Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(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 has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 26, 6:08 am
Russia attempts to encircle Ukrainian positions in east, UK says
Russian forces appeared to be moving to encircle “heavily fortified” Ukrainian positions in the east, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday.
“The city of Kreminna has reportedly fallen and heavy fighting is reported south of Izium, as Russian forces attempt to advance towards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the north and east,” the ministry said in its latest intelligence update.
Ukrainian forces in Zaporizhzhia were preparing for an attack from the south, the ministry said.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested in a text message sent three days before Joe Biden was sworn in as president that some of former President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies wanted to declare martial law to keep Trump in power.
“In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law [sic],” Greene texted Trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Jan. 17, 2021, 11 days after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the certification of the vote.
The messages were revealed Monday by CNN, which said it obtained all 2,319 text messages that Meadows selectively handed over to the House select Jan. 6 committee in late 2021 before he decided not to cooperate with the panel.
The authenticity of the messages was confirmed to ABC News by people who have seen them.
“I don’t know on those things,” Greene continued in her exchange with Meadows. “I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!”
Last Friday, Green became the first member of Congress to publicly testify under oath about the events surrounding the Capitol attack. When asked specifically about martial law and whether or not she discussed the idea of using it to keep Trump in power with either the former president, his chief of staff, or anyone else in the administration, Greene repeatedly said, “I don’t recall.”
Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn was one of the first to advocate for martial law. The Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed Flynn in November, requesting documents and testimony in reference to a Dec. 18, 2020 meeting he reportedly attended with Trump in the Oval Office, where seizing voting machines used in the 2020 election was discussed.
One day before meeting with Trump, Flynn told the conservative news outlet Newsmax that Trump “could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states.”
Trump denied reports he was considering attempting to impose martial law, tweeting “Martial law = Fake News.”
In addition to Meadows’ texts with Greene, the trove of messages published by CNN includes texts Meadows exchanged with other members of Congress, with members of the Trump family, with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and with various reporters — including texts exchanged on Jan. 6 while the Capitol attack was taking place.
“Mark I was just told there is an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol Please tell the President to calm people This isn’t the way to solve anything,” Greene texted Meadows during the attack, according to the collection of messages.
“Mark: he needs to stop this, now. Can I do anything to help?” then-Rep. Mick Mulvaney texted Meadows.
“They have breached the Capitol,” texted Rep. Barry Loudermilk, to which Meadows replied, “POTUS is engaging.”
“Thanks. This doesn’t help our cause,” Loudermilk responded.
(PARIS) — French President Emmanuel Macron comfortably won a second term in office on Sunday, defeating far-right challenger Marine Le Pen in a closely watched runoff election.
Final results released by the French Ministry of the Interior on Monday show the centrist incumbent secured a decisive 58.54% of the vote, while Le Pen garnered 41.46%. Macron, 44, is the first sitting French president to be reelected in 20 years. He and Le Pen, 53, emerged as the top candidates in the 2022 French presidential election after a first-round vote on April 10. Sunday’s runoff was a rematch of the 2017 presidential election, in which Macron beat Le Pen by a landslide.
This year, however, Macron’s victory was marred by low voter turnout and Le Pen’s ever-rising popularity. According to official figures, approximately 28% of registered voters in France did not vote in Sunday’s presidential election, the highest amount in the past two decades. French voters can also show their dissatisfaction with both candidates by voting “blanc.” Blank ballots represented 6.35% of the votes on Sunday.
While Le Pen conceded defeat on Sunday night, she told her supporters that the “result represents in itself a dazzling victory” because the amount of votes she won was the highest by a far-right candidate in France’s modern history.
Henri Wallard, the chairman of French polling institute Ipsos in Paris and its global deputy CEO, said the outcome of the 2022 presidential election showed that Le Pen’s “‘de-demonization’ has partially worked.”
“A Le Pen vote is increasingly seen as a credible alternative and not just a protest vote,” Wallard told ABC News on Monday.
Douglas Yates, a professor of international relations and diplomacy at the American Graduate School in Paris, said Macron was triumphant “less because the French support his programs and more because they did not support Le Pen’s.”
“He must keep this in mind,” Yates told ABC News on Monday. “She promised domestic programs that would be popular, things that help them fight the cost of living. He should take out his checkbook and write them some checks if he wants to keep his majority in the upcoming legislative elections.”
Macron was all but absent from the campaign trail as he moderated talks between Putin and Western countries, which ultimately failed to prevent the war in Ukraine. Many French citizens were feeling disenfranchised by Macron’s stringent COVID-19 policies and unpopular plans to raise the legal retirement age amid widespread inflation and soaring gas prices.
Nevertheless, the election outcome proved that “there still was an anti-Le Pen front in large urban constituencies,” according to Wallard.
During his victory speech in front of Paris’ Eiffel Tower on Sunday night, Macron vowed to unite his divided country.
“An answer must be found to the anger and disagreements that led many of our compatriots to vote for the extreme right,” Macron told his supporters. “It will be my responsibility and that of those around me.”
Although Le Pen’s far-right French political party National Rally has performed poorly in previous legislative elections, Yates said the party’s strongholds in the south, east and north of France “might give them seats” when voters return to the polls in June.
Le Pen, known for her vociferous rhetoric, sought to soften her image as the leader of the National Rally during this year’s election. The former lawyer was no longer directly calling for France to leave the European Union and abandon the euro currency.
However, she was likened to former U.S. President Donald Trump with her hard-line policies on Islam and immigration. If elected, she vowed to ban Muslim headscarves in public and give French citizens priority over foreigners for housing and job benefits.
Le Pen was also criticized for her history of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. She called Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine “unacceptable” and said she’s in favor of sanctions, but she publicly opposed restrictions on Russian energy imports, citing concerns about the rising cost of living in France. She also pledged to withdraw France from NATO’s integrated military command, which could undermine support for Ukraine’s fight. Le Pen previously spoke out in favor of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
Ahead of the vote, French street artist Jaeraymie created distorted versions of Le Pen’s campaign posters in an effort to call out extremism. In one of his posters seen in Paris, Le Pen is depicted wearing a hijab, a Muslim headscarf, with the words: “Don’t submit to a thinly veiled extreme right.”
“She wants to ban the hijab in public spaces in France,” Jaeraymie told ABC News earlier this month. “So I found it interesting to tell her: ‘Why not imagine what it’s like to be a hijabi woman in France?'”
A passerby at the time was amused by the large poster, telling ABC News: “It’s quite funny to put into question their ideas.”
(NEW YORK) — The family of the teenager who died after falling from an amusement park ride in Florida told ABC News’ Good Morning America that his death was preventable.
“This could’ve been prevented … it should’ve been prevented,” Nekia Dodd, the mother of Tyre Sampson, told GMA. “So as an operator, you have a job to check those rides, you know. The video I saw, that was not done. And if it was done, it should’ve been done more than once, you know.”
Sampson, 14, died after falling from a ride at ICON Park in Orlando on March 24. His parents filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit on Monday.
Dodd and Tyre Sampson’s father, Yarnell Sampson, filed the lawsuit in the 9th Circuit Court in Orange County, Florida, accusing ICON Park in Orlando and other defendants, including the manufacturer and the operator of the FreeFall thrill ride, of negligence.
“Tyre had a long and prosperous life in front of him that was cut short by this tragic event,” the lawsuit states.
“Orlando Slingshot continues to fully cooperate with the State during its investigation, and we will continue to do so until it has officially concluded,” Trevor Arnold, attorney for Orlando Slingshot, said in a statement to ABC News. “We reiterate that all protocols, procedures and safety measures provided by the manufacturer of the ride were followed. We look forward to working with the Florida legislature to implement change in the industry and we are also supportive of the concepts outlined by State Representative Geraldine Thompson to make changes to state law through the ‘Tyre Sampson Bill’ to prevent a tragic accident like this from ever happening again.”
Last week, officials listed operator error as the primary suspected cause in the death of Sampson, who slipped out of his seat on a drop-tower ride and fell more than 100 feet to the pavement.
Sampson’s parents are scheduled to hold a news conference with their attorneys Tuesday to discuss the legal action.
You can watch the full interview with Dodd Tuesday morning on GMA.
Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — The parents of a 14-year-old boy who fell to his death in March from the world’s tallest tower drop ride at a Florida amusement park filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit on Monday alleging park officials failed to warn riders of “unreasonably dangerous and foreseeable risks.”
The tragedy unfolded on March 24 when Tyre Sampson, who was on spring break, slipped out of his seat and fell more than 100 feet to his death, according to the lawsuit.
Sampson’s mother and father, Nekia Dodd and Yarnell Sampson, filed the lawsuit in the 9th Circuit Court in Orange County, Florida, accusing ICON Park in Orlando and other defendants, including the manufacturer and the operator of the FreeFall thrill ride, of negligence.
“Tyre had a long and prosperous life in front of him that was cut short by this tragic event,” the lawsuit states, adding that the teenager was an honor student and football player at his school in St. Louis.
Sampson’s parents are scheduled to hold a news conference with their attorneys Tuesday morning to discuss the legal action.
The lawsuit comes a week after Florida state officials announced the findings of a forensic engineer’s field investigation report on the incident that killed Sampson.
The report showed that the operator of the FreeFall ride, which is the world’s tallest free-standing drop tower at a height of 430 feet, “made manual adjustments to the ride resulting in it being unsafe.”
The report by Quest Engineering & Failure Analysis, Inc., said manual manipulations were made to the seat Sampson was sitting in to allow the harness restraint opening to be loosened, apparently to accommodate the more than 300-pound teenager. The investigation found Sampson’s harness restraint opening was “almost double that of a normal restraint opening range.”
Nikki Fried, the Florida commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, said the adjustment by the individual operator, who was not identified in the report, enabled the FreeFall’s sensor lights to illuminate, “improperly satisfying” the ride’s electronic safety mechanisms and enabling the ride to operate “even though Mr. Sampson was not properly secured in his seat.”
Fried said the initial permit inspection for the new ride was done in December and no deficiencies were found.
“We followed the protocols, we followed the manual and everything was up to par per the manual of the manufacturer,” Fried told reporters.
She said the investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Besides the amusement park, the lawsuit names as defendants Extreme Amusement Rides, the ride’s owner and operator that also does business under the name The SlingShot Group of Companies; the ride’s manufacturer, Funtime Handels GMBH of Austria; and Keator Construction, LLC, the general contractor responsible for building the attraction.
Also named as a defendant was the Gerstlauer Amusement Rides, a Germany-based company that manufactured the seats and safety harnesses for the FreeFall.
The state investigation determined that the “normal” restraint opening for seats on the FreeFall ride was 3.33 inches. Sampson’s seat was adjusted before the ride started to an opening of 7.19 inches, the investigation found.
Florida state Rep. Geraldine Thompson, D-Orlando, said at a news conference last week that the manufacturer’s guidelines for the FreeFall specifically say the maximum weight of a rider is 250 pounds.
On the day of the incident, Sampson was 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 380 pounds, according to the lawsuit.
“No weight or height restrictions were posted at the ticket counter, and no ICON or SlingShot defendant employees, agents, apparent agents, servants or contractors advised Tyre about any weight or height restrictions,” the lawsuit contends.
The lawsuit alleges that ICON Park and The SlingShot Group “knew or should have known” from its own tests that riders of the FreeFall would be “subject to unreasonably dangerous and foreseeable risks, and that serious injury and death of the occupants in the ride could result.”
ICON Park had no immediate comment on the lawsuit, but a spokesperson told ABC News attorneys for the park are expected to release a statement soon.
Trevor Arnold, an attorney for The SlingShot Group said in a statement released to ABC News on Monday that the company “continues to fully cooperate with the state during its investigation, and we will continue to do so until it has officially concluded.”
“We reiterate that all protocols, procedures and safety measures provided by the manufacturer of the ride were followed,” Arnold said. “We look forward to working with the Florida legislature to implement change in the industry, and we are also supportive of the concepts outlined by State Representative Geraldine Thompson to make changes to state law through the ‘Tyre Sampson Bill’ to prevent a tragic accident like this from ever happening again.”
In a statement last week to ABC News, ICON Park it was “deeply troubled” by the state’s preliminary investigation that found the ride operator misadjusted the harness and safety sensor light on the FreeFall. “ICON Park is committed to providing a safe, fun experience for families. We will continue to support the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services with their ongoing investigation,” the amusement park said.
A representative for Keator Construction said the company had no comment. Funtime Handels GMBH and Gerstlauer Amusement Rides have yet to respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — The coronavirus response coordinator for President Donald Trump’s COVID task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, told ABC News in an exclusive interview that she became “paralyzed” when Trump raised the possibility of injecting disinfectant into people to treat the virus – and revealed how she thinks data meant to keep New York City playgrounds open led the president to make that ill-advised jump.
Birx, who spoke with Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News’ chief medical correspondent, before the Tuesday release of her new book, also said she had a pact with other doctors on Trump’s team – including Anthony Fauci – that if one of them was fired, then they would all resign.
From the start, she wrote in the book, “Silent Invasion: The Untold Story of the Trump Administration, COVID-19, and Preventing the Next Pandemic Before It’s Too Late,” she was unequipped to deal with the toxic political atmosphere that was the Trump White House.
MORE: Birx on Trump’s disinfectant ‘injection’ moment: ‘I still think about it every day’
And even though she was the only one on Trump’s team with on-the-ground experience dealing with a deadly pandemic, she was constantly sidelined, she said.
’I wanted it to be “The Twilight Zone”’
But many Americans have come to associate Birx with her failure to more forcefully correct Trump during that White House press briefing on April 23, 2020.
New York City had recently closed its playgrounds and, according to Birx, a Department of Homeland Security scientist had just briefed Trump on how it appeared sunlight made them safe.
“So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just a very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn’t been checked because of the testing,” Trump said. “And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that, too.”
“I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that,” the president continued.
“I wanted to be able to reassure the parents that the natural disinfection activity of the sun, with its ability to produce those free radicals that eat these viruses and bacteria and fungi, their membranes, that that would work,” Birx told Ashton. “And that they could get their children outside to play on the playground.”
But when Birx said she saw Trump and the government scientist informally continue their conversation before cameras – and the president make the leap to publicly question whether humans could be treated with disinfectant – she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“I just wanted it to be ‘The Twilight Zone’ and all go away,” Birx said. “I mean, I just– I could just see everything unraveling in that moment.”
Birx also addressed that moment in a Monday interview with “Good Morning America.”
“This was a tragedy on many levels,” she told co-anchor George Stephanopoulos.
“I immediately went to his most senior staff, and to Olivia Troye, and said this has to be reversed immediately,” she said; Troye was an adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
“And by the next morning, the president was saying that was a joke,” Birx said. “But I think he knew by that evening, clearly, that this was dangerous.”
Birx said she was concerned Americans thought Trump had been speaking directly to her, when in reality he was mainly speaking with the Homeland Security scientist. Trump did at one point, though, ask her: “Deborah, have you ever heard of that? The heat and the light, relative to certain viruses, yes, but relative to this virus?”
“Not as a treatment,” she replied. “I mean, certainly fever is a good thing. When you have a fever, it helps your body respond. But not as — I’ve not seen heat or (inaudible).”
Birx now says she regretted not saying more.
“We had spent so much time getting everyone to take the virus seriously, and we had these whole series of actions that were critical to saving American lives in that moment,” Birx said. “And I could see everything would be unraveled after that moment
Birx: Doctors had pact to resign
Birx also wrote in her book about how she had a pact with other doctors on Trump’s coronavirus task force that if one of them was removed from the task force, then all of them would resign from it.
She said the doctors included Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
“I actually wasn’t worried about myself being fired because I was dual-hatted, and I would go back to the State Department and my PEPFAR job, full time,” Birx told Ashton, referring to her role as the coordinator of the U.S. government’s program to combat HIV/AIDS, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
“I was very worried about Bob and Steve– because you can hear in the hallways how people were talking about them,” she said, referring to Redfield and Hahn. “And so, I went to the vice president multiple times to call Bob and Steve because I was worried about them feeling like they were–at that risk. And I was very clear to the chief of staff that if anything happened to Bob or Steve, we would all leave.”
Asked if that ever came close to happening, Birx said “there were times that I felt like Steve particularly was under a lot of pressure” over vaccine development.
“I wanted him to know that I had his back, no matter what,” she said. “And I think all of us knew– all of us knew what it was like to be there and in the trenches. Although, they got to go home after the task force and back to their agencies. I was still in the White House.
“But,” she continued, “they had enough understanding about what was happening in the White House to understand that all of us were at risk at one time or another.”
Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — In the quiet weekend morning hours Saturday, two of President Joe Biden’s top advisers boarded their flights — the start of a long journey shrouded in secrecy.
It was a secret — until Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spilled just hours after they were wheels up. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were coming to visit Kyiv, the war-time president announced.
While the Biden administration refused to comment all weekend, it was a hiccup that could have derailed the secret visit, amid intense security concerns about sending two Cabinet officials to an active war zone.
In the end, Blinken, Austin, and a small delegation arrived in Kyiv Sunday for a three-hour meeting with Zelenskyy, carrying with them a number of major announcements to make — millions more in U.S. security assistance, increased U.S. training for Ukrainian troops, the return of U.S. diplomats to Ukraine, and after three years of vacancy, a nominee for a new U.S. ambassador.
Senior State and Defense Department officials dismissed any concerns that Zelenskyy’s announcement imperiled the trip: “We plan for any number of contingencies. … It didn’t change anything about our commitment to go there today and to share what we have to say,” a senior State Department official told reporters Sunday.
But the administration refused to confirm the troop took place until the early morning hours Monday — only when the U.S. team returned across the border in Poland.
“We don’t know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign, independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene, and our support for Ukraine going forward will continue,” Blinken told reporters Monday morning in Poland.
The visit was the first by senior U.S. officials since Russia’s invasion started 60 days ago — “part symbolism but also very substantive,” Blinken said across the table from Zelenskyy.
That substance was in what he and Austin carried with them, including $165 million for Ukraine to purchase ammunition for its Soviet-era weaponry and $322 million for Ukraine to purchase from defense firms — what’s known as foreign military financing. In total, the Biden administration intends to obligate more than $713 million in foreign military financing for Ukraine and 15 other European countries, virtually all of whom have supported Ukraine’s military from their own stockpiles.
Blinken also announced Biden would formally nominate Bridget Brink, a career diplomat currently serving as U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, to serve as envoy in Kyiv. U.S. diplomats will eventually return to the capital too, Blinken said, as they start this week by making the journey across the border from Poland to Lviv on a daily basis.
It’s a journey Blinken and Austin now know personally. They arrived in southeastern Poland Saturday evening near the border with Ukraine — riding the train to Kyiv in the opposite direction from the nearly three million Ukrainian refugees who’ve arrived in Poland.
As passengers, they saw little of the war-torn country, according to a senior State Department official, who said shades on the windows blacked out much of the view.
Once in the capital, no longer under Russian siege, Blinken said there were signs that normal life was returning.
“We certainly saw people on the streets in Kyiv — evidence of that fact that the battle for Kyiv was won, and there is what looks from the surface at least to be normal life,” he told reporters afterwards. “But that’s in stark contrast to what’s going on in other parts of Ukraine — in the south and the east — where the Russian brutality is doing horrific things to people every single day.”
From the train, they traveled straight to the presidential palace for three hours of meetings with Zelenskyy and his team, according to a senior State Department official, including Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, and Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President.
“We had a really good, detailed, substantive, focused conversation for the better part of three hours that really went into every aspect of this campaign and next steps,” the senior State Department official said.
It was the first time senior U.S. officials had seen Zelenskyy since Russia invaded — a chance to check in on the TV star, who won a surprising presidential election, and who’s become a war-time leader and world figure.
When a U.S. delegation visited Zelenskyy last May — the first meeting between Biden officials and a Ukrainian president already bruised by American politics — Zelenskyy was “constantly energized, moving from one thing to another,” the senior State Department official said.
“Now, there’s a deliberateness and a kind of gravitas,” they said, describing him as “very focused, very detail-oriented on different aspects of this, whether the security, the economic, the humanitarian, the sanctions. He went into real detail on each, but in a very deliberate way.”
Even physically he “looked remarkably well,” the official added.
When the U.S. delegation asked about his family, Zelenskyy said they were doing ok, but “‘the hard part is we just don’t see each other. We miss each other,'” the official recounted him saying.
“It was just a kind of human moment. Everyone in this thing is an individual with their own individual lives and family lives,” they added. “He’s going from being a TV celebrity to maybe the most recognized leader — other than the president of the United States and Vladimir Putin — in the world. He’s borne that remarkably well.”
An in-person conversation makes working through any differences easier, officials said — including Zelenskyy’s push for the U.S. to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. The designation, made by the State Department, carries the strictest U.S. sanctions, although Russia is already under many of them.
Zelenskyy personally asked Biden to designate Russia during a phone call earlier this month, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News.
The designation is for governments that support terrorist groups, not ones that terrorize, per the senior State Department official, who said during their talks, they explained State Department lawyers are reviewing the possibility, “but it’s a statute. It’s a legal determination.”
“Look, the Russians are terrorizing the Ukrainians. But that’s different than saying they meet the criteria of the SST [state sponsor of terrorism designation].”
But if face-to-face interactions are that important, it begs the question why didn’t Biden himself go. Another senior State Department official pointed to security concerns.
“The president of the United States is somewhat singular in terms of what travel would require, so it goes well beyond what a cabinet secretary would – or what virtually any other world leader – would require.”
(NEW YORK) — For the second consecutive week, new COVID-19 infection rates among children in the U.S. have seen a notable increase, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA).
Last week, 37,000 additional child COVID-19 cases were reported, an increase of about 43% from two weeks ago. The jump in infections follows weeks of steady declines, and marks the first increase since January.
Overall, numbers remain significantly lower than during other surges of the pandemic. However, many Americans, who are taking at-home tests, are not submitting their results to their local public health authorities. Thus, health experts said that daily case totals are likely significantly higher than the numbers officially reported and tallied.
In the Northeast, infection rates are at their highest level in eight weeks, while the Midwest is reporting its highest proportion of new cases since the end of February.
A total of 12.9 million children have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic, and children represent about a fifth of all reported cases on record.
Nationally, pediatric virus-related hospital admissions have also seen their first increase in three months — up by 5% in the last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, AAP and CHA report that a small percentage of pediatric cases have resulted in hospitalization and death.
According to the nearly two dozen states, which reported pediatric hospitalizations, 0.1%-1.5% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in hospitalization. Similarly, in states which reported virus-related deaths by age, 0.00%-0.27% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death.
Even so, health experts stress that any uptick in severe illness among children is concerning.
The increases in pediatric COVID cases are renewing calls for children to be inoculated against COVID-19. Although the COVID-19 has been authorized under emergency use for all children over the age of 5 for nearly six months, tens of millions of children remain completely unvaccinated.
At this time, just under 26 million children, over the age of 5 — about half of those eligible — remain completely unvaccinated, and overall, just 43.1% of eligible children have been fully vaccinated.
Many parents of young children have also been vocalizing their frustration over the delayed rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine for children under the age of five.
Top Biden administration officials said those shots could be available as early as June.
Both Moderna or Pfizer have yet to fully submit their vaccine data to the Food and Drug Administration, the agency said last week, but Moderna, which has a two-dose vaccine for children under five, is expected to officially file a request for authorization by the end of the month, a spokesperson for the company confirmed.
Pfizer, which has been conducting clinical trials on a three-dose vaccine for kids under five, is expected to have results by early May, is projecting an authorization of its three-dose vaccine sometime in June, according to the company’s CEO, Albert Bourla.
“I am frustrated on their behalf,” White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told CNN’s “State of the Union,” said, in reference to some of his friends, who are frustrated that vaccines for young children have yet to be authorized.
It’s “very hard to prejudge a specific date and time” as to when these vaccines will become available, Jha said, adding that he expects the shots to be available in the “next couple months.”
AAP and CHA noted there is an “urgent” need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects.
“It is important to recognize there are immediate effects of the pandemic on children’s health, but importantly we need to identify and address the long-lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and social well-being of this generation of children and youth,” the organizations wrote.
Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it will investigate a plane crash in Arizona on Sunday during a Red Bull-sponsored stunt.
The pilots of two planes attempted to swap places mid-flight, leaving both aircraft unmanned for a period of time, and one of the planes crashed, although both pilots were unharmed.
The FAA said it rejected a waiver of laws requiring pilots to man their planes at all times, according to a denial later from the FAA dated Friday — days ahead of Sunday’s crash.
The pilots, Luke Aikens and Andy Farrington, applied for the waiver saying that the event was in the “public interest” as it was meant to raise awareness for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields and encourage students to pursue careers in STEM.
In its rejection letter, the FAA said that “would not be in the public interest and cannot find that the proposed operation would not adversely affect safety.”
The event was live-streamed on the online streaming platform Hulu.
The stunt was planned to have each of the pilots fly their aircraft to 14,000 feet, and then put their planes in vertical dives.
At the same time, the pilots were supposed to jump out of of the respective planes and attempt to swap seats in mid-air.
The pilots, who are also cousins, have planned the swap for a year, according to Red Bull. According to Red Bull, the planes were placed on autopilot and the engines were turned off in midair while the pilots attempted the swap.
In their request to the FAA, the pilots said they were both held commercial pilots’ licenses and had “conducted over 20,000 skydives” and performed more than 100 dive test flights without incident.
Despite the plan and the specially equipped planes, one of the planes crashed during the stunt Sunday prompting federal investigation.
“One of the two single-engine Cessna 182 aircraft used in the stunt crashed after it spun out of control,” the FAA said in a statement Monday. “The pilot landed safely by parachute. The other pilot regained control of the second aircraft and landed safely.”
Red Bull did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment.
The National Transportation Safety Board also has opened an investigation into the crash and expects to have a preliminary report in the next few weeks.
(CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wisc.) — A hunt for a killer is underway in Wisconsin after a 10-year-old girl was found dead — and the police chief is warning residents to be vigilant.
Lily Peters, a fourth grader, was reported missing by her father on Sunday night, said police in Chippewa Falls, a city about 100 miles east of Minneapolis.
Lily had been at her aunt’s house on Sunday and never made it home that night, police said.
On Sunday night officers found Lily’s bike in the woods by a walking trail near her aunt’s house, police said.
Around 9:15 a.m. Monday, Lily’s body was found in a wooded area near the walking trail, Chippewa Falls Police Chief Matthew Kelm said at a news conference.
Kelm said police are considering this a homicide investigation.
No one is in custody, Kelm said, adding that police are following up on leads.
“We encourage anyone with information to please contact the Chippewa Falls police department — and maintain a state of vigilance as there may be a danger to the public,” Kelm said.
