors gatherings, and getting vaccinated or boosted.
“Celebrating with family and friends is an important and treasured time and, as cases increase, we must remain vigilant so we can be together safely,” Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, Commissioner of Public Health and Executive Director of the BPHC, said in a statement. “We have the tools … to stay safe and lower the risk of COVID-19 infection and severe illness.”
Experts said the increase in Boston is mostly due to the spread of BA.2, a highly infectious subvariant of the original BA.1 omicron variant.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, BA.2 makes up more than 90% of cases that have undergone genome sequencing in New England.
“It’s nothing compared to what we saw in terms of the huge and dramatic spike when BA.1 was in the process of replacing the delta variant,” Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, told ABC News. “It’s an uptick, it’s not what we want, but it’s much less significant than BA.1.”
Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said health officials had been preparing for an increase in the city after seeing cases rise in Western Europe due to BA.2 a few weeks ago.
“Whatever happens in Western Europe [with COVID-19] has been a harbinger of what’s going to come in the United States,” he told ABC News. “You can almost set your calendar by it.”
However, there may be some positive signs that this increase in cases will not lead to another wave.
At Tufts Medical Center, Doron said there are more people seeking COVID-19 treatment at outpatient facilities compared to a few weeks ago, but there has not been an increase in hospitalizations.
She added that there has also been a small increase of employees testing positive every day, but it’s not causing staffing shortages.
“It’s not straining our ability to properly staff, it’s not straining our ability to get people in for monoclonal antibodies if they need it,” Doron said.
Experts suggested one reason why COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations may not be surging as they did during the winter is because so many people were infected during the omicron wave that they may have boosted their immunity.
“So many people came down with COVID during the last wave … that they either knew someone who had it, or they had it themselves” Sax said.
Both doctors recommended similar precautions to the BPHC over the holiday weekend including getting tested before gathering with family and friends and taking measures, such as masking indoors, especially if someone is immunocompromised.
Sax also recommended anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing symptoms contact their doctor to see if they’re eligible for Paxlovid, Pfizer’s antiviral pill.
“Unlike our previous waves, we are lucky enough to have an antiviral treatment,” Sax said. “The key is to take it quickly so, as soon as they get diagnosed, they should see if they are eligible because it could really help prevent the most dreaded complications of COVID-19.”
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian troops invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Russian forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.
In recent days, Russian forces have retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv, the United States and European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 14, 1:00 pm
Biden confirms White House planning to send senior official to Ukraine
President Joe Biden confirmed Thursday that the White House is planning to send a senior official to visit Ukraine.
Before boarding Air Force One to fly to North Carolina, Biden was pressed for details by reporters but declined to elaborate.
“Well, we’re making that decision now. Thank you,” Biden said.
When a reporter asked who the White House will send to Ukraine, Biden quipped, “Ready to go?”
“Are you?” the reporter asked.
Biden responded, “Yeah,” before boarding Air Force One.
Several world leaders have visited Ukraine in recent days and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Latvian President Egils Levits and Estonian President Alar Karis.
-ABC News’ Armando Garcia
Apr 14, 12:13 pm
White House national security adviser hints at more sanctions against Russia
White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan hinted Thursday of more sanctions coming against Russia in the “next week or two” aimed at targeting ways Moscow is evading sanctions already imposed.
“Where our focus will be over the course of the coming days is on evasion,” Sullivan said Thursday at the Economic Club of Washington. “As Russia tries to adjust to the fact that it’s under this massive economic pressure, what steps do they take to try to evade our sanctions and how do we crack down on that? And I think we’ll have some announcements in the next week or two that identify targets that are trying to facilitate that evasion both inside Russia and beyond.”
When Sullivan was asked whether sanctions will automatically be lifted if a negotiated peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is worked out, he appeared cautious with his words, saying, “a lot of that depends on what the shape and scope” of the agreement is.
“A lot of it depends on what the Ukrainians, in consultation with us and the Europeans come to agree to,” Sullivan said. “You know, we’re not going to do a deal over the head of the Ukrainians where we give a bunch of sanctions relief to Russia. But if some measure of sanctions relief were built in to some credible diplomatic solution led by the Ukrainians, that’s something that we would happily discuss.”
But Sullivan said Russian oligarchs shouldn’t expect to ever get back their yachts and other assets seized under sanctions that have been imposed, saying the ultimate goal is “not to give them back” once the war is over.
“The president is actively looking at how we can deal with the fact that as we seize these assets, our goal is not to give them back. Our goal is to put them to a better use than that,” Sullivan said. “But I’ll be careful in what I say today because there’s an ongoing kind of policy process around how we end up dealing with that question. But, rest assured, that the goal is not just to sit on them for a while.”
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Apr 14, 11:14 am
Putin claims Europe has no alternative for Russian energy resources
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that attempts by Western countries to exclude Russian energy suppliers will affect the global economy and that European Union countries have no alternative resources.
“Consequences of such a step can become quite painful, first of all, for initiators of such a policy,” Putin said during a meeting with top officials on the situation in the Russian oil and gas sector.
Putin claimed that Russian natural gas can’t be replaced by alternative resources.
“What is surprising here: so-called partners from unfriendly countries assume that they can avoid Russian energy resources, including natural gas. Its reasonable replacement for Europe doesn’t exist. It is possible, but it doesn’t exist so far,” Putin said. “Everyone understands there is no free volume (of energy resources) on the world market.”
Putin said Moscow will redirect its energy eastward, as European countries try to reduce reliance on Russian exports.
“EU countries talk of cutting off energy supplies from Russia, driving up prices and destabilizing the market,” Putin said.
Putin said that Russia should embark on building infrastructure for eastward oil and gas exports as the country needs to diversify its energy supplies away from Europe.
Apr 14, 10:13 am
Ukraine says 30 citizens returned in 4th prisoner swap with Russia
Thirty prisoners of war will be returned to Ukraine on Thursday as part of the latest exchange of captives with Russia, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
Vereshchuk said in a statement via social media Thursday that, following an order from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, five officers and 17 servicemen were exchanged, along with the release of eight civilians, including one woman.
“In total, 30 of our citizens are going home today,” Vereshchuk said.
Thursday’s prisoner swap marked the fourth to take place between the two countries since Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Apr 14, 10:01 am
9 humanitarian corridors to reopen in eastern Ukraine on Thursday
Nine humanitarian corridors are expected to reopen in eastern Ukraine on Thursday to allow civilians escape heavy fighting, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
She said in a statement via social media Thursday that evacuation routes were agreed upon for those traveling by private cars from besieged Mariupol in the Donetsk Oblast, as well as from Berdyansk, Tokmak and Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast — all of which lead to the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
In the Luhansk Oblast, Vereshchuk said routes were established from the cities of Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Popasna, Hirske and Rubizhne, leading to the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk Oblast.
Humanitarian corridors were not reopened the previous day because Russian forces had blocked evacuation buses in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast and violated the cease-fire in the Luhansk Oblast, according to Vereshchuk.
“All this creates such a level of danger on routes that we are forced to refrain from opening humanitarian corridors today,” she said in a statement via social media Wednesday.
Apr 14, 9:01 am
Two eastern Ukrainian towns may face ‘indiscriminate attacks,’ UK warns
Russian forces are likely to attack the towns of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine, the U.K. Ministry of Defense warned in an intelligence update Thursday.
The towns are both located in the Donetsk Oblast of the disputed Donbas region, where Russian troops are “striking Ukrainian forces in preparation for a renewed offensive,” according to the ministry.
“Urban centres have faced repeated indiscriminate attacks from Russia throughout the conflict,” the ministry said. “The towns of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka are likely to be Russian targets for similar levels of violence.”
The railway station in Kramatorsk was the site of rocket attack that killed dozens of civilians trying to evacuate the region on April 8.
“The combination of widespread missile and artillery strikes and efforts to concentrate forces for an offensive represents a reversion to traditional Russian military doctrine,” the ministry added. “However, this will require significant force levels. Ukraine’s continued defence of Mariupol is currently tying down significant numbers of Russian troops and equipment.”
Mariupol, a strategic port city in the Donetsk Oblast, has been under heavy Russian bombardment since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24. Strong resistance from Ukrainian troops have prevented Russian forces from taking full control of Mariupol.
Apr 14, 4:51 am
197 children killed in invasion, Ukraine says
At least 197 children have been killed in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said on Thursday.
Another 351 children have been injured during the invasion, the office said. The actual number of casualties was assumed to be higher, because Ukraine’s official figures didn’t include “full consideration of places with active hostilities,” the office said.
Two children died after being hospitalized for injuries from a rocket attack on a train station in eastern Ukraine last Friday, according to Thursday’s update. Seven children have now died following that Russian attack, the update said.
Apr 13, 9:43 pm
Ukraine claims to have struck Russia’s Black Sea fleet flagship
Several Ukrainian government sources reported Wednesday that armed forces have struck Russia’s Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva.
The governor of Odesa Maksym Marchenko claimed on Telegram that two anti-ship cruise missiles struck the cruiser in the Black Sea, causing “very serious damage.”
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych and Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, reported there was an explosion and that the cruiser is on fire.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said a fire onboard the Moskva caused a subsequent broadside munitions explosion.
“The ship received serious damage, the crew was evacuated,” the ministry said, adding that an investigation is underway.
There was no mention of a missile strike in the ministry’s statement, which was carried by Russia’s state-run news agency TASS.
(NEW YORK) — Ukrainian government officials claimed Wednesday that its armed forces fired missiles that struck Russia’s Black Sea Fleet flagship vessel, Moskva, causing damage.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych and Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, said there was an explosion and that the cruiser is on fire.
The governor of Odessa Maksym Marchenko claimed on Telegram that two anti-ship cruise missiles struck the cruiser in the Black Sea, causing “very serious damage.”
Russia said the ship was seriously damaged, but did not confirm that was due to Ukrainian strikes. Russia claimed there was a fire abroad the ship that forced all 510 members of the crew to evacuate.
“As a result of a fire, ammunition has detonated on the Moskva missile cruiser. The ship was seriously damaged. The crew was completely evacuated,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
“The cause of the fire is under investigation,” the statement said.
Russia later said the fire aboard the ship was contained and that the Moskva will be towed to a port. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the main missile weapons on board were not damaged, but made no mention of missile strikes in its statement.
A senior U.S. defense official told reporters the U.S. assesses that the crew of the Moskva is still battling a fire aboard the ship.
About a half-dozen other ships that had been close to the Moskva have now moved further away from the coast into the Black Sea, the official also said.
In an interview on MSNBC Thursday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said there wasn’t enough information to determine if the explosion was in fact caused by a Ukrainian missile strike, though it can’t be ruled out.
Despite the Russian Defense Ministry claiming the ship was being towed, Kirby said it was under its own power and looked to be headed east toward Sevastopol in Crimea.
“She was operating about 60 miles or so south of Odessa and we know she suffered an explosion,” Kirby said on MSNBC. “It looks like from the images that we’ve been able to look at it looks like there’s a pretty sizable explosion too.”
On CNN, Kirby said the U.S. is unaware what caused at least one explosion abroad the ship, describing the explosion as “a fairly major one at that, that has caused extensive damage to the ship.”
-ABC News’ Fidel Pavlenko, Luis Martinez, Oleksiy Pshemyskyi and Yulia Drozd contributed to this report
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian troops invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Russian forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.
In recent days, Russian forces have retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv, the United States and European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 14, 10:13 am
Ukraine says 30 citizens returned in 4th prisoner swap with Russia
Thirty prisoners of war will be returned to Ukraine on Thursday as part of the latest exchange of captives with Russia, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
Vereshchuk said in a statement via social media Thursday that, following an order from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, five officers and 17 servicemen were exchanged, along with the release of eight civilians, including one woman.
“In total, 30 of our citizens are going home today,” Vereshchuk said.
Thursday’s prisoner swap marked the fourth to take place between the two countries since Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Apr 14, 10:01 am
9 humanitarian corridors to reopen in eastern Ukraine on Thursday
Nine humanitarian corridors are expected to reopen in eastern Ukraine on Thursday to allow civilians escape heavy fighting, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
She said in a statement via social media Thursday that evacuation routes were agreed upon for those traveling by private cars from besieged Mariupol in the Donetsk Oblast, as well as from Berdyansk, Tokmak and Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast — all of which lead to the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
In the Luhansk Oblast, Vereshchuk said routes were established from the cities of Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Popasna, Hirske and Rubizhne, leading to the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk Oblast.
Humanitarian corridors were not reopened the previous day because Russian forces had blocked evacuation buses in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast and violated the cease-fire in the Luhansk Oblast, according to Vereshchuk.
“All this creates such a level of danger on routes that we are forced to refrain from opening humanitarian corridors today,” she said in a statement via social media Wednesday.
Apr 14, 9:01 am
Two eastern Ukrainian towns may face ‘indiscriminate attacks,’ UK warns
Russian forces are likely to attack the towns of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine, the U.K. Ministry of Defense warned in an intelligence update Thursday.
The towns are both located in the Donetsk Oblast of the disputed Donbas region, where Russian troops are “striking Ukrainian forces in preparation for a renewed offensive,” according to the ministry.
“Urban centres have faced repeated indiscriminate attacks from Russia throughout the conflict,” the ministry said. “The towns of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka are likely to be Russian targets for similar levels of violence.”
The railway station in Kramatorsk was the site of rocket attack that killed dozens of civilians trying to evacuate the region on April 8.
“The combination of widespread missile and artillery strikes and efforts to concentrate forces for an offensive represents a reversion to traditional Russian military doctrine,” the ministry added. “However, this will require significant force levels. Ukraine’s continued defence of Mariupol is currently tying down significant numbers of Russian troops and equipment.”
Mariupol, a strategic port city in the Donetsk Oblast, has been under heavy Russian bombardment since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24. Strong resistance from Ukrainian troops have prevented Russian forces from taking full control of Mariupol.
Apr 14, 4:51 am
197 children killed in invasion, Ukraine says
At least 197 children have been killed in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said on Thursday.
Another 351 children have been injured during the invasion, the office said. The actual number of casualties was assumed to be higher, because Ukraine’s official figures didn’t include “full consideration of places with active hostilities,” the office said.
Two children died after being hospitalized for injuries from a rocket attack on a train station in eastern Ukraine last Friday, according to Thursday’s update. Seven children have now died following that Russian attack, the update said.
Apr 13, 9:43 pm
Ukraine claims to have struck Russia’s Black Sea fleet flagship
Several Ukrainian government sources reported Wednesday that armed forces have struck Russia’s Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva.
The governor of Odesa Maksym Marchenko claimed on Telegram that two anti-ship cruise missiles struck the cruiser in the Black Sea, causing “very serious damage.”
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych and Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, reported there was an explosion and that the cruiser is on fire.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said a fire onboard the Moskva caused a subsequent broadside munitions explosion.
“The ship received serious damage, the crew was evacuated,” the ministry said, adding that an investigation is underway.
There was no mention of a missile strike in the ministry’s statement, which was carried by Russia’s state-run news agency TASS.
(WASHINGTON) — House committee investigators found that consultants from consulting firm McKinsey & Company advised opioid manufacturers while the company was on federal contract with the Food and Drug Administration’s drug approval unit, an arrangement that lawmakers say may have breached federal conflict of interest rules, according to an interim report published Wednesday.
According to the report published by the House Oversight Committee, McKinsey consultants allegedly leveraged their work with the FDA to attract business from companies like Purdue Pharma, one of the leaders in developing opioid drugs. And according to the interim report, McKinsey consultants appear to have tried to influence government officials to benefit their opioid clients, raising questions about the company’s firewall between government contracts and private sector work.
At the same time the FDA was relying on McKinsey’s advice to ensure drug safety and protect American lives, the firm was also being paid by the very companies fueling the deadly opioid epidemic by allegedly helping to defend opioid manufacturers against tougher regulation of these dangerous drugs, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the committee’s chair, wrote in a statement.
Maloney called McKinsey’s conduct particularly “egregious considering its central role in driving a public health crisis that has killed half a million Americans.”
McKinsey, in response to the new release, wrote in a statement that it “will review the report” and “continue to cooperate with the Committee to address further questions,” but defended its work for the FDA and for its opioid clients, saying it is committed to guarding against conflicts of interest.
In the statement, McKinsey wrote that it reviews its potential conflicts and “will not do the work” if those potential conflicts “cannot be appropriately addressed.” It said its work for the FDA were administrative and operational, “including improvements to organizational structures, business processes and technology,” not related to regulatory decisions or specific pharmaceutical products.
But the firm, in the statement, also admitted that its past private sector opioid work — which it stopped in 2019 — while lawful, “fell short of the high standards we set for ourselves” and that it settled with all 50 state attorneys general to “provide fast, meaningful support to communities across the United States that have been affected by the opioid crisis.”
The new House committee report, in particular, sheds light on questions about the firm’s conflicts of interest policies, including details about at least 22 McKinsey consultants who allegedly worked for both the FDA and opioid manufacturers on related topics, sometimes at the same time.
For example in 2011, at least four McKinsey consultants that were working on a $1.8 million FDA contract to address “the adverse impact of drugs on health in the US” were working for Purdue at the same time, “including on projects designed to persuade FDA of the safety of Purdue’s opioid products,” the committee found, according to the report.
In 2017, a McKinsey partner allegedly worked on a $2.7 million contract to help modernize the FDA’s Office of New Drugs while at the same time advising Purdue on maximizing the market potential of a new opioid, according to the report.
The report also alleged that McKinsey consultants with Purdue ties attempted to influence public health officials in the Trump Administration on the topic of the opioid epidemic.
The committee wrote that some of McKinsey consultants “formed part of what one consultant called McKinsey’s mini ‘army’ here at Purdue,” suggesting McKinsey’s cozy relationship with Purdue during the time period when “numerous McKinsey consultants worked for both FDA and Purdue, both officially and unofficially.” But the report didn’t say whether the particular McKinsey consultant that used the phrase “mini army” was also working on FDA projects.
The committee report also looked at McKinsey’s alleged lack of its potential conflicts of interest disclosures to the FDA, saying the lack of disclosure potentially violated contract requirements and federal law.
McKinsey spokesperson Neil Grace has previously told ABC News Mckinsey had made necessary conflict of interest disclosures, saying that the company’s consulting work for pharmaceutical firms “did not create a conflict of interest” regarding its work with the FDA, because it “has not advised the FDA on regulatory policy or on specific pharmaceutical products,” and “given the absence of a conflict of interest, there was no requirement for any McKinsey disclosure.”
In recent weeks, lawmakers have increasingly trained their sights on McKinsey and other contractors for allegedly accepting government contracts while pursuing outside business opportunities that may present a conflict of interest.
Earlier this month, Senate Democrats called on the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general to investigate McKinsey over alleged conflict of interest violations tied to its work with major pharmaceutical companies.
Lawmakers have also introduced legislation meant to strengthen conflict of interest safeguards for contractors like McKinsey.
(CLENDENIN, W. Va.) — A historic flood from sudden torrential rain nearly wiped out entire towns in West Virginia’s mountainous coal country, killing 23 and inflicting $1 billion in damage. Six years later, many survivors remain unmoved by the growing threat of climate change and urgent calls to curb greenhouse gasses from burning coal.
“It’s weather all over, you know what I mean. I’m not a scientist, but I just don’t believe it,” said Mayor Kay Summers of Clendenin, a Republican elected two years ago to champion the rebuilding. “Every time it rains and storms, I’m lying awake at night. I know it can happen, but I just don’t think it will happen again.”
Communities in the heart of Appalachia are some of the most vulnerable in the country to the impacts of a warming global climate, according to government scientists, and among the most resistant to government-led efforts to blunt the impacts.
They are also the front line in a landmark environmental case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which will decide this spring how much authority the Environmental Protection Agency has to regulate earth-warming emissions from coal-fired power plants.
“I have never seen flooding like I’ve seen here in the past, really in the past 20 years,” said longtime environmental activist Maria Gunnoe, whose family has lived and mined in West Virginia for generations. “We can’t continue to risk everything for energy, you know, I mean – coal keeps the lights on, they say, but at what cost?”
The region’s recovery from the 2016 flood — and continued reliance on the fossil fuel economy — illustrate the dueling human and economic stakes in West Virginia’s lawsuit against the EPA.
Eighteen states led by West Virginia and a coalition of U.S. energy companies want strict limits on EPA authority to issue rules that could transform entire industries. The Biden administration argues that Congress gave EPA significant leeway under the Clean Air Act to write regulations to stave off climate catastrophe.
“It has incredible potential to affect how EPA and other agencies write regulations for years to come,” Kevin Minoli, a former EPA acting general counsel and career civil servant, said of the case.
The outcome could dramatically shape the future of coal-dependent communities like Clendenin and the coal-fired power plants that employ thousands of workers but also generate millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year.
Experts say strict limits to EPA authority could also make it impossible to cut U.S. carbon emissions in half by 2030 and entirely phase out fossil fuels like coal by 2050 — top White House objectives.
“While the EPA does have a narrow array of authority to act in the area of carbon emissions, it’s nowhere near what the Biden administration is suggesting,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, who warns thousands of jobs, industry profits, state tax revenue and a reliable source of electricity are on the line.
While the extreme flood that submerged Clendenin was exceptional, government and academic climatologists warn that the threat of extreme rain events is growing across West Virginia, which already ranks third in the country in flooding disasters over the last 70 years.
Over the same period, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates more frequent and more powerful storms in the region have dumped 55% more rain.
Coal, one of West Virginia’s most lucrative exports, is used to generate a disproportionately high amount of the state’s electricity, around 90%, according to the Energy Information Administration. (Nationwide less than a quarter of electricity is produced from coal.)
The EPA argues in legal documents that Congress gave it sweeping discretion under the Clean Air Act to determine the best system of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to protect human health, and officials said this month that they are poised to release strict new limits on power plant pollution as soon as the Supreme Court rules.
“Our people want to have clean air. They want to have clean water. Absolutely. But you have to go through the process the right way,” Morrisey said. “To allow un-elected bureaucrats just to decide under the guise of good government – that’s not right. This is Congress’s decision to make, not the EPA.”
The state’s largest coal-fired power facility — the John Amos plant in Winfield, West Virginia — sits 40 miles west of Clendenin along the Kanawha River. It’s one of 174 coal-fired plants nationwide that could be impacted by the Supreme Court’s decision.
“They want to make rules but they don’t understand because they don’t walk in those shoes,” Mayor Summers said of EPA regulators.
American Electric Power, one of the nation’s largest utilities which owns the John Amos facility, granted ABC News Live rare access to see firsthand how its workforce of up to 1,000 full-time and contract workers generate enough power for two million homes and businesses across three states.
The plant burns up to 27,000 tons of coal a day during peak season, drawing on daily shipments of regional coal delivered by barge and by rail. Its three power units released 10.8 million tons of earth-warming carbon dioxide last year — or the equivalent of more than two million cars driven for a year — government records show.
In the mid-2000s, EPA regulations forced many U.S. power plants to invest in upgrading smokestacks with scrubbers that remove nearly all sulfur dioxide — a pollutant that can harm human health and contribute to acid rain.
Since then, the agency has attempted to enact new limits on power plant carbon dioxide emissions, a primary driver of global warming. Litigation has complicated that plan, but EPA expects to unveil a new approach this summer.
Energy companies nationwide, including American Electric Power, have slowly been transitioning to cheaper alternatives to coal. Twenty-eight percent of active coal-fired power plants are set to be retired by 2035.
“I grew up in coal country. I come from a community where we’re seeing massive job losses, massive job losses,” said Keena Mullins, co-founder and solar developer for Revolt Energy. “Coal and solar have to coexist here.”
Mullins runs West Virginia’s largest commercial solar installation in the shadow of the John Amos power plant. She says the legal fight over coal draws attention from a need to diversify the state’s energy portfolio.
“If we were to max out every available roof space in this state and all the usable land, we may be able to reach 30 percent of powering the grid — maybe,” she said.
West Virginia’s public utilities commission last year gave the John Amos plant and two other aging coal-fired facilities a new lease on life, approving more than $448 million in environmental upgrades to keep them burning coal until 2040. Part of the costs will be passed on to ratepayers.
“I think we need coal until we have enough, you know, until they figure out an alternate source,” said Ricky Brookover, a union boilermaker who works overnight installing upgrades at the Amos facility. “We put so much clean energy, clean stuff on [the plant]. Like, when you see the white smoke coming out of the stacks, it’s clean.”
Brookover, a 41-year-old father whose family has deep ties to the coal industry, says he doesn’t oppose the EPA but questions a drive to address a climate crisis he doesn’t see.
“I really feel that when I was a kid it was worse than it is now. You know what I mean? We had more snow when I was a kid. It seemed like there was more flooding,” he said.
As both sides brace for a decision by the Supreme Court, environmental advocates say they fear for the worst.
“The impact here is going to be increased mining, increased pollution,” said Gunnoe. “The coal industry has always kept our people in the dark, and I don’t look for it to change.”
(NEW YORK) — Frank Robert James, 62, was arrested in Manhattan’s East Village on Wednesday afternoon, authorities said, more than 24 hours into an intense manhunt that began after 10 people were shot on a crowded subway car in Brooklyn, New York.
He was charged in a criminal complaint with committing a terrorist act on a mass transportation vehicle and was subsequently transferred to federal custody in Brooklyn. Breon Peace, United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, whose office brought the charges, said James faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
James, who was born in New York City but has lived in Philadelphia and Milwaukee in recent years, will appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Roanne Mann in Brooklyn federal court on Thursday, according to Peace. The exact timing was unknown.
The shooting unfolded on a Manhattan-bound N subway car during the Tuesday morning commute, just before 8:30 a.m. ET, as the train approached the 36th Street subway station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood.
A man mumbling to himself on the subway car donned a gas mask and detonated a smoke canister before pulling out a handgun and firing a barrage of 33 bullets, a police official told ABC News. Ten people were shot, with the youngest being a 12-year-old, according to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The gun jammed during the incident, which is believed to have saved lives, a law enforcement official told ABC News.
Smoke poured out of the subway car as the doors opened and screaming riders ran out onto the platform of the station. Bloodied people were seen lying on the floor of the train and the platform.
A total of 29 people were injured, according to hospital officials. As of Wednesday morning, four of the wounded remained hospitalized, New York City Mayor Eric Adams told ABC News.
Evidence recovered from the scene pointed investigators to James. According to the criminal complaint, police recovered two bags containing, among other items, a Glock 17 pistol, a key to a U-Haul rental vehicle and multiple bank cards. They also discovered a jacket with reflective tape near the two bags. Inside the jacket was a receipt for a storage unit in Philadelphia, which records provided by the facility showed was registered to James, the complaint said.
Records provided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revealed that the Gock handgun recovered from the scene of the attack was lawfully purchased by James in Ohio, according to the complaint. One of the bank cards was a debit card bearing the name “Frank James,” the complaint said. Records provided by U-Haul showed that James rented a white Chevrolet van from the company in Philadelphia on Monday, according to the complaint.
The U-Haul vehicle crossed states lines from Pennsylvania to New Jersey and then to New York, the complaint said. Surveillance cameras recorded the van driving over the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge before dawn on Tuesday and entering Brooklyn, according to the complaint.
At approximately 6:12 a.m. ET, another surveillance camera recorded an individual wearing a yellow hard hat, orange working jacket with reflective tape, carrying a backpack in his right hand and dragging a rolling bag in his left hand, leaving the U-Haul van on foot near West 7th Street and Kings Highway in Brooklyn’s Gravesend neighborhood.
Police later located the vehicle parked on Kings Highway, about two blocks from a subway stop for the N-train, where investigators believe James entered the mass transit system.
Senior law enforcement officials told ABC News they also uncovered a number of social media posts and videos tied to James. They’re determining if they’re relevant to the shooting, they said.
The investigation has been complicated by the fact that none of the surveillance cameras inside the 36th Street subway station were working at the time of the attack, a police official told ABC News. The cameras, which are aimed at the turnstiles, didn’t transmit in real-time due to a glitch computer malfunction, a source said. The same glitch impacted cameras at the stops before and after 36th Street. Investigators said they are looking into how this malfunction happened.
James managed to evade law enforcement for more than a day. The New York City Police Department initially deemed James a person of interest in the investigation on Tuesday night before naming him a suspect on Wednesday morning. Wanted for the attempted murder of 10 people, he became the subject of an expansive search by local and federal agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service.
James was ultimately apprehended after police received a tip that he was in a McDonald’s near Sixth Street and First Avenue. When responding officers didn’t see James at the fast-food restaurant, they drove around the area and spotted him near St. Marks Place and First Avenue, where he was taken into custody without incident at around 1:45 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to police.
Sources told ABC News that James may have called police on himself.
Peter Brackney / www.kaintuckeean.com/Getty Images
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — The Kentucky state legislature has overridden Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of a bill banning abortion after 15 weeks, along with several other abortion restrictions.
Under the bill, any physician that performs an abortion after 15 weeks would lose their license for at least six months.
The bill allows for exceptions if there is a medical emergency in which continuing the pregnancy would result in “serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” or “death of the pregnant woman.” There are no exceptions for rape or incest.
Last week, Beshear, a Democrat, vetoed the Republican-backed measure after he raised concerns about whether the bill is constitutional and criticized the lack of exceptions for rape or incest.
But on Wednesday, the state House received well over the 51 votes needed to override the veto, and the state Senate far surpassed the 20 votes needed as well. It went into law immediately due to its emergency clause.
Also in the bill, which is known as HB3, is a restriction that drugs used for a medication abortion — a nonsurgical procedure typically used up to 10 weeks in pregnancy — must be provided by a physician who is licensed to practice medicine and in good standing with Kentucky.
The physician must also have hospital admitting privileges in “geographical proximity” to where the abortions are being performed.
An in-person examination needs to be had at least 24 hours prior to the medication abortion, during which women are informed about any risks. The drugs cannot be sent through the mail.
Abortion advocates say this will prevent many women, particularly those who are low-income, from accessing abortion if they must go to a clinic to receive it.
Additionally, minors who seek abortions will need the consent of a judge if the parents are not available, and any fetal remains will need to be buried or cremated by a licensed funeral provider.
Opponents argue the bill has so many restrictions that it makes it virtually impossible for any abortion clinic to comply and say its passage will mean Kentuckians effectively lose access to abortion care.
The bill also requires that the names of physicians who provide medication abortions be published and a state-run “complaint portal” to be set up so people can anonymously report abortion providers who are allegedly violating the program.
In a previous interview with ABC News, Meg Stern, director of the abortion support fund for Kentucky Health Justice Network, an advocacy group, said this could lead to complaints filed by people who have personal vendettas against abortion providers.
The ban is modeled after Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, which is being reviewed by the Supreme Court, with a decision expected in June on whether or not it is constitutional.
If the court determines the Mississippi bill is constitutional, this could mean Roe v. Wade is either overturned or fundamentally weakened.
(NEW YORK) — When Wanda Irving looks into the eyes of her 5-year-old granddaughter, Soleil, she said she instantly sees her daughter, Shalon Irving, whose death shortly after giving birth to Soleil has since shaped the trajectory of their lives.
“She’s got her mom’s eyes and her mom’s smile and her mom’s fearlessness and her mom’s persistence,” Wanda Irving told Good Morning America of her granddaughter, whom the family calls Sunny, after her middle name, Sunshine. “She has her mom’s memory, because her mom wouldn’t forget anything.”
After Shalon’s death in January 2017, three weeks after giving birth, Irving uprooted her life to move to the Atlanta area, where Shalon worked as an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Public Health Service.
Irving has cared for Soleil full-time ever since, working to make sure her granddaughter knows all she can about her mom, whose ultimate dream was motherhood.
“[Shalon’s] pictures stay up. Everything is around that her mom would have liked,” said Irving, who said Soleil loves to cook because she knows her mom did, too. “I try to tell her every single day what a great mom she had, and she can tell you stories about her mom because of what she’s heard. She asks me repeatedly to tell her mommy’s story again.”
In addition to keeping her daughter’s memory alive, Irving has devoted her life to ending the maternal mortality crisis among Black women in the United States so that other families don’t face grief like hers.
“I have to face my granddaughter every single day, and she’s still asking where’s her mother and why isn’t her mother here,” said Irving, the co-founder of a maternal mortality-focused nonprofit organization called Dr. Shalon’s Maternal Action Project.
“That doesn’t make sense to me, why she has to go through that kind of pain,” said Irving. “So we can’t let this continue to happen.”
According to the CDC, around 700 women die each year due to complications within the first year after giving birth in the U.S., which continues to have the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations.
As a Black woman, Shalon faced disproportionate odds when giving birth to her first child. Black women in the U.S. die of maternal causes at nearly three times the rate of white women, according to CDC data released in February.
A heartbreaking death and a newborn
As a doctor, Shalon was prepared for the birth of Soleil, according to her best friend, Bianca Pryor, who met Shalon in 2002 as a fellow graduate student at Purdue University and, by chance, became pregnant with her first child at the same time as Shalon.
“She knew her body in and out. She had a Ph.D., but one would have thought she had an M.D. She was brilliant,” Pryor said. “She had researched everything about pregnancy and delivery, and she was so prepared.”
Shalon gave birth successfully to Soleil via C-section on Jan. 3, 2017, with her mom by her side, and then was discharged from the hospital four days later after a routine stay, according to Irving.
After a few days at home, Irving said, Shalon began experiencing complications including a hematoma, blood that collects and pools under the skin, as well as rising blood pressure, swollen limbs and a C-section wound that was not healing well.
“I think she probably went to the doctor at least nine or 10 times in those two weeks,” Irving said. “I know that last week she went almost every single day, and every time she was sent back home.”
Pryor, who lives in New York and had just given birth to her own son in an emergency C-section at 23 weeks, said she remembers getting updates from Shalon about her complications.
“She pushed back on the medical care teams,” Pryor said. “She kept saying that something wasn’t right.”
And then on Jan. 24, Pryor said a missed phone call led to a text from Irving with the message, “B., Shalon stopped breathing.”
At home in Atlanta, Shalon, then 36, had suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed. She was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where she was put in the intensive care unit, according to Irving.
For several days, her family and friends stood vigil by her bedside, according to Pryor, who flew in from New York.
“We stood by her side. We prayed,” Pryor said. “The hardest was when we decided that we would bring Soleil in so that Shalon could hold her one last time. I’ll never get that image out of my head.”
“I remember when we put Soleil on top of her, one tear ran out of Shalon’s eye, and we just held space. We stayed in that moment,” she said.
On Jan. 28, two days after learning Shalon was brain dead, Irving said she had to make the decision to remove the respiratory machine that had been keeping her daughter alive.
“We took a look at her medical directive and one of the things that we saw was that in the directive, she had handwritten, ‘Mommy, I will try hard if anything happens, but if there’s no hope, let me go. Just let me go,'” Irving said. “I didn’t want to let go, but I wanted to honor her request.”
Picking up the pieces to create change
Immediately after Shalon’s death, Pryor said she spoke to Irving about the dreams she and her best friend had shared for their children, like how they wanted to raise their kids and the people they hoped they would become.
As the months and years went on, Pryor and Irving also spoke about the dreams Shalon had for her career and the legacy she would want to leave behind.
“We started dreaming together, Wanda and I, picking up where Shalon and I left off, and putting our pain into purpose,” Pryor said.
Together, in late 2019, Irving and Pryor founded Dr. Shalon’s Maternal Action Project to make giving birth in the U.S. an equitable right for all.
“Shalon was such a fierce equity warrior,” Irving said. “She had her motto, ‘I see an equity wherever it exists. I’m not afraid to call it by name, and I fight hard to eliminate it. I vow to create a better Earth,’ and that was Shalon in a nutshell.”
After Shalon’s death, Irving learned that her daughter’s cardiac arrest had been caused by complications from hypertension, or high blood pressure, a condition that, according to the CDC, contributes to a “significantly higher proportion of pregnancy-related deaths” among Black women than among white women.
Both Irving and Pryor said they felt that after Shalon gave birth, her health complications were not taken seriously enough by her medical team.
As a result, they created Believe Her, an app that provides maternal health resources for Black women and gives them a space to share their experiences.
“Our mission is to create that collective line of defense, so for all the Black mothers and birthing people out there to learn, what is the language, how do you push back when someone says, ‘Oh no, you’re fine,'” Pryor said. “We wanted to create this really uncut, raw conversation so birthing people can push back.”
Pryor continued, “That is our response back, believe her.”
Empowering Black women against institutional odds
Believe Her is one of several apps on the market now created by Black women for birthing Black women to help beat the odds that are stacked against them just because of their race.
Why exactly Black women die at a higher rate than any other race during childbirth is the result of a web of factors, experts say.
Pregnancy-related deaths are defined as the death of a woman during pregnancy or within a year of the end of pregnancy from pregnancy complications, a chain of events initiated by pregnancy or the aggravation of an unrelated condition by the physiological effects of pregnancy, according to the CDC.
One reason for the disparity is that more Black women of childbearing age have chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, which increases the risk of pregnancy-related complications like preeclampsia and possibly the need for emergency C-sections, according to the CDC.
But there are socioeconomic circumstances and structural inequities that put Black women at greater risk for those chronic conditions, data shows. And Black women often have inadequate access to care throughout pregnancy which can further complicate their conditions, according to a 2013 study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
On Wednesday, during Black Maternal Health Week, the Biden administration announced an additional $16 million in funding for programs to strengthen programs that aim to address disparities in maternal and child health, including a state-level program to “deliver high-quality maternity care services, provide training for maternal care clinicians, and enhance the quality of state-level maternal health data.”
Anecdotal reports show that the concerns of Black women experiencing negative symptoms during pregnancy and postpartum are specifically ignored by some physicians until the woman’s conditions significantly worsen, at which point it may be too late to prevent a deadlier outcome.
Maya Hardigan, a mom of three in New York, said she created the Meet Mae app for Black women in part because of her own experience giving birth to her first child via C-section.
“I did everything I knew to plan,” Hardigan said of her first pregnancy. “I took a birth education class with my husband. I had a birth plan. I rotated through all the doctors in our OB practice to make sure I knew everyone and I talked to each of them about the birth experience I was seeking.”
Hardigan said she ended up giving birth in an emergency C-section that, though it ended successfully for both her and her daughter, was a scary experience.
“I felt that I just didn’t have a choice, number one,” Hardigan said. “And number two, I felt very confused, because it is such a vulnerable moment.”
The Meet Mae app connects Black women with local support networks and with doulas, who can be a birthing mother’s advocate in the delivery room and provide pre- and post-natal care. It also allows women to create their own birth plans and to track and monitor their conditions during and after pregnancy, according to Hardigan, who left a 20-year career in the health care industry to launch Meet Mae.
Another app on the market, IRTH, provides a platform for Black women to share reviews of care providers. The app’s founder, Kimberly Seals Allers, said she was inspired to create a tool for other Black women after feeling her “wishes were ignored” when she gave birth in a New York hospital.
According to Pryor, the different apps are all working toward the same goal of empowering Black women with the tools and support they need to successfully give birth.
“I really do believe we’re pioneering the way … to solve for this,” Pryor said of the Black birthing crisis.
For Irving, she said she dreams that when her granddaughter grows up, she will not only not see an end to the crisis, but know that her mom played a critical role.
“I hope that [Soleil] will understand and appreciate as she grows up that [her] mom was an important person in this fight, and because of her and her life and what she did, things have changed,” said Irving. “That’s what I want her to be able to say.”
(NEW YORK) — Amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis that has unfolded in the weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, education advocates are working to ensure Ukraine’s displaced children are not forgotten.
More than 4.6 million people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries since the invasion began, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They have primarily fled to Poland, as well as Romania, Hungary, Russia and Moldova, which, like Ukraine, declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Though one of the poorest countries in Europe, Moldova has welcomed the equivalent of 15% of its population in a matter of weeks, with over 415,000 fleeing there from Ukraine, according to the U.N.
Many refugees have moved on to other European countries, though about 100,000 remain in the country currently, according to Education Cannot Wait, the United Nation’s global fund for education in emergencies. Of those, 50,000 are school-aged children. Only 1,800 of those children are currently enrolled in school in Moldova, the organization said.
As Moldova welcomes refugees, the educational needs are “enormous” and its educational capacity is “overstretched” and “strained,” Yasmine Sherif, director of Education Cannot Wait, told ABC News.
The needs, she said, include teachers who can not only meet the demand, but also address language barriers — the official language of Moldova is Romanian, while most people in Ukraine speak Ukrainian. Teachers who are trained to address the mental health needs of the refugees, who may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, are another.
Sherif, who visited Moldova this week to visit schools and talk with local officials and refugees, recalled meeting a mother who fled from Odessa with her two daughters.
“The mother broke down crying, and her daughters seemed also very traumatized from the experience,” she said. “On top of her mind is not her own suffering but how she can ensure that her daughters feel safe and that they can continue their schooling.”
Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science has coordinated online lessons, though comprehensive remote learning for refugees is also challenging due to damaged infrastructure across Ukraine and impacts on teachers, Sherif said. More than 900 education facilities in Ukraine have been destroyed or damaged during the fighting, according to Education Cannot Wait.
The demands on Moldova may only continue to grow, with a second wave of refugees possible as the conflict continues, Sherif said.
Education Cannot Wait announced on Wednesday a $1.5 million grant to support the educational response to the refugee crisis in Moldova that will be delivered in partnership with the government of Moldova, which has developed a framework for the schooling of refugees, including those who have applied for asylum.
Sherif said the funding could go toward rehabilitating educational facilities and training teachers who speak Ukrainian, including refugees.
Amid the refugee crisis, Theirworld, a global children’s education charity, said it plans to announce additional funding to “support refugee education projects in the coming weeks, harnessing its experiences from other emergencies, and campaigning to ensure donors invest 10% of the humanitarian response funding into education,” the organization’s president, Justin van Fleet, said in a statement.
UNICEF is also working to help refugees “reclaim their learning experience, in a safe and supportive environment, nurturing their resilience against the traumas of war,” UNICEF Representative to Moldova Maha Damaj said in a statement. The organization has set up support centers for families along refugee transit routes that provide services, including psychological counseling and support and child-friendly spaces.
Disruption to education can have lasting impacts, with girls especially vulnerable to human trafficking, Sherif said.
“Education gives you a chance as a girl to be empowered, and for both girls and boys, it offers a very protective environment,” she said.
It also provides the mental health and social services crucial for children, especially those who are refugees.
“Without that, it’s very difficult to start anew,” Sherif said.
