(WASHINGTON) — For Bryan Bowman and Bob Mohr, there was no question about making the nearly 400-mile trip from Canal Fulton, Ohio, to Virginia and Arlington National Cemetery for the chance to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
To mark the tomb’s centennial, members of the public were given a rare chance to come close and lay flowers — for the first time since 1948.
“It was just surreal, very surreal,” Mohr said. “Who knows if we’ll ever get to do it again, in our lifetime.”
“It’s a reminder of service echoing back to 1921,” Bowman said.
One hundred years ago this week, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated to commemorate the final resting place of an unknown soldier from World War I, interred on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1921.
Since then, the tomb has served as a site of mourning and reflection in honor of unknown service members who died in all of America’s wars.
Bowman and Mohr, a Marine Corps veteran, were among the first members of the public to pay their respects on Tuesday, the first of two days visitors were being permitted to come near the tomb.
The line, hundreds long, included Americans from all ages and backgrounds: elderly veterans in faded uniforms, young children in the arms of their parents, military spouses and loved ones, melded together.
Each paused a moment to gently place a flower atop of a growing pile a few yards from the tomb. Some held hands over their hearts, while others raised them in salute.
Many eyes welled with tears.
Piles of roses, daisies, carnations and sunflowers with long, green stems lay under a red velvet rope, the colorful flowers in poignant contrast with the white marble sarcophagus, inscribed with the words, “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.”
On the opposite side, a member of the U.S. Army’s “Old Guard” marched in silence exactly 21 steps back and forth across the length of a black mat, pausing at each end for 21 seconds, echoing the honor of the 21-gun salute.
Tomb guards, also called Sentinels, maintain their post 24 hours per day, seven days per week, throughout the year. A guard-changing ceremony takes place on the hour every hour during the winter and every half-hour during the summer.
“All gave some, some gave all,” said Amber Vincent, a cemetery public affairs specialist. “And some of them lost their identity in the process of serving our nation … That’s really what this ceremony and this centennial commemoration is about. Honoring those not only who have served that we know, but also those that we will never know.”
In the distance, the sound of three-volley 21-gun salutes at military funerals rang out over the hushed crowd.
Up to 30 funerals a day were taking place, Monday through Friday, elsewhere in the cemetery during the centennial.
Some 400,000 service members are buried there.
Wednesday, Nov. 10, marked the day before Bob Mohr would end a 22-day journey to run 22 miles per day, for veteran suicide awareness.
“So, I’m here today for this ceremony and then I’m gonna run my 22 miles through the streets of D.C. for my twenty-first day,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 758,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 68.5% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Nov 10, 9:21 pm
COVID-19 deaths expected to continue to fall in weeks to come
COVID-19 forecast models used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are currently predicting that weekly death totals will likely continue to fall in the weeks to come, though thousands of Americans are still expected to lose their lives.
The ensemble model expects just under 15,000 more virus-related deaths to occur in the U.S. over the next two weeks, with a total of around 781,500 deaths by Dec. 4.
The model estimates that 13 states and territories of the U.S. have a greater than 50% chance of having more deaths in the next two weeks compared to the past two weeks.
Nov 10, 9:15 pm
Federal judge strikes down Texas ban on school mask mandates
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order prohibiting local mask mandates, including in schools, violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Since the order was issued in late July, state Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed lawsuits against more than a dozen school districts for issuing mask mandates, according to the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel. In August, advocacy group Disability Rights Texas filed the lawsuit against the state on behalf of several students with disabilities who faced an increased risk from COVID-19, alleging it denied them equal access to in-person learning.
“The evidence presented by Plaintiffs establishes that Plaintiffs are being denied the benefits of in-person learning on an equal basis as their peers without disabilities,” Yeakel wrote in his ruling.
Yeakel also said the executive order “interferes with local school districts’ ability to satisfy their obligations under the ADA” by placing all authority with the governor.
Yeakel enjoined the state from enforcing the mask mandate ban and ordered that the plaintiffs recover their court costs from the state.
Paxton has said the state is “protecting the rights and freedoms” of residents by banning mask mandates.
Nov 10, 6:43 pm
States sue over vaccine mandate for health care workers
Ten states are suing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services over the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate targeting health care workers.
About 17 million health care workers who are employed at places that get funding through CMS are required to get vaccinated by Jan. 4, 2022. They do not have the option to test.
“The mandate is a blatant attempt to federalize public health issues involving vaccination that belong within the States’ police power,” stated the suit, which was filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is running for Senate.
The attorneys general of Nebraska, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming, Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota and New Hampshire have joined the lawsuit, which is one of many filed against different parts of the Biden administration’s vaccine requirements but the first to target the health care worker mandate.
Twenty-six states are suing over the mandate that applies to businesses, while another handful are suing over the federal worker mandate. Last week, a federal court temporarily blocked the business vaccine rule.
Nov 10, 3:35 pm
Cases on the rise in 20 states
The U.S. daily case average has jumped by 15% since the end of October, according to federal data.
Twenty states have seen daily cases jump by at least 10% in the last two weeks: Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Cases are still falling in most of the South, which was the first region to get hit hard by the delta surge over the summer. In Florida, where high transmission was reported in every county over the summer, now only 1 out of the 67 counties is reporting high transmission, according to federal data.
(BALTIMORE) — President Joe Biden visited Baltimore on Wednesday to tout his infrastructure bill and highlight his administration’s work to ease port delays as the country approaches the holiday season with rising inflation and delivery slowdowns on the horizon.
Biden’s visit came five days after Congress passed his $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that, among myriad investments in the nations’ physical infrastructure, will provide $17 billion to revitalize coastal, inland and land ports, as well as strengthen them against the effects of climate change.
The Biden administration on Tuesday announced short- and long-term steps to strengthen U.S. ports as part of an effort to tackle supply chain issues, including using money from the infrastructure bill, which the president plans to sign into law on Monday during a bipartisan White House ceremony.
“I’m not waiting to sign a bill to start improving the flow of goods from shifts to shelves,” Biden said during remarks at the Baltimore port. “Yesterday, I announced the port — a port plan of action. It lays out concrete steps for my administration to take over the next three months to invest in our ports and to relieve bottlenecks.”
As the U.S. continues to slowly emerge from the pandemic, Biden has been grappling with a crisis up and down the supply chain defined by worker shortages and delivery delays.
At the same time, the prices Americans are paying for everyday goods are soaring as the country approaches the holiday season — a potential political liability for the president. In Baltimore, he acknowledged the economic hardship people are facing.
“COVID-19 has stretched global supply chains like never before, and suddenly when you go to order a pair of sneakers or a bicycle or Christmas presents for the family, you’re met with higher prices and long delays — or they said they just don’t have any at all,” Biden said.
Demand for many goods has shot up just as global supply chains reel from disruptions brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is a recipe for delays and for higher prices, and people are feeling — they’re feeling it,” Biden said.
Biden will continue to hit the road to tout his infrastructure bill — and pitch his larger “Build Back Better” social bill he is trying to push through Congress — in the weeks ahead, according to the White House.
On Wednesday, he drew a clear line between the infrastructure bill and the real impact he said American families should see.
“This bipartisan infrastructure bill is a major step forward,” he said. “It represents the biggest investment in ports in American history. And for American families, it means products moving faster and less expensively, from factory floor through the supply chain to your home.
“The bottom line is this,” he continued. “With the bill we passed last week, and the steps we’re taking to reduce bottlenecks at home and abroad, we’re set to make significant progress.”
On Tuesday, the president spoke with the CEOs of four major retailers and shipping companies, Walmart, UPS, FedEx and Target. He said that the executives “assured me that the shelves will be stocked in stores this holiday.”
Even though the president does not plan to sign the infrastructure bill until next week — he has said he wants to bring Democrats and Republicans together to the White House for a ceremony marking the bipartisan bill’s passage — a senior administration official said Tuesday that work was already underway to get port-related programs started.
“Outdated infrastructure has a real cost for families, as we all know, for our economy and for competitiveness,” White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “We’re seeing that right now, even as we move record goods through our ports, with supply chain bottlenecks forming that lead to higher prices and lower deliveries for American families.”
To provide immediate relief, the administration will now allow port authorities to redirect project cost savings toward immediate projects to address supply chain challenges, senior administration officials said Tuesday. One official said doing so was a way to “creatively” redirect grant money.
For example, the officials told reporters, the nation’s third-busiest port, in Savannah, Georgia, came under budget on a previous grant and could now use the leftover dollars to build a pop-up yard to store shipping containers; port authorities believe the site could be operational in 30 to 45 days, the officials said.
“It’s a great way to add capacity and efficiency at the port,” an official said. “We expect that that kind of flexibility will help other projects as well.”
The administration also plans to launch a $240 million grant program within the next 45 days to invest in port infrastructure — using money from the infrastructure bill.
Within the next two months, it will identify projects with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for construction work at coastal ports, inland waterways and other facilities, officials said.
In the next three months, they said, the administration will begin competition for the first round of port infrastructure grants funded by the infrastructure bill. The federal government will also identify ports of entry at the nation’s southern and northern borders that need modernization and expansion.
In Baltimore, Biden explained how his administration was helping fund the expansion of a 126-year-old tunnel near the port to accommodate trains carrying containers stacked on top of each other.
A senior administration official emphasized that the port was a public-private partnership and noted the port was making major investments in adding container cranes and a second deep, 50-foot berth.
“It’s an example of the kind of investments that are needed from both the private and public sector side,” the official told reporters Tuesday. “It’s also an illustration that the co-funding in the bipartisan infrastructure plan incentivizes the private sector to make these kinds of long-term investments as well.”
(WASHINGTON) — In a memo never before made public, the Presidential Personnel Office under the direction of John McEntee, a favorite aide of former President Donald Trump, made a case for firing then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper three weeks before Esper was terminated, according to reporting in a new book by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl.
The contents were first reported by Karl in The Atlantic for an article adapted from his forthcoming book, “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.”
The memo from McEntee’s office, dated Oct. 19, 2020, provides what Karl calls a remarkable window inside the thinking of the Trump White House during the final months of his presidency and the power held by the then-29-year-old director of the Presidential Personnel Office.
It includes bullet points outlining what Karl calls Esper’s “sins against Trumpism,” including that he “barred the Confederate flag” on military bases, “opposed the President’s direction to utilize American forces to put down riots,” “focused the Department on Russia,” and was “actively pushing for ‘diversity and inclusion.'”
Three weeks later on Nov. 9, 2020, Karl says, Trump fired Esper in precisely the way McEntee recommended and replaced, as recommended, by Christopher Miller. The firing also came two days after Trump lost reelection and as the former president was expected to purge top members of his administration with whom he had long been unhappy.
Obtained by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan KarlObtained by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl
Esper’s termination was made official with a terse two-sentence letter dated Nov. 9 and signed by McEntee that has also, until now, never been made public.
The Presidential Personnel Office, what Karl describes as a normally under-the-radar group responsible for the hiring and firing of the roughly 4,000 executive branch appointees, transformed into an internal police force in the final year of the Trump administration, with employees scouring for acts of dissidence in their ranks.
“Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show” is scheduled to be released on Nov. 16, 2021.
(KENOSHA COUNTY, Wisc.) — Kyle Rittenhouse took the witness stand on Wednesday to testify in his own defense and broke down in sobs as he began to describe shooting three men, two fatally, in what he claimed was an act of self-defense.
Rittenhouse began testifying in a Kenosha County courtroom after telling a judge that he made the decision to do so after consulting with his lawyers.
In his hourslong testimony, the 18-year-old spoke of his background as a trained lifeguard, a fire department EMT cadet and a student studying nursing at Arizona State University.
“Did you come to downtown Kenosha to look for trouble?” his attorney, Mark Richards asked.
Rittenhouse, wearing a blue suit and matching tie, answered, “No.”
Rittenhouse said he went to Kenosha with his sister and friends on Aug. 25, 2020, after seeing online pleas for people to come to the city to help protect it after looting and vandalism broke out over a police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man who was left paralyzed.
“I went down there to provide first aid,” Rittenhouse testified, adding that he brought along his medical supplies as well as his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle.
Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide. He claimed he shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, in self-defense.
“I didn’t intend to kill them. I intended to stop the people who were attacking me,” Rittenhouse repeatedly testified during his testimony.
‘I hear somebody yell, ‘Burn in hell”
Richards directed Rittenhouse to the event of the Aug. 25, 2020, shooting. He testified that he had witnessed a police officer being hit with a brick, another man getting his jaw broken and had been allegedly threatened by Rosenbaum.
He said he got separated from his friends who were guarding three car lots that had been vandalized. He said he was rushing to put out a fire at one of the car lots when he again encountered Rosenbaum and a man named identified by prosecutors as Joshua Ziminski.
“I hear somebody scream ‘Burn in hell,” said Rittenhouse of when he reached the car lot that was being vandalized. “I reply with ‘Friendly, friendly, friendly to let them know hey, I’m just here to help. I don’t want any problems. I just want to put out the fires if there are any.”
Rittenhouse testified that Ziminski pulled a gun and pointed it at him when he approached the car lot with a fire extinguisher.
“As I’m walking towards to put out the fire, I dropped the fire extinguisher and I take a step back (from Ziminski),” Rittenhouse said. “My plan was to get out of that situation.”
But he said before he could get away, Rosenbaum was allegedly bearing down on him and Ziminski and three other people were blocking his path.
Rittenhouse breaks into sobs
“Once I take that step back, I look over my shoulder and Mr. Rosenbaum was now running from my right side, and I was cornered from in front of me with Mr. Ziminski,” Rittenhouse said.
Rittenhouse then began to break down in sobs on the witness stand, prompting Judge Bruce Schroeder to call a recess.
Following the recess, Rittenhouse returned to the witness stand.
He picked his testimony back up at when he saw Rosenbaum charging toward him.
“Mr. Ziminski stepped towards me. I went to go run south,” Rittenhouse said.
‘I shot him’
He said as Rosenbaum began to chase him, he heard Ziminski allegedly tell Rosenbaum “to get him and kill him.”
“As I’m running in that southwest direction, Mr. Rosenbaum throws, at the time I know it’s a bag now,” Rittenhouse said, adding that he initially thought it was a heavy chain Rosenbaum had been seen carrying earlier in the evening.
“I turn around for about a second while continuing to run and I point my gun at Mr. Rosenbaum,” Rittenhouse said.
Richards asked, “Does that stop him from chasing you?”
Rittenhouse replied, “It does not.”
He said Rosenbaum continued to “gain speed” on him and then he heard a gunshot from behind him.
Rittenhouse said Rosenbaum lunged at him.
“I remember his hand on the barrel of my gun,” Rittenhouse said.
Richards asked, “As you see him lunging for your gun, what do you do?”
Rittenhouse answered, “I shot him.”
‘I was defending myself’
He said people in the car lot quickly scattered when he fired four shots at Rosenbaum. He said he tried to go and help Rosenbaum, but as people started to surround them again, he heard individuals screaming, “Get his a–, get his a–. Get him, get him, get him.”
He said he immediately called a friend, Dominick Black, who came with him to Kenosha and told him that he had just shot someone.
“I had to shoot him,” Rittenhouse said he told Black.
He said he started to run in the direction he thought the police were positioned.
Richards asked, “Why were you trying to get to the police?”
Rittenhouse responded, “Because I didn’t do anything wrong. I was defending myself.”
Shooting of Huber and Grosskreutz
Rittenhouse said that as he continued to run, Huber came up behind him and hit him in the back of the head with a skateboard. He also said a concrete rock hit him in the back of the head.
“I get lightheaded. I almost pass out and I stumble and hit the ground,” Rittenhouse said.
He said people quickly surrounded him and he pointed his gun at them and they backed off, except from one unidentified man who kicked him in the face. He said he fired two shots at the man and missed.
“I thought if I were to be knocked out … he would have stomped my face in if I didn’t fire,” Rittenhouse said.
He testified that Huber allegedly ran up to him as he was trying to sit up and struck him in the neck with his skateboard.
“He grabs my gun, and I can feel it pulling away from me, and I could feel the strap starting to come off my body,” Rittenhouse said. “I fire one shot.”
Rosenbaum was struck in the chest and died at the scene, prosecutors said.
He said he lowered his weapon and then saw Grosskreutz in front of him with his hands up.
“As I’m lowering my weapon, I look down and then Mr. Grosskreutz, he lunges at me with his pistol pointed directly at my head,” Rittenhouse said, adding they were so close that their feet were touching.
He said Grosskreutz held his hands in the air and looked at him.
“And that’s when Mr. Grosskreutz brings his arm down. … His pistol is pointed at me and that’s when I shoot him.”
Grosskreutz testified that he was shot in the bicep, causing him to retreat and yell for a medic.
Rittenhouse surrenders
Rittenhouse said he climbed to his feet and proceeded to walk toward a line of police vehicles to turn himself in. He said he approached the window of a squad car and said, “I just shot somebody. I just shot somebody.”
He said the officer responded by telling him to get back and threatened to use pepper spray on him.
The teenager said he then went back to one of the Car Source car lots he had been helping to guard and spoke to the group of allies who were locked inside.
“I’m in shock. I was freaking out. I was just attacked. My head was spinning,” Rittenhouse said.
He said his friend, Dominick Black, drove him to his home in Antioch, Illinois, where he told his mother and two sisters what happened to him. He said his mother drove him to the local police station, where he surrendered.
He said when he arrived at the police station, “I had to tell them that I was involved in a shooting in Kenosha and I needed the Kenosha detectives.”
‘I didn’t intend to kill them’
Prosecutor Thomas Binger then began cross-examining Rittenhouse by asking, “Everybody that you shot that night, you intended to kill, correct?”
Rittenhouse answered, “I didn’t intend to kill them. I intended to stop the people who were attacking me.”
“By killing them?” Binger pressed Rittenhouse.
The teenager responded, “I did what I had to do to stop the person who was attacking me.”
Binger began to ask Rittenhouse about sitting in court for the eight days of trial and having heard all of the 30 sum odd witnesses and view multiple videos that captured the shootings.
“And after all of that, you are telling us your side of the story, correct?” Binger asked.
Schroeder then stopped the questioning and after sending the jury out of the courtroom, Richards objected to Binger’s questioning, telling the judge, “He’s commenting on my client’s right to remain silent.”
Schroeder agreed, telling Binger, “You need to account for this.”
Binger responded, “No, your honor, I am making the point that after hearing everything in the case, now he’s tailoring his story to what has already been introduced.”
Schroeder warned Binger that it was a “grave constitutional violation” to talk about Rittenhouse’s silence until now.
“You’re right on the borderline and you may be over it,” Schroeder said. “But it better stop. This is not permitted.”
When Binger’s cross-examination resumed, he began to ask Rittenhouse about his use of deadly force.
“You’d agree with me that we’re not allowed to use deadly force to protect that Car Source building?” Binger asked.
Rittenhouse answered, “I wasn’t using deadly force to protect the property. I was using deadly force to protect myself.”
Blistering rebuke from judge
Binger then asked Rittenhouse about an incident 10 days before the shooting.
“But yet you have previously indicated that you wished you had your AR-15 to protect someone’s property?” Binger asked.
Richards immediately objected, saying Schroeder had not ruled on the admissibility of the previous act.
When the judge sent the jury out of the courtroom again, Richards suggested that Binger was “attempting to provoke a mistrial.”
“I ask the court to strongly admonish him (Binger) and the next time it happens I’ll be asking for a mistrial with prejudice,” Richards said.
Binger claimed that he believed the “court left the door open” on the matter, prompting an angry and loud response from the judge.
“For me, not for you,” Schroeder shouted. “You should have come and asked for reconsideration.”
Schroeder continued, “I was astonished when you began your examination by commenting on the defendant’s post-arrest silence. That’s basic law. It’s been basic law in this country for 40 years, 50 years.”
Why didn’t you just go home?
Following a lunch break, Binger continued his cross-examination of Rittenhouse, questioning him about his actions before the shootings and whether he would describe the protesters on the streets that night as hostile.
Rittenhouse said he didn’t believe the crowd was hostile toward him or his group. But after Binger played a video of the crowd setting a Dumpster on fire and chanting to Rittenhouse and others protecting the car lots to “protect the property, not the street.”
But Rittenhouse said that he once went into the street to retrieve a dumpster that had been taken from one of the Car Source properties and set on fire.
“Would you agree that the crowd was reacting to members of your group going out in the street and trying to interfere with what was going on off your property?” Binger asked.
Rittenhouse answered, “I didn’t think they were happy about it, no.”
Binger noted that police moved the crowd south past the Car Source lot where Rittenhouse and his group were and set up a demarcation line at 60th Street in Kenosha.
Rittenhouse agreed with Binger that once the police moved the crowd south there appeared to be no more threat to the Car Source location.
“So why not go home at that point?” Binger asked.
Rittenhouse said he stayed to help provide first aid to anyone in need.
Binger noted that despite the threat being apparently eliminated from the business he was protecting by police moving the crowd south, Rittenhouse ventured south of the demarcation line at 60th St. armed with his rifle and accompanied by another man, Ryan Balch, an armed military veteran.
Rittenhouse said he was looking for people who needed first aid when he and Balch got separated, leaving him isolated in the crowd Binger said appeared hostile.
“You are now entering a crowd of whatever you want to call them, protesters, demonstrators. Your attorneys called them rioters, or looters, or whatever. That’s who you’re now going to be part of. You’re going to be in that crowd, right?”
Rittenhouse responded, “I was walking through. I announced myself as friendly and that I was there to help them.”
The defense has three more witnesses to call before they will rest their case. Closing arguments could come Friday or Monday.
(NEW YORK) — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview over the summer he “wouldn’t be surprised” if somebody who worked for him at some point sat on his lap.
“I don’t recall anyone specifically. But, you know, I have people who have worked with me 14 years, 10 years,” Cuomo said, according to a newly released transcript of a July interview with attorneys deputized by the New York Attorney General to investigate claims of sexual harassment. “If somebody were to sit on my lap, you know, I wouldn’t push them off.”
Cuomo resigned in August after a monthslong investigation by State Attorney General Letitia James found he sexually harassed 11 women, including current and former state employees.
The interview began just after 8 a.m. on July 17 in the governor’s Manhattan office. The 515-page transcript, which was released Wednesday, depicts Cuomo as standoffish from the start, sparring with attorneys Joon Kim and Anne Clark over their titles and reminding them of his potent political resume.
“I’m a former attorney general,” Cuomo reportedly said in the 11-hour interview. “I’m aware of the attorney general’s power. I’m aware of the special prosecutor power, independent investigator power.”
Cuomo was governor of New York for 10 years and previously served as the state’s attorney general. In all of that time of government service, Cuomo said he only recalled taking sexual harassment training in 2019.
“I don’t remember what years I did or didn’t take sexual harassment training,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo also told the investigators he had come to believe some of the sexual harassment accusations were the work of political opponents who “have been part of orchestrating and resonating the complaints against me.”
“That’s what you think now?” Kim asked. “That’s what I know now,” Cuomo replied.
The investigation included interviews with 165 witnesses, including several of Cuomo’s accusers, including former New York Executive Chamber employee Brittany Commisso.
According to the transcript, Commisso alleged throughout her interview that Cuomo would hug and kiss her in a way that made her feel uncomfortable and that he made “inappropriate comments about her marital status.”
“His hugs definitely got closer and tighter to the point where I knew I could feel him pushing my body against his,” she alleged.
“I definitely noticed that when he would kiss me on the cheek, I took it as OK, he is being friendly,” she said. “Then obviously when he would turn his head and get me on the lips, it startled me. It obviously wasn’t normal.”
When asked about the allegations made by Commisso, Cuomo said they were “not even feasible” because he believed that his conduct was constantly under scrutiny, including by Kim when the lawyer served as acting U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York.
“You’ve investigated me for six years,” he told Kim, referring to corruption investigations conducted by federal prosecutors during Kim’s tenure. “I would have to lose my mind to do some — such a thing. It would be an act of insanity to touch a woman’s breast and make myself vulnerable to a woman for such an accusation.”
Cuomo cast Commisso as the “initiator” of any intimate conduct.
“She was very affectionate. I would say more she was the initiator of the hugs,” Cuomo said, according to the transcript. “She said that she was Italian and Italians are very affectionate people. But she was a hugger.”
A state trooper on Cuomo’s security detail also said she felt “completely violated” during an encounter at the end of a 2019 groundbreaking ceremony for a new arena for the NHL’s New York Islanders
The trooper told investigators she held open the door when it came time for the governor to leave.
“And while he’s walking and we’re in motion, while he’s walking into the door, he takes his left hand and basically like thumb facing down, I felt the palm of his hand in the center of my stomach on my bellybutton and like pushed back towards my right hip like where my gun is. So he’s walking one way, his hand is running across my stomach in the opposite direction,” the trooper said, according to the transcript.
“And I felt completely violated because to me, like, that’s between my chest and my privates, which, you know, if he was a little bit north or a little bit south, it’s not good.”
When Kim asked Cuomo about the alleged incident in the interview, the former governor said if he did touch her, “It was incidental, and I don’t remember doing that.”
Cuomo also denied asking if he could kiss the trooper as she also alleged.
“Do you remember ever asking her on any occasion, ‘Can I kiss you? May I kiss you?’” Kim asked.
“No, I don’t remember that,” Cuomo replied.
A spokesperson for Cuomo called the investigation a “fraud” in a statement.
“These transcripts include questionable redactions and raise even more questions about key omissions made during this slanted process, which reeks of prosecutorial misconduct,” spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said.
Members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee have been invited to Albany to review the report next week, Assemblymember Charles Lavine, chair of the committee, said in a statement sent to ABC News.
ABC News’ Luc Bruggeman, Celia Darrough and Soorin Kim contributed to this report.
(GLASGOW, Scotland) — Leaders from nearly every country in the world have converged upon Glasgow, Scotland, for COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference that experts are touting as the most important environmental summit in history.
The conference, delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was designed as the check-in for the progress countries are making after entering the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, a value that would be disastrous to exceed, according to climate scientists. More ambitious efforts aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Not one country is going into COP26 on track to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, according to experts. They will need to work together to find collective solutions that will drastically cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
“We need to move from commitments into action,” Jim Harmon, chairman of the World Resources Institute, told ABC News. “The path to a better future is still possible, but time is running out.”
All eyes will be on the biggest emitters: China, the U.S. and India. While China is responsible for about 26% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, more than all other developed countries combined, the cumulative emissions from the U.S. over the past century are likely twice that of China’s, David Sandalow, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told ABC News.
Latest headlines:
-US, China announce joint statement addressing climate crisis
-America ‘ready to take on the challenge,’ Pelosi says
-Obama addresses COP26, endorses Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ bill
-American agriculture is ready to tackle climate change, agriculture secretary says
-US needs to ‘get in the game’ on clean energy transitions, energy secretary say
-New climate targets announced for sports worldwide
-Biden, world leaders push to conserve global forests
-‘It’ll take trillions,’ Jeff Bezos says of his $10 billion climate pledge
-Biden apologizes for Trump administration pulling out of the Paris Agreement
Here’s how the conference is developing. All times Eastern.
Nov 10, 3:29 pm
US, China announce joint statement addressing climate crisis
Top carbon emitters U.S. and China have committed to working together on reducing emissions and transitioning to renewable energy over the next decade, according to U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry.
Kerry said it’s important that the countries work together on climate issues.
“And as I’ve said many times, the United States and China have no shortage of differences. But on climate, cooperation is the only way to get things done,” he told reporters Wednesday.
ABC News’ Stephanie Ebbs
Nov 09, 1:39 pm
America ‘ready to take on the challenge,’ Pelosi says
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi focused on the domestic political success of the Build Back Better plan and its investment in climate change while speaking to reporters at COP26, continuing the message that America is back on the international climate stage.
“We come here equipped, ready to take on the challenge to meet the moment,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi said she still plans to pass the reconciliation bill the week of Nov. 15 and backed up remarks made by former President Barack Obama on Monday — that both he and President Biden could take more aggressive action on climate change if it wasn’t for near Republican control on Capitol Hill.
“Let me just say that when President Obama was president and we had majority in the first term … we did pass in the House a very strong climate bill,” she said.
“Sixty votes in the Senate is an obstacle that is very hard to overcome and is another subject for another day.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also declared that “America is back” but was more critical, saying that leaders will need to “actually deliver.”
“We’re here to say that we’re not just back, we’re different … and we are more open, I think, to questioning prior assumptions about what is politically possible and that is what is exciting about this time,” she said.
ABC News’ Stephanie Ebbs
Nov 08, 5:23 pm
Obama addresses COP26, endorses Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ bill
During his speech at Monday’s COP26 events, former President Barack Obama shined a spotlight on the upcoming midterm elections and called upon young Americans to consider climate when deciding how to vote.
“Saving the planet isn’t a partisan issue,” Obama said, frustrated over the divided government.
Obama endorsed President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill and drew a comparison to when “one of our two major parties” made climate change a partisan issue back during his tenure.
On climate change, Obama harkened back to the Paris Agreement, saying, “We have not done nearly enough to address the crisis.”
He called for countries to push for ambitious action and acknowledged that while older generations have failed the young, they “can’t afford hopelessness.”
Addressing the youth participating in protests outside COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, the former president encouraged them to get more involved to deal with their anxiety over climate change.
“Protests are necessary to raise awareness. Hashtag campaigns can spread awareness,” Obama said. “But to build the broad-based coalitions necessary for bold action, we have to persuade people who either currently don’t agree with us or are indifferent to the issue.”
Nov 05, 1:23 pm
Greta Thunberg leads youth activist march
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, 18, was among thousands of young people demonstrating outside of COP26.
Thunberg spoke at the Fridays for Future march, the group she founded in 2018, criticizing politicians and labeling the conference as a “failure.”
“It should be obvious that we cannot solve a crisis with the same methods that got us into it in the first place,” Thunberg said.
Many of the demonstrators who spoke to ABC News said they attended the rally to see Thunberg speak.
Some demonstrators said they did not trust their leaders to create real change but were encouraged to see how many other young people were fighting for climate action.
Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate, 24, also spoke at the protest, where she said Africa was experiencing some of the harshest effects from climate change.
Nakate said she envisions a future when “the world is green again.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 757,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 68.4% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-White House confident pace of shots for kids will increase in coming days
-Over 900,000 kids 5-11 will have 1st shot by end of day, White House estimates
-10 states see increase in hospital admissions
-Pfizer asks FDA to amend booster authorization to include all adults
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Nov 10, 1:35 pm
White House confident pace of shots for kids will increase in coming days
White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said Wednesday that the pace of vaccines for kids is expected “to continue to accelerate across the coming days and weeks.”
CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky made the case that children get vaccinated against far less deadly vaccines.
“In the years prior to the recommendation for Hepatitis A, meningococcus and varicella vaccination, the average annual reported deaths from these infections were three, eight and 16 respectively,” she said. “All of those numbers are far lower than 66 — the number of deaths we have seen from COVID-19 in children 5-to-11 over the past year.”
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Nov 10, 8:55 am
Over 900,000 kids 5-11 will have 1st shot by end of day, White House estimates
The White House estimates that by the end of Wednesday over 900,000 children ages 5 to 11 will have received their first vaccine shot.
That’s 3% of the 28 million newly eligible kids in this category.
Another 700,000 kids in that age range have appointments booked at pharmacies to get their first jab, according to the White House.
ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Nov 09, 10:36 pm
Mask mandate ending in Florida’s largest school district
Masks will be optional for students in Miami-Dade County, Florida’s largest school district, beginning on Friday, the district announced Tuesday.
This change is “based on significantly improved COVID-19 conditions in the community and within our schools,” school officials said in a statement.
Fully vaccinated employees also have the choice to not wear a mask.
ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Nov 09, 4:41 pm
Boosters required for people 65+ to retain health pass in France
French residents over the age of 65 must get a booster in order to keep their health pass, President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday.
The health pass, which indicates a person is vaccinated, is mandatory for restaurants, theaters, museums and similar institutions throughout the country.
(ATLANTA) — The man suspected of shooting and killing a police officer in Georgia last week was found dead Tuesday night.
Police sources told WSB-TV, an ABC affiliate, that Jordan Jackson was found dead in a Clayton County apartment complex from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Tuesday night. Henry County Police Department confirmed his death on its Facebook page.
Clayton County police were tipped off to Jackson’s presence at the Chateau Forest Apartments in Riverdale at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, WSB-TV reported.
The complex was put on lockdown after investigators found Jackson’s body.
“Jordan Jackson was found hiding out with some friends in Clayton County,” the Henry County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. “After barricading himself in a room, SWAT Teams addressed the situation utilizing tactful methods which resulted in authorities being feet away from Jordan. The suspect took his own life seconds before being captured.”
On Nov. 4, Henry County police officer Paramhans Desai, 38, was responding to a domestic dispute and attempting to arrest Jackson when he was shot. Desai then fled the scene, according to police.
Desai was pronounced dead on Monday night at Grady Memorial Hospital after succumbing to his injuries, the police department said in a Facebook post. He was married with two children.
On Sunday, Georgia investigators and NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal offered a $60,000 reward for information about the suspect, who police later said was Jackson.
(NEW YORK) — Prosecutors are taking over the case of a 14-year-old New Jersey girl who has been missing for nearly a month.
Jashyah Moore, 14, was last seen around 10 a.m. on Oct. 14 at Poppie’s Deli Store in East Orange.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II called her disappearance “particularly troubling.”
“Our society cannot ignore the fact that a 14-year-old girl, otherwise normal in all respects as far as we can tell, would disappear without a trace on a sunny day on a central thoroughfare,” he said at a news conference Wednesday.
The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office has superseded the investigation and now will be the lead agency, Stephens said, though East Orange police, the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, FBI, New Jersey State Police and Orange police will continue to be involved.
“This case cries out and demands our attention,” Stephens said.
There’s still little information about the mysterious case. When asked about surveillance video, Stephens told reporters Wednesday, “There is video, and we’ve captured all that we can and will continue to go through that.”
He added that investigators “have gone through cell phones of anyone associated.”
Moore’s desperate family held a search party Tuesday night.
“Please, my daughter is 14 years old, she does not deserve this, she did not run away,” her mother, Jamie Moore, told ABC New York station WABC on Tuesday. “I love you Jashyah. If you see this, don’t be scared. Mommy is going to find you.”
