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NAACP calls on Justice Department to investigate $90 million Mississippi welfare fraud case

April 15, 2022 by WDNY Radio

NAACP calls on Justice Department to investigate million Mississippi welfare fraud case

(WASHINGTON) — The NAACP called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate years of allegations of widespread fraud and misspending in Mississippi totaling a reported $96 million, according to a letter obtained exclusively by ABC News.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson called on the Department of Justice “to aggressively investigate and prosecute those responsible for the massive theft of federal funds that apparently took place in Mississippi in fiscal years 2017 through 2019.” He noted that “funds from these programs are to be used for the neediest and most vulnerable in our society.”

Mississippi State Auditor Shad White alleges that money set aside from the federal government for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) programs were misappropriated under the leadership of John Davis, then-head of the Mississippi Department of Human Services, according to the letter.

The fraud allegations were first revealed in 2020 by state prosecutors in one of the largest cases involving embezzlement claims in state history. Six people have been indicted on state charges, including Davis.

Davis has pleaded not guilty, court records show. His trial, which was supposed to start last year, has been delayed several times. An attorney for Davis did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

The others indicted include Nancy New, the former owner of the Mississippi Community Education Center (MCEC); her son, Zach New, the assistant executive director of the MCEC; and former Department of Human Services employee Gregory “Latimer” Smith.

Attorneys for Nancy and Zach New did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News. Contact information for Smith was not immediately available.

Nancy New told the Clarion Ledger in 2020, “I just have to say that I think there’s a lot more information to come and we’re just waiting our turn.”

Several individuals in the case have accepted plea deals including former pro-wrestler Brett DiBiase who pleaded guilty in 2020 to a single count of making fraudulent statements for the purpose of defrauding the government.

Anne McGrew, an accountant for the MCEC, pleaded guilty in October 2021 to one charge of conspiracy to commit embezzlement.

Accounting firm CliftonLarsonAllen released a 175-page independent audit looking at fraud claims between Jan. 1, 2016, to Dec. 31, 2019.

White said in a 2020 press conference the case was the “most egregious misspending my staff have seen in their careers at the Office of the State Auditor.” He later added, “when you read this one-hundred-plus page audit, you will see that, if there was a way to misspend money, it seems DHS leadership or their grantees thought of it and tried it.”

White said in 2020 after the indictments, “this is an example of money going to or should have gone to folks who needed it through a federal program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). To those families, I say, I’m incredibly sorry that this money did not go to your benefit as it should have. But you need to know that you have advocates who are standing up for you, and this is not going to be allowed and it’s stopping right now.”

The questionable funds included $5 million for a lease agreement for a multi-purpose wellness center that would later become a volleyball stadium, $635,000 for a virtual reality lab that included individuals who weren’t identified as needy and $44,000 to retired professional football players for football camps that focused on student-athletes and did not address helping at-risk youth.

Most of the misappropriated funds are alleged to have been stolen through a now-dissolved anti-poverty program called Families First for Mississippi, co-operated by the Mississippi Community Education Center, according to the audit. The MCEC did not reply to a request for comment from ABC News.

The NAACP’s Johnson said in his letter, “these apparent crimes were ignored by DOJ under your predecessor Attorney General, and we are calling on you to take action that is long overdue.”

Johnson said Mississippi State Auditor’s findings were referred to the Justice Department, “however, nearly two years later, despite the overwhelming documentary evidence of fraud, forgery, and abuse in this matter, DOJ has not yet launched a criminal investigation.”

He said in the two-page letter to Attorney General Garland, that “failure to investigate may lead to the impression that DOJ is continuing the previous administration’s pattern of looking the other way when laws are broken by white state officials, especially when the wrongdoing disproportionately harms minorities.”

Johnson urged “in the strongest possible terms to take immediate action to investigate and prosecute those involved in this massive theft of federal funds.”

“The Department received the letter and will review it,” a spokesperson for the Justice Department told ABC News in a statement.

First Muslim religious freedom ambassador lays out US agenda

April 15, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Rashad Hussain, the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, is the first Muslim-American ever to hold the title, and he told GMA 3 that his appointment sent a powerful signal to the world.

Hussain was confirmed by the Senate in December with an 85-5 vote, where 10 Senators did not vote. He said the bi-partisan support sent a message that the U.S. is “supporting the right to religious freedom for all people everywhere.”

The ambassador told “GMA” that the White House is particularly concerned about the situation unfolding with the genocide against the Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority group.

Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said attacks by Myanmar’s military against the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority, constituted genocide and crimes against humanity. The legal determination was made five years after the government killed 9,000 Rohingya and forced over a million others into exile.

Hussain said the determination took some time because the U.S. had to gather all of the data and information as part of its meticulous legal process. He noted that the move will help provide more assistance to the legal brought by the Gambia and the International Court of Justice.

“We’re sending a strong signal that for anyone who engages in these types of actions, crimes against humanity [and] genocide, we will hold them accountable,” he said. “We also are very clear that we will do everything we can to prevent these types of atrocities from occurring.”

Hussain, who previously served as President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, said he also plans on implementing the Marrakesh Declaration, which advocates for the protection of rights of Christians and other minorities in Muslim majority countries.

“That includes seeking to end the use of blasphemy laws, apostasy laws,” he said.

The ambassador said that the U.S. stands for any religious group that is being persecuted.

“One of the profound aspects of this job is that it’s our responsibility, which we take very seriously, to wake up every day and do everything that we can to help people that are suffering,” he said.

$50,000 reward split between tipsters in NYC subway shooting

April 15, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Five tipsters will split a $50,000 reward for providing police with information that led to the arrest of the suspect in Tuesday’s mass shooting on a New York City subway train, officials said.

The alleged gunman in the shooting, 62-year-old Frank James, was taken into custody on the streets of Manhattan Wednesday afternoon, about 30 hours after 10 people were shot on a Brooklyn N train.

While the manhunt was underway, police urged the public for help in locating the suspect. New York Police Department detectives identified five people whose tips “contributed directly to the arrest,” the NYPD said.

The five good Samaritans, who have not been publicly identified, will evenly split a combined $50,000 worth of Crime Stoppers rewards provided by the Police Foundation, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Transport Workers Union Local 100. Crime Stoppers rewards are distributed upon the arrest and indictment of an individual.

“We appreciate all of those who responded to our call for information to locate this suspect, including all of those whose tips did not pan out,” NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said in a statement. “We urged the public to join us in this effort to find this suspect and New Yorkers stepped up.”

Police have not shared what information helped lead to the arrest, and tipsters are offered anonymity. Though there have been several reports of witnesses spotting James after he was named as a suspect in the shooting, which occurred Tuesday morning on a rush-hour, Manhattan-bound N train as it approached the 36th Street station in Sunset Park.

A cellphone alert with James’ description went out to New York City residents at 10:21 a.m. Wednesday, and multiple sightings followed as the suspect wandered the streets of lower Manhattan.

At around 10:30 a.m., he was spotted sitting outside Dimes, a restaurant in Chinatown, sources said. Witnesses took pictures of him sitting, apparently using a Link NYC hub to charge his phone, and posted to social media, tagging police, sources said.

A few hours later, James was spotted getting lunch at Katz’s on the Lower East Side, sources said.

Just after 1 p.m. Wednesday, James called Crime Stoppers on himself, saying he was in a McDonald’s in the East Village, according to sources. James reportedly said: “I think you’re looking for me. I’m seeing my picture all over the news and I’ll be around this McDonald’s.”

By the time police arrived, James had already left the McDonald’s. But a good Samaritan spotted James nearby at St. Mark’s Place and First Avenue and flagged down police, sources said.

James was taken into custody without incident and charged by federal prosecutors with a terror-related offense. At his first court appearance on Thursday, he was ordered held without bail. He faces up to life in prison.

ABC News’ Aaron Katersky and Mark Crudele contributed to this report.

FDA authorizes 1st COVID-19 ‘breathalyzer’ test

April 15, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 test that uses breath samples — the first of its kind to get the agency’s green light. The device, called the InspectIR Covid-19 Breathalyzer, is “about the size of a piece of carry-on luggage,” and can accurately detect coronavirus on the breath within just a few minutes, the company and FDA said.

While other COVID-19 testing methods have used nasal swab or saliva samples to detect viral particles, this test uses a technique called gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to separate and identify chemical mixtures and rapidly screen for five compounds associated with a COVID-19 infection in a person’s exhaled breath.

A positive result with this device is still considered “presumptive,” however, and should still be confirmed with a PCR test, the so-called “gold standard” in COVID-19 screening, the FDA said. The agency warned negative results “should be considered in the context of a patient’s recent exposures, history and the presence of clinical signs and symptoms consistent with COVID-19, as they do not rule out SARS-CoV-2 infection and should not be used as the sole basis for treatment or patient management decisions.”

While it comes with caveats, the company views its product as a potential game-changer in the large-scale COVID-19 screening arena.

“We spent a lot of time and a lot of effort on the science and the technology,” company co-founder Luke Kaiser said. “We are very focused on having a great product and a true product that can go anywhere, and test accurately.”

While this test offers rapid results — promised in under three minutes — this is not the same kind of rapid test available for purchase at local pharmacies. It is not aimed at being an “at-home” screening method — rather, it is meant for what InspectIR Systems COO John Redmond described to ABC News as a “volume play.”

InspectIR Systems aims to produce roughly 100 test devices per week, with 10 made so far, Kaiser told ABC News. In the next month, they expect to have roughly 250 test devices ready to go and say they will be making “as many as the line can hold.”

The company anticipates leasing test devices to companies and within industries ideal for en masse screening, as would be appropriate within the health care industry, such as nursing homes, prisons and the travel and hospitality industry, such as cruise lines, and perhaps schools. Redmond said the company expects leasing agreements to cost between $25,000 and $30,000 per month, which is why this would be most appropriate for that “volume play” setting.

Though that dollar figure sounds large, the idea is to get the cost per test down to an average of $10 to $12 each, Redmond said, which is in line with and perhaps even cheaper than commercially available at-home rapid tests. Baked into that leasing price would be a supply of individually wrapped paper straws, an air filter for the test kit and other necessary components.

With a single-use sanitary paper straw people blow their breath sample, about the amount it takes “to inflate a small balloon,” into the system, the company said, which looks for the chemistry and compounds associated with COVID-19.

The test must be done with supervision from a health care professional at doctor’s offices, hospitals, mobile testing sites or other venues with qualified staff on hand.

Each device can each be used to evaluate approximately 160 samples per day. At this level of production, testing capacity using the InspectIR COVID-19 Breathalyzer is expected to increase by approximately 64,000 samples per month.

“Today’s authorization is yet another example of the rapid innovation occurring with diagnostic tests for COVID-19,” Dr. Jeff Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a statement. “The FDA continues to support the development of novel COVID-19 tests with the goal of advancing technologies that can help address the current pandemic and better position the U.S. for the next public health emergency.”

ABC News’ Eric M. Strauss contributed to this report.

‘Burying my son’: Parents of man killed by Grand Rapids police officer speak out

April 15, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.) — The family of a man fatally shot by a police officer in Grand Rapids, Michigan, earlier this month is demanding that the officer be fired and prosecuted.

“It is an unjustifiable use of deadly force because police escalated a traffic stop into an execution,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Patrick Lyoya’s family, said during a press conference Thursday.

Lyoya’s mother, Dorcas Lyoya, who cried throughout the press conference, says she left her home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo “to escape war” and thought her son would be safe here, but is now heartbroken.

“As a parent, I was thinking maybe it was my son who was going to bury me, he will assist at my funeral, but what is so astonishing, I am the one burying my son,” Dorcas Lyoya said through the help of a translator.

Patrick Lyoya’s father, Peter Lyoya, compared his son’s death to crimes seen in other countries.

“I didn’t believe that in this country, that there was a genocide in this country, I didn’t know,” Peter Lyoya said through a translator.

Video of their son’s death on April 4 was recorded on an officer’s body camera, dashcam video, security cameras and a bystander’s cellphone. Police released the footage Wednesday amid community pressure.

The footage shows a white police officer, whose name has not yet been released, struggling with the 26-year-old after chasing him on foot following a traffic stop. The officer eventually forces Lyoya to the ground and is heard shouting, “stop resisting,” “let go” and “drop the Taser,” before shooting him in the head.

While many residents have expressed shock over the incident, Cle Jackson, the president of the Grand Rapids NAACP, says it was a matter of time before such an incident happened.

“We’ve been trying to bring reform for decades here. Some folks here have said, ‘a George Floyd will never happen in Grand Rapids. This would never happen in the city of Grand Rapids’. Now I always have to remind them it’s not if this is gonna happen, it’s just when it’s going to happen. And today is our real day,” Jackson told ABC News.

Jackson says issues involving police officers in the city have been going on for years. In 2018, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights opened an investigation after several complaints against the Grand Rapids police by Black residents, he said.

The department held public hearings where several people voiced concerns, but declined to set a timeline for when the investigation would be completed.

Jackson says the NAACP is intrigued to see if changes will come with the police department’s new chief, Eric Winstrom. The NAACP is joining with the family and Crump in calling for the officer to be fired, he says.

The Grand Rapids Police Officers Association did not immediately respond Thursday to ABC News’ request for comment regarding calls for the officer to be fired.

“I think [Winstrom] has an opportunity to come to Grand Rapids and do the type of cleanup work that needs to happen in this department…the number one metric or the initial metric that we will be able to determine if he is committed to improving community police relations for the city of Grand Rapids is to do the right thing and fire the officer,” Jackson said.

Winstrom said Wednesday that Grand Rapids Police and Michigan State Police are conducting an ongoing investigation and he would not comment further or take any action until after the investigation is completed.

He said the officer is a seven-year veteran of the department who is currently on paid leave and “stripped of all police powers” amid the investigation.

“I view it as a tragedy…It was a progression of sadness for me,” Winstrom said about the shooting.

Timeline of New York subway shooting and capture of suspect

April 15, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Dozens of people were injured, including 10 by gunfire, in a mass shooting on a rush-hour subway train in Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday morning, triggering a manhunt for the gunman.

More than 24 hours later, authorities announced they had apprehended a suspect in the shooting — 62-year-old Frank James of Philadelphia — and that federal prosecutors had charged him with a terror-related offense.

In the hours since the incident, hundreds of New York Police Department detectives have been on the case, scouring surveillance footage, interviewing witnesses and tracking leads from evidence left behind at the scene to plot out how the attack unfolded.

APRIL 6

Around 2 p.m., James rented a U-Haul in Philadelphia that was later recovered near a subway station in Brooklyn, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Department of Justice. The key to the van and a credit card, which law enforcement sources told ABC News was used to rent the U-Haul, were among the gunman’s possessions recovered from the scene of the shooting.

APRIL 11

James picked up the U-Haul from U-Haul Moving & Storage of Allegheny West at 2:03 p.m., sources said.

Around 6:17 p.m., James visited a storage facility in Philadelphia, according to the complaint. A receipt for the unit was found in a jacket that James discarded on the subway platform, authorities said.

While executing a search warrant on the unit on April 12, law enforcement agents said they had recovered gun parts and ammo, including “9mm ammunition, a threaded 9mm pistol barrel that allows for a silencer or suppresser to be attached, targets and .223 caliber ammunition, which is used with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle,” the complaint stated.

Agents found more gun parts during a search of James’ apartment, on April 12, according to the complaint, including “an empty magazine for a Glock handgun, a taser, a high-capacity rifle magazine and a blue smoke canister.”

APRIL 12

The U-Haul was captured by surveillance footage driving over the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn just after 4 a.m., after crossing state lines from Pennsylvania to New Jersey and then to New York, according to the complaint.

Security cameras captured an individual wearing a yellow hard hat and “orange working jacket” toting a backpack and rolling bag leaving the U-Haul at approximately 6:12 a.m. at West 7th Street and Kings Highway in Brooklyn, according to the complaint. Police ultimately found the U-Haul nearby on Kings Highway, about three blocks from an N subway stop where James entered the subway system, authorities said. He entered the Kings Highway station at around 8 a.m., sources said.

The shooting unfolded shortly before 8:30 a.m., just as a Manhattan-bound N train approached the 36th Street station in Sunset Park. A man mumbling to himself on the train donned a gas mask and detonated a smoke canister before pulling out a handgun and firing 33 bullets, police said. Ten people, including three teenagers, were shot, authorities said. The hard hat and orange jacket were found at the scene, police said.

James eluded law enforcement by boarding an R train that pulled into the station and traveled one stop before exiting at the 25th Street station, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig. A surveillance camera recorded a man matching James’ driver’s license photograph exiting the 25th Street station at approximately 8:40 a.m., according to the complaint.

James was seen again that day at a Park Slope subway stop at 9:15 a.m., Essig said. He bought a new mask and entered the Seventh Avenue subway station, sources said.

James made it into Manhattan and, sometime that night, checked into the Chelsea International Hostel on West 20th Street, sources said.

Police named James as a person of interest in the investigation later that day.

APRIL 13

Social media posts circulated appearing to show James, now a suspect in the shooting, walking around Manhattan.

Multiple sightings began at around 10:30 a.m., when he was spotted sitting outside Dimes, a restaurant in Chinatown, sources said. Witnesses took pictures of him sitting, apparently using a Link NYC hub to charge his phone, and posted to social media, tagging police, sources said.

A few hours later, James was spotted getting lunch at Katz’s on the Lower East Side, sources said.

The NYPD received a tip saying the suspect was in Manhattan’s East Village, in a McDonald’s at Sixth Street and First Avenue, police said. After reviewing the 911 call, investigators believe James may have called the police on himself, an NYPD official told ABC News. James reportedly said: “I think you’re looking for me. I’m seeing my picture all over the news and I’ll be around this McDonald’s.”

Frank Robert James had nowhere else to run or hide — and is now in NYPD custody. The work of our detectives is second to none and the dedication of our patrol officers is never ending. pic.twitter.com/uOXliUvoJ7

— Commissioner Sewell (@NYPDPC) April 13, 2022

Responding officers didn’t see James in the McDonald’s. A good Samaritan spotted him nearby on St. Mark’s Place and First Avenue and flagged down police, sources said. James was taken into custody without incident at 1:42 p.m.

James was transferred into federal custody after his arrest and charged by federal prosecutors with a terror-related offense for an attack on mass transit, officials said.

APRIL 14

James made his first court appearance and didn’t enter a plea. He was ordered held without bail. His defense attorney, Mia Eisner-Grynberg, called the shooting a tragedy but said that initial information can often be wrong. She also lauded James for turning himself in.

ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Mark Crudele, Luke Barr and Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.

Ukrainian mother relives horror of son’s execution in Bucha basement

April 15, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The images of five bodies found fatally shot in a basement in Bucha, Ukraine, with their hands tied behind their backs, apparently tortured and executed, alerted the world to possible war crimes.

The images, revealed just over a week ago, included the son of Galyna Matyoshko, who spoke to ABC News from a monastery where she had taken refuge.

The Ukrainian mother said her son Serhiy was helping evacuees when the Russians arrived.

“They came like a hurricane, causing so much pain. For what?” said Matyoshko. “You can’t even imagine this pain. My soul is crying. God forbid this happens to anyone.”

Matyoshko said she has the images of her son’s body on her phone. Despite her pain, she is keeping them so that the world can see what happened to her son.

“I didn’t want to delete them; I wanted the whole world to see it and know that it’s a fact,” she said. “I’m not holding on to them to hurt myself, I want everyone to know that this isn’t fake. That this is my son, that this happened to me and my son.”

According to Matyoshko, her son was helping evacuate women and children from the houses near the Bucha summer camp when he disappeared along with a friend who was doing the same on March 12. Both men’s bodies were found in the basement.

“I don’t know how long he was there, he lost half of his weight. I don’t know if they fed him or not. How? For what? I fed this child for myself, for joy,” said Matyoshko.

Matyoshko said that the official report from the police crime investigators said that her son was killed by two gunshots. Unofficially, she says she was told by police that they had found eight gunshots and multiple knife wounds on the body.

Russian officials have denied all allegations surrounding what was found in the Bucha basement.

Matyoshko said she wanted to share a message with Vladimir Putin.

“Look at what you did to us,” she said. “What is our fault? What have I done wrong? Why am I crying at a stranger’s place, with no home to live in? You have children; what if the same happened to them? And when our people come to tell you ‘it’s all fake,’ would you believe them?”

Woman shares warning on TikTok after learning streak on nail is cancer

April 15, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — For years, Maria Sylvia ignored a straight, brown streak that had appeared on her right thumbnail.

The 25-year-old shared what it looked like in a TikTok video last month and wrote, “me: having this for 10 years, thinking it was a cool streak on my nail.”

In the next frame, she continued, “it’s cancer.”

Sylvia told Good Morning America totally asymptomatic, meaning that you feel no pain,” dermatologist Dr. Whitney Bowe told GMA. “You don’t want a lesion to become painful, start to bleed, or start to create any kind of deformity of the nail. That usually means that we’re catching it too late.”

In a follow-up video, Sylvia said she had seen doctors in the past and one had suggested her nail discoloration could be a mole.

Sylvia encouraged others who may be concerned to go see a doctor. “You really have to be your advocate here and say, ‘No, no, I’d really like to get a biopsy just to be sure,'” she told GMA.

Following her diagnosis, Sylvia said in another TikTok video that she found out the melanoma had not appeared to spread. She has since underwent surgery and a skin graft.

Since opening up on TikTok, Sylvia has heard from others who said her warning video has been eye-opening and helpful.

“I saw this TikTok a couple weeks ago and really thought nothing of it until I saw my mom’s toe and was really concerned. She got an appointment, and long story short, you saved my mom’s life. Thank you,” posted one TikTok user.

Bowe also encourages anyone who wears nail polish to remove it at least once a month and inspect the nails for any abnormalities like pigmentation or discoloration.

France marks third anniversary of Notre Dame Cathedral fire, with epic restoration underway

April 15, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(PARIS) — Three years after flames engulfed Notre Dame, investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the devastating fire at Paris’ most famous cathedral.

French President Emmanuel Macron will visit the Notre Dame Cathedral on Friday to mark the third anniversary of the blaze, which tore through the roof and toppled the iconic spire as the world watched in horror on April 15, 2019.

“This visit will be an opportunity for the Head of State to take stock of the progress of the construction site,” the Elysee Palace said in a statement Thursday.

The initial phase to secure and safeguard what was left of the 12th century French Gothic landmark ended last summer, with the restoration work finally kicking off over the winter.

The safety, cleaning and reconstruction efforts are a vast national enterprise for France, with 90 state-sponsored contracts already issued to companies to help clean, consolidate and rebuild Notre Dame. In total, 130 such contracts will be issued, according to the public body established to oversee the restoration work.

After months of debate over the future of the famed medieval cathedral, the plans were approved by a national commission and “include the identical restoration of the oak wood frame and the roofing of the large attic as well as the restoration of the spire of Viollet-le-Duc,” the Public Establishment for the Conservation and Restoration of Notre Dame said in a statement Thursday.

French authorities are now in a race to meet the 2024 deadline set by Macron, in time for the Summer Olympics in Paris. On Wednesday, crews extracted the first hard stones to be used in the reconstruction of the arches of Notre Dame’s collapsed vaults.

However, the crews are working under sometimes difficult conditions due to the fragility of the building and amid interruptions linked to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as strict safety rules over the presence of lead on site.

There have been several surprises, too. France’s National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) has been carrying out excavations inside Notre Dame since Feb. 2 and, last month, its workers discovered a mysterious lead sarcophagus buried beneath the cathedral.

“An endoscopic camera made it possible to identify the presence of plant remains under the head of the deceased, perhaps hair, textiles, as well as dry organic matter,” INRAP said in a press release in March. “Its dating and its identification remain to be carried out but it is probably about an important character, appearing perhaps in the register of the burials of the diocese.”

The next phase of reconstruction is set to begin soon, with stonemasons, restorers of mural paintings and sculptures, master glassmakers and artistic ironworkers starting work on Notre Dame’s fire-ravaged interior.

The epic restoration efforts aren’t just taking place in Paris, but rather across France. A thousand oaks trees are being cut in 45 sawmills across the country for the restitution of Notre Dame’s spire and transept.

NYC subway shooting suspect ate at Katz’s Deli during manhunt: Sources

April 15, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Frank James, the man accused of opening fire on a subway train in Brooklyn, visited multiple Manhattan neighborhoods, including a stop at the famous Katz’s Delicatessen, as the NYPD scoured the city for him, according to police sources.

James, 62, was arrested in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood on Wednesday afternoon, authorities said, more than 24 hours after 10 people were shot on a crowded N subway as the train pulled into Brooklyn’s 36th Street Station. Twenty-nine people were wounded overall in the chaos.

Police recovered James’ phone, credit card and MetroCard at the scene of the shooting, but he had a second phone and second MetroCard which police are now using to track his movements after he eluded capture at the scene of the crime, police sources told ABC News.

After the mass shooting during Tuesday morning’s rush hour, James switched subway trains, from the N to the R, and got off the train at the 25th Street Station around 8:35 a.m., sources said. He then took the B67 bus to Park Slope, where he bought a new mask and entered the 7th Avenue subway station at 9:18 a.m.

James made it into Manhattan and, sometime Tuesday night, checked into the Chelsea International Hostel on West 20th Street, sources said.

He emerged sometime Wednesday morning and began wandering the streets of Lower Manhattan, hiding in plain sight, sources said.

A few hours later, James was spotted getting lunch at Katz’s on the Lower East Side, sources said.

Just after 1 p.m. Wednesday, James called Crime Stoppers on himself, saying he was in the East Village at a McDonald’s at East 6th Street and First Avenue, according to sources. James reportedly said: “I think you’re looking for me. I’m seeing my picture all over the news and I’ll be around this McDonald’s.”

By the time police arrived, James had already left the McDonald’s. But a good Samaritan spotted James nearby on St. Mark’s Place and First Avenue and flagged down police, sources said.

James was arrested on a federal charge of committing a terrorist act on a mass transportation vehicle. James made his first court appearance Thursday and didn’t enter a plea. He was ordered held without bail.

James’ defense attorney Mia Eisner-Grynberg called the shooting a tragedy but pointed out that initial information can often be wrong. She also lauded James for turning himself in.

In a court filing, federal prosecutors called the shooting calculated and “entirely premeditated.” They noted James wore a hard hat and construction worker-style jacket as a disguise and then shed them after the gunfire to avoid recognition.

Prosecutors suggested James had the means to carry out more attacks, noting that he had ammunition and other gun-related items in a Philadelphia storage unit.

“The defendant, terrifyingly, opened fire on passengers on a crowded subway train, interrupting their morning commute in a way this city hasn’t seen in more than 20 years,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Winik said in court Thursday. “The defendant’s attack was premeditated; it was carefully planned; and it caused terror among the victims and our entire city.”

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