(NEW YORK) — A 1-year-old golden retriever named Chandler has a Halloween costume for every day in October and they are paw-sitively adorable.
Chandler, named after “Friends” character Chandler Bing by his owner Katie Palamara, has over 100,000 followers on TikTok and his 31 costumes have been a viral sensation.
“Halloween is my favorite holiday. I anticipate it months and months in advance,” Palamara said. “So it was kind of a no-brainer to do this.”
Palamara said she acquired the costumes over several months. The costumes range from Winnie the Pooh to Fruit Loops to Chandler Bing.
“His favorite costume was a wide retriever because he got to play with a football,” Palamara said. “His least favorite was the Mario Kart one because he was a little afraid of the balloons.”
Palamara said she hopes Chandler’s costumes will spread joy online.
(PITTSBURGH) — On Oct. 27, 2018, 11 worshippers, including a 97-year-old woman, were gunned down at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Here’s a closer look at the lives lost.
Rose Mallinger
Rose Mallinger, 97, was the oldest of the victims but “age was truly just a number,” the Mallinger family said in a statement.
“She retained her sharp wit, humor and intelligence until the very last day,” the family said. “No matter what obstacles she faced, she never complained. She did everything she wanted to do in her life.”
Rose Mallinger “was a pillar of the Jewish community and the Tree of Life Synagogue, which she was a part of for over six decades,” the family said. “The synagogue was the center of her very active life. She was there every weekend, and the people of the congregation brought her great joy, as she brought to them.”
“Rose was ‘Bubbie,’ Yiddish for grandma, to everyone in our family and our beloved community,” the family said, adding that “family was everything” to her.
Rose Mallinger has three children, five grandchildren and one great grandchild.
“She loved us and knew us better than we knew ourselves,” the family said.
“In addition to being the president of the congregation, he was a doctor, a healer … when he heard shots he ran outside to try and see if anyone was hurt and needed a doctor. That was Uncle Jerry, that’s just what he did,” Ostrin wrote on Facebook.
“He always wore a bowtie,” Ostrin added. “There is just something about guys who wear bowties. Something youthful, something fun. And that is a word that definitely embodied my Uncle Jerry – fun. You know how they say there are people who just lighten up a room? You know that cliché about people whose laugh is infectious? That was Uncle Jerry. It wasn’t a cliché, it was just his personality. His laughter, with his chest heaving up and down, with a huge smile on his face – that was uncle Jerry. And that bowtie. That bowtie that you know made people smile, you know made his patients more at ease.”
Rabinowitz was a “compassionate, loving, non-judgmental” physician, Pittsburgh dentist Stephen DeFusco told ABC Pittsburgh affiliate WTAE. “He sat down, talked with you -– there wasn’t a minute that he didn’t pay attention to you.”
A former patient said the slain doctor was one of his heroes.
“In the old days for HIV patients in Pittsburgh he was to [sic] one to go to,” former patient Michael Kerr wrote on Facebook. “He often held our hands (without rubber gloves) and always always hugged us as we left his office.”
“I got lucky beyond words – because when he gently told me around November 1995 that it was time to begin taking medications – there was an ACTG trial for two HIV medications that saved my life,” he wrote. “Thank you Dr. Rabinowitiz for having always been there during the most terrifying and frightening time of my life. You will be remembered by me always. You are one of my heroes.”
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center “cannot even begin to express the sadness and grief we feel over the loss of Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz,” the medical center said in a statement. “Jerry was above all one of the kindest physicians and human beings in our community.”
Tami Minnier, chief quality officer of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, added, “Those of us who worked with him respected and admired his devotion to his work and faith. His loss is devastating, and we extend our deepest sympathies to his family, friends, and fellow UPMC colleagues who loved him.”
Cecil and David Rosenthal
Brothers Cecil Rosenthal, 59, and David Rosenthal, 54, were both killed in the attack.
The brothers never missed a service and were always at the synagogue because it was a place they felt the most safe, fellow congregant Scott Levin told ABC News.
The brothers were always together, congregant Katy Levin told ABC News, so she said it brings her some comfort that they died together because she doesn’t know how one could live without the other.
Both brothers were developmentally disabled.
“Cecil and David had a love for life and for those around them,” according to a statement from ACHIEVA, a local organization which provides support for people with disabilities.
“Cecil’s laugh was infectious. David was so kind and had such a gentle spirit,” Chris Schopf, Vice President of ACHIEVA Residential Supports, said in the statement. “Together, they looked out for one another. They were inseparable. Most of all, they were kind, good people with a strong faith and respect for everyone.”
Cecil Rosenthal was “a gregarious person who was super social, absolutely loved talking to people,” said David DeFelice, Cecil Rosenthal’s friend and match in a “Best Buddy” program.
“Somebody who had an intellectual disability … we were kind of their mentor, their friend, and the whole point was to just foster friendship,” he explained to ABC News’ “Nightline.”
He knew Cecil Rosenthal for three years and called his friend “a fixture in the Jewish community and at Tree of Life.”
“I was you know welcomed right away because he kind of brought me in,” DeFelice said. “He always carried a Hebrew calendar, knew the Jewish holidays — he marked them down. He was always talking about events and parties that the synagogue was having and that he invited different people to.”
“He was a funny guy, he liked to tease,” DeFelice said. “I loved talking to him. I have nothing but good memories, so it’s nice because it brings a smile to my face.”
Daniel Stein
Daniel Stein, 71, was a “simple man” who loved going to synagogue and playing with his grandson, his son, Joe Stein, wrote on Facebook.
Joe Stein wrote on Facebook, “My mom, sister and I are absolutely devastated and crushed! Our lives now are going to have to take a different path, one that we thought would not happen for a long time. … We love you dad more than you’ll ever know!”
“He was the best man you’d ever want to know,” Steven Halle, a nephew of Daniel Stein, told ABC News.
Daniel Stein was incredibly active in the synagogue community, where he was a mentor, provided services to the elderly community and served as president of his congregation, Halle said.
He called his uncle a happy, caring and sympathetic man who had two “wonderful” kids and a “beautiful wife.”
Daniel Stein also loved to show off his 7-month-old grandchild. Now, his grandson “is never going to know who his grandfather is,” Halle said.
Richard Gottfried
Richard Gottfried, 65, a successful dentist, had reconnected with his faith following his father’s death and at one point became the president of the 70-member congregation in Pittsburgh, reported the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
He was survived by his wife, Margaret A. “Peg” Durachko, who is also a dentist.
The couple had worked together at the Squirrel Hill Medical Center’s dental clinic, where they treated refugees and immigrants, many of whom had never been to a dentist, the newspaper reported.
“Do not let his death be in vain. Drive out evil from your own life and help another to drive it out of their life. The only way to combat evil is with love,” his wife said, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Joyce Fienberg
Victim Joyce Fienberg, 75, a former research specialist, was survived by her two sons and grandchildren. Her husband died in 2016.
Joyce Fienberg was a research specialist at the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) from 1983 until she retired in 2008.
“My mother-in-law was one of the kindest humans I’ve ever met,” her daughter-in-law, Marnie Fienberg, told ABC News. “If you knew her for five minutes, if you knew her for 20 years, you felt exactly the same way.”
“She traveled extensively with her husband and they met people internationally — she would stay in touch with them. So there are people from 50 years ago who she met once in Australia who are her good friends,” she said. “She would stay up nights making sure everybody was staying in touch — I’ve never seen anything like it before. … I think everybody tries to do that, but she succeeds.”
Joyce Fienberg’s most important relationships were the ones she had with her six grandchildren, who range in age from 15 to 8.
“She made a point of mastering social media very early so she could stay in touch with these kids,” Marnie Fienberg said. “Each one of them had a one-on-one relationship with her. She knew what was going on in their days, she was so involved. She really was an amazing, amazing grandmother.”
Melvin Wax
Melvin Wax, 88, a retired accountant. Wax’s wife, Sandra, had died in 2016.
Bernice and Sylvan Simon
Sylvan Simon, 86, and his wife, Bernice Simon, 84, were killed in the same synagogue where they married in December 1956, The Tribune-Review reported.
“A loving couple, and they’ve been together forever,” longtime friend Michael Stepaniak told the newspaper. “I hope they didn’t suffer much, and I miss them terribly.”
“They held hands and they always smiled, and he would open the door for her,” neighbor Heather Graham told the newspaper. “They were really generous and nice to everybody.”
The couple’s front door has three stickers, according to The Tribune-Review: “Support Our Troops,” “God Bless America” and “America the Beautiful.”
Irving Younger
Irving Younger, 69, a father and grandfather, was a regular volunteer and worshiper at the synagogue, where he would come early and stay late, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he saw this gunman walk into the room where the services were and his first thought was, ‘Can I help this stranger get settled?’ Until he saw what the stranger was doing — because that’s the kind of thought that he would have,” said Schachter, the former congregation president.
(WASHINGTON) — Four months after announcing it would allow a third-gender option for U.S. citizens on their passports, the State Department said Wednesday that it has issued one.
It is the first of its kind, denoted with an ‘X,’ for non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming U.S. citizens.
The agency is still preparing to make the option widely available for passports and other documents, such as the consular report of birth abroad.
“I want to reiterate, on the occasion of this passport issuance, the Department of State’s commitment to promoting the freedom, dignity, and equality of all people — including LGBTQI+ persons,” said State Department spokesperson Ned Price in a statement. He did not specify when the passport was issued or to whom.
In June, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that Americans could choose which gender is displayed on their passports, no longer needing medical certification if their preference contradicts supporting documents such as birth certificates.
Adding a third-gender option is “technologically complex and will take time for extensive systems updates,” Blinken said at the time. Price said Wednesday the agency is still working on the issue, which they expect to be an option for all regular passport applications early next year.
“The Department also continues to work closely with other U.S. government agencies to ensure as smooth a travel experience as possible for all passport holders, regardless of their gender identity,” he added.
Advocates say harassment by immigration and travel authorities for gender non-conforming people is common. Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, praised the announcement in June.
“Inaccurate IDs open transgender people up to harassment and discrimination. Reforming U.S. passports is a common-sense way to improve the lives of transgender people,” Heng-Lehtinen said, adding accurate documents are “necessary for travel, banking, starting a new job and school.”
President Joe Biden promised these changes during his 2020 campaign.
“Transgender and non-binary people without identification documents that accurately reflect their gender identity are often exposed to harassment and violence and denied employment, housing, critical public benefits, and even the right to vote,” his campaign website said.
(LONDON) — A college at the University of Cambridge is set to return an artifact looted by British soldiers to Nigeria, in a move described as “the first institutional return of its kind.”
On Wednesday, Jesus College Cambridge will hand over a statue of a cockerel — a young rooster — to Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments. The statue is a Benin Bronze, part of a collection of artifacts stolen from the Kingdom of Benin in modern-day Nigeria by British soldiers in 1897. Many of the other Benin Bronzes are on display at the British Museum.
The return comes amid growing pressure in Western countries to return artifacts looted during colonization.
“This is an historic moment,” Sonita Alleyne, Master of Jesus College, said in a statement. “We look forward to welcoming representatives from Nigeria and Benin to the handover ceremony and to celebrating the return of this Bronze.”
“This is the right thing to do out of respect for the unique heritage and history of this artifact,” she added.
The Nigerian government has welcomed the return of the statue.
“We thank Jesus College for being a trailblazer and we look forward to a similar return of our artifacts by other institutions that are in possession of them,” Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister for Information and Culture, said in a statement.
This week, British media reported that the Nigerian government had sent a formal letter to the British Museum, which holds the largest collection of Benin Bronzes, requesting the return of the artifacts.
In France, the Quai Branly Museum is also set to return 26 Benin Bronzes, with the collection on display until the end of the month before they are sent to Nigeria. Germany is also set to return hundreds of looted artifacts to Nigeria.
“This return offers new hope for amicable resolution in cultural property ownership disputes,” Professor Abba Isa Tijani, the Director-General of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments of Nigeria, said. “We hope that it will set a precedent for others around the world who are still doubtful of this new evolving approach whereby nations and institutions agree with source nations on return without rancour.”
“On our part, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments is receiving this antiquity for the benefit of the Benin people and the people of Nigeria,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — “I’m sorry, I think my veins are camera shy,” I joked to the nurse who was having trouble finding the right place on my hand for an IV.
I was surrounded by cameras and wearing nothing but a gown and some unflattering yellow socks that all patients are required to wear at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. The awkwardness of having several people in the hospital room and the discomfort of the bone marrow donation I was about to undergo was all voluntary and for a good reason: to give a stranger a second chance at life.
Three months prior to the procedure, the Be The Match Registry, a list of millions of prospective blood stem cell and bone marrow donors operated by the Minneapolis-based National Marrow Donor Program, informed me via email that I was a potential blood stem cell match for a patient. I had been on the registry for nearly a decade and this was the third time I was a possible match for a patient, but it would be the first time I actually got to donate.
Early on, I decided to approach this experience not just as a donor but also a reporter. I’m an immigration reporter and producer for ABC News, and learning as much as I could about the donation process kept the focus off my nervousness. I learned that as a Mexican male on the registry, I was part of an astonishing minority. Latinos are severely underrepresented when it comes to bone marrow donors. Of the 9 million U.S. registered donors on the Be The Match Registry, only 13% are Latino compared to 57% who identify as white.
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tell a story about how ethnicity could play a crucial role in finding a donor, and I started thinking about who my transplant recipient would be. In order to maintain privacy, donors and recipients are kept anonymous until a year after the procedure when they have the opportunity to meet, if they both agree. To this day, I still don’t know the most basic things about my recipient. I often wonder what their name is and where they’re from. What I do know is that the patient was a young individual battling leukemia and that, as a Mexican male on the registry, I was helping to better the odds for people like them to survive a deadly disease.
Despite being sold on the idea of reporting about this experience, it was actually the death of a good friend that sealed the deal and made me go forward with the process.
I received that email from Be The Match Registry a few days after my friend and colleague, ABC News photojournalist Jim Sicile, passed away from cancer. Reeling from the death of such a lovable and caring person, I wanted to honor his legacy.
“What better way than by helping a stranger?” I asked myself.
Why ethnicity might play a role
Hispanics have a 48% chance of finding a donor on the Be The Match Registry. In other words, less than half of Hispanic patients are likely to find one. That probability is even lower for Asian or Pacific Islanders and Black or African American patients.
At the start of the vetting process, I was sent a buccal swab kit to collect cells from inside my cheek. Scientists analyze the human leukocyte antigens (HLA), which are proteins — or markers — found on the surface of most cells in the body and make up a person’s tissue type. HLA are an important part of the immune system, which uses these markers to recognize the cells that belong in the body and those that do not.
HLA tests is used to match tissues and DNA between the donor and the person receiving a bone marrow or cord blood transplant. Since these markers are inherited, patients have a higher likelihood of finding a donor that shares the same ethnic background. In some cases, donors from different backgrounds can also match.
“Your ancestors for generations and generations have gone through a lot, depending on which area of the world your ancestors are coming from,” Dr. Abeer Madbouly, principal bioinformatics scientist at the Be The Match Registry, told ABC News. “People who survive these conditions have a common agent.”
Stem cells, which are largely found in blood and bone marrow, that soft, spongy tissue in the center of certain bones, produce cells that help the body carry oxygen to organs and tissue, fight infections and stop bleeding. The majority of stem cell donations happen non-surgically through a process that collects the cells from the blood. In other cases, a patient must undergo a medical procedure under general anesthesia that harvests marrow from the hip bones.
Day of donation
I’m admittedly squeamish when it comes to needles — you couldn’t pay me to look at my arm when I’m getting a flu shot. So when I learned that my patient required a bone marrow donation, I became very nervous.
The Be The Match Registry provides a team of caseworkers to ensure that the donor’s needs are met. All expenses incurred as a result of the donation process are covered, including missed days of work. Each donor is also assigned a counselor, and mine helped calm my nerves as the date of the procedure drew near.
On the day of the donation, Dr. Wolfgang Rennert drew a picture of my pelvic bones and explained to me that a small incision would be made on each of my hips so that a thin needle could harvest the marrow.
The last thing I recall before the anesthesia worked its magic is looking around the hospital room. I thanked the doctors for their life-saving work and said a silent prayer for my recipient. It went something along the lines of: “I hope this helps you and you have a long life.”
I woke up about an hour and half later feeling some soreness in my hips. I was tired from the anesthesia but still managed to take a selfie video before falling asleep.
“I just woke up from the procedure,” I said in the video. “I’m very, very groggy but overall feeling pretty good. I’m happy, proud and hopeful for the recipient.”
I spent the night in the hospital. The next day, I interviewed Rennert about why minorities are underrepresented in bone marrow donations.
“The background of it is the sad truth that our health care system is unevenly distributed in its access to health services,” he said, “so that minority populations have less access not only as recipients but also as donors.”
Alfredo’s story
“I have a motorcycle,” Alfredo Diaz said as he tried to tickle me and climb on my shoulders. Before I could inquire further, he darted into his backyard and came riding back on a battery-powered “motorcycle.”
I had known the playful 9-year-old for less than an hour and we already had a secret handshake. Most importantly, we had a common goal for our meeting: to do an interview for ABC News at his home in Chicago and to help find him a bone marrow donor. It had been almost a month since I had donated to a different patient.
Alfredo suffers from a very rare genetic disorder called IL-10 receptor deficiency, and he is one of just 100 known cases in the United States. The illness causes severe inflammation in his gut and affects his organs, which means Alfredo’s body is unable to absorb nutrients the way healthy ones do. He has spent his life in and out of hospitals. He has an ostomy bag and eats through a feeding tube. Without a bone marrow donor, he is not expected to survive.
“We’ve been struggling since the first week he was born, and I don’t want to lose my son,” Alfredo’s mother, Natalia Torres, told ABC News. “I’ve been asking God to please help us find this matching donor for him.”
Natalia and her husband Reuben have been trying to raise awareness in the Hispanic community about the benefits of donating bone marrow. Of the 9 million U.S. registered donors on the Be The Match Registry, only 13% are Latino compared to 57% who identify as white. By building a wider network of willing donors, patients like Alfredo have a better chance at overcoming their illness.
“Our culture really isn’t educated on donating or being donors,” Alfredo’s father, Reuben Diaz, told ABC News.
My hope for my patient and Alfredo
Donating bone marrow has been the most fulfilling experience of my life. It’s also the most immersive story I’ve ever told.
I may not ever meet the recipient, but my wish for them is the same for Alfredo.
I hope one day you overcome your illness and get to witness the beauty this life has to offer. May you one day find fulfillment in an act of kindness or a silly handshake. Most importantly, may you be able to dream big and unafraid.
The storm became a “bomb cyclone” when its pressure dropped 24 mb in less than 24 hours. In Nantucket, Massachusetts, the nor’easter set a record for the lowest pressure ever recorded in October.
The heavy rain will be ending in most of the Northeast on Wednesday but the winds will continue to roar up to 60 mph from Long Island to Massachusetts to Maine. On Wednesday morning, winds gusted near 80 mph in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
More power outages are possible Wednesday in New England. By 7 p.m., wind gusts could still reach near 50 mph in Massachusetts.
(NEW YORK) — This report is a part of “Rethinking Gun Violence,” an ABC News series examining the level of gun violence in the U.S. — and what can be done about it.
Alex Schachter, a 14-year-old marching band member gunned down in the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting, would have graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School this year.
“All of Alex’s friends were able to walk across that stage,” his father, Max Schachter, told ABC News. “Since Alex wasn’t there, I did it and collected his posthumous diploma. It’s sad watching all of these kids go off and go to college and do everything that I hoped that Alex would do.”
Alexander, my sweetest little boy. I still can not believe this has happened. How? Why? I miss you every day.
The United States has over 20 million AR-15-style rifles legally in circulation, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a national trade association for the firearm industry. That accounts for a small percentage of the roughly 400 million guns in the country — but the popularity of AR-15-style rifles has been growing “exponentially” ever since the federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004, said Mark Oliva, the NSSF’s public affairs director.
Because AR-15-style rifles are so versatile, with the ability to add scopes and change both the length and size of the barrel, they became a desirable weapon for many Americans, especially people who like to hunt, ABC News contributor and former FBI agent Brad Garrett said.
But along with that rise in popularity, the use of these weapons in mass shootings is also climbing, according to Louis Klarevas, a research professor at Teachers College, Columbia University who specializes in gun violence and safety. From Sandy Hook to San Bernardino to Orlando to Las Vegas, “most of the deadly high-profile mass shootings in the past decade were perpetrated with assault weapons, particularly AR-15-style assault rifles,” Klarevas said.
The history
Sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” or “military-style rifles,” this class of firearm can encompass many different kinds of guns — not just the more well-known rifles, such as the AK and AR-15 series weapons. The term “assault weapon” generally encompasses a wide range of models, including the UZI rifle and pistol, the Beretta AR-70, the SKS rifle and more, according to the California Attorney General’s Assault Weapons Identification Guide.
AR-15 style rifles are rifles “modeled on the AR-15 platform and that fire the same caliber cartridges,” Klarevas said, such as the Smith & Wesson M&P15 and the Ruger AR-556.
Along with their use in hunting, for some Americans, AR-15-type weapons also connote patriotism, which can be traced back to the M16 military rifle that became prominent during the Vietnam War, according to Garrett.
“It didn’t hurt that Sylvester Stallone uses an assault-type weapon in ‘Rambo,'” the 1982 film about a Vietnam veteran, Garrett said.
But in 1989, an AK-47 was used to kill five children at a Stockton, California, elementary school, leading California to become the first state to enact an assault weapons ban, Klarevas said. That was followed by two other high-profile mass shootings with semiautomatic pistols — one in San Francisco and one on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train — in 1993.
Those shootings were the impetus for the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, signed into effect by President Bill Clinton in 1994, stopping the manufacture, sale, transfer and possession of these types of firearms.
The federal law led to a decrease in gun massacre incidents where six or more victims are killed, Klarevas wrote in a report he issued last year as an expert witness in a federal court case challenging California’s ban on assault weapons. When compared to data from 1984 to 1994, the U.S. saw a 43% drop in gun massacre deaths and a 26% decline in gun massacre deaths involving assault weapons in 1994 to 2004, according to his report.
The federal ban was not renewed by Congress and expired in 2004. Gun massacre incidents involving these weapons then skyrocketed from 2004 to 2014, jumping 167% compared to the 10 years the federal law was in effect, Klarevas’ report said, and active shooter incidents with different guns overall have been steadily climbing over the last two decades, according to FBI data, which does not break down murders by exact model of gun used.
While there’s no federal assault weapons ban now, Washington, D.C., and seven states — California, New Jersey, Hawaii, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York — have banned the possession of certain kinds of these firearms, and the rules vary state to state. According to Klarevas’ report, “In the past 30 years, accounting for population, states with assault weapons bans in place experienced 54% fewer gun massacres involving the use of assault weapons and 67% fewer deaths resulting from such attacks perpetrated with assault weapons.”
The pros and cons
In many rural and suburban areas, fully and semi-automatic rifles hold a practical value, such as for defending property, and a familial value, to pass down weapons to future generations, Garrett said.
AR-15-type rifles are also beloved as sporting rifles because they are accurate, versatile, light and easy to disassemble, Garrett said. They’re also simple to shoot — Garrett said anyone could be trained in a few hours.
Oliva and his wife, both Marine Corps veterans, shoot AR-15s recreationally.
“The way it’s designed, it is easily adaptable. It can fit my frame,” Oliva said, and with adjustments, “It can also fit my wife, and she can shoot that rifle just as easily.”
Oliva stressed that AR-15-style rifles are semi-automatic — and the automatic rifle he used in Iraq and Afghanistan “is not the same rifle that I have in my gun safe today.”
The rifle he carried in war was automatic and could fire three rounds without any other action, Oliva said, while the gun in his safe is semi-automatic and requires pulling the trigger every time you want to fire.
But according to Garrett, automatic and semi-automatic rifles can easily fall into the hands of those who want to commit murder.
Sometimes after a high-profile mass shooting, states will tighten up gun laws, such as by requiring background checks, reducing the sale of certain weapons or banning the sale of high-capacity magazines. But those looking to buy these items can often find another way, Garrett said.
In most states you must be 21 years old to buy a handgun from a federally licensed firearms dealer, but only need to be 18 to buy a rifle, he pointed out. That’s because, historically, rifles have been used by people in rural areas to hunt or defend property, Garrett said. But with the prevalence of private and black market sales, “none of these laws apply in reality,” he said.
Some guns are modified by bump stocks, which are used to make the weapons fire like machine guns. The perpetrator of the 2017 Las Vegas massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, used a bump stock, leading them to be banned federally in 2019.
Since 9/11, the 10 deadliest acts of intentional violence in the U.S. have all been gun massacres, according to Klarevas. Of those 10 acts, the seven most recent — including Parkland — involved what he defined as an assault weapon. The other three shootings, carried out with handguns, were the oldest, one taking place in 2007 and two others happening in 2009.
In the 1980s, less than 20% of gun massacres involved assault weapons, while in the 2010s, that number went up to 35%, Klarevas said. In the last three years, those weapons made up 67% of gun massacres, according to his report.
The push and pull over bans
When Alex was killed in Parkland, “it left a huge hole in my family that could never be replaced,” his aunt, Gail Schwartz, told ABC News. Alex would have turned 18 in July.
Schwartz, along with other family members and survivors of the Parkland and Orlando mass shootings, launched Ban Assault Weapons NOW (BAWN), a grassroots initiative aiming to ban assault weapons in Florida through legislative and electoral efforts.
BAWN first looked to bring a constitutional amendment banning assault weapons before Florida voters, and collected signatures and donations across the state, she said.
“But when we took the amendment to the Florida Supreme Court — because we need to get their approval before appearing on the ballot — the … justices rejected the amendment,” Schwartz said.
Florida’s Supreme Court rejected the proposed constitutional amendment in June 2020 on grounds that the wording was misleading, The Miami Herald reported. The ballot measure summary, which was limited to 75 words, said assault weapons lawfully possessed before the new rule would be exempt; the ballot measure’s full text said the weapons could not be transferred, the Herald reported. The majority of the justices, however, said “the summary exempts the weapon itself. So, under that theory, the weapon, if it’s registered, could be transferred to someone else,” and since the justices’ “interpretation of the summary conflicts with the full text of the amendment,” they deemed that “the measure itself is misleading,” the Herald reported.
When BAWN lobbied the Florida legislature in 2020, 52 co-sponsors signed on, accounting for 90% of the state’s Democratic legislators, she said. But no Republicans — who hold the majority in Florida’s legislature — would co-sponsor the bills, Schwartz said.
Those numbers mostly match up with how members of political parties feel about a potential ban. When split by party, 27% of Republicans support an assault weapons ban and 70% oppose, while 88% of Democrats support the idea and 11% oppose it, according to an April poll from Quinnipiac University, a nationally recognized public opinion polling center.
Overall, 52% of Americans support and 43% oppose a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons, according to the poll.
Oliva is among those against a ban.
“It’s truly heartbreaking to hear the stories” of mass shootings, Oliva said, but he added that AR-15s tend to take the blame “for the evil that the individual has committed instead of holding those individuals responsible.”
“I don’t want to take away the ability for those who choose to defend themselves with a firearm of their choosing from that choice,” Oliva said. “I think when we start to look at bans on entire classes of firearms, what you’re doing is taking a tool away from those who would choose to defend themselves.”
(SHREVEPORT, La.) — When a series of fights at a Louisiana high school resulted in nearly two dozen students getting arrested, suspended or expelled in a span of 72 hours, a group of dads stepped up to help.
The five dads, all parents of students at Southwood High School in Shreveport, met on a Sunday night to brainstorm how they could help lessen the violence at their children’s school.
“After about three hours, we came up with the idea to have us be a presence on the campus,” said Michael LaFitte Jr., who hosted the meeting at his office, told “Good Morning America.” “We thought we could be a collective unit to be able to show them that there are strong men who are on the campus.”
The dads named their group “Dad’s on Duty USA.”
For the past six weeks, they have traded shifts so members of the group are always present on the Southwood High campus.
Wearing “Dad’s on Duty” T-shirts, the dads welcome students to school, share jokes with them and offer a helping hand and listening ear, according to LaFitte, whose daughter is a junior at the high school.
“Although we’re titled ‘dad’s on duty,’ we also serve as uncle’s on duty, we serve as men of the community on duty,” he said. “Because there are some folks who don’t have a father or don’t have such a great relationship with their father, and it’s our goal to let them see what the right relationship with a male figure is supposed to look like.”
The five dads who originally started the effort, as first reported by CBS News, have more than quadrupled in number, according to LaFitte, who works with an independent security company to vet the fathers who participate.
Working in shifts, there are six to 10 dads on campus at Southwood High every day, throughout the school day. They not only have a presence on the school campus, but also at extracurricular activities like football games and a recent homecoming dance.
“Some days we have long, long days, but we will be at school no matter what,” said Zachary Johnson, who has four children at Southwood High and, like the other dads involved, also works a full-time job. “When your heart is into whatever you’re doing, you make it work.”
David Telsee III said his son, a 15-year-old sophomore, was at first not sure about the idea of seeing his dad on campus every day, but now has “warmed up to it.”
“At first, mine was like, ‘What are you doing dad?'” said Teslee, who spends around three to four hours each day on campus, split between the morning and the afternoon. “He’s starting to warm up to it now, but at first he couldn’t believe it.”
The dads’ efforts have paid off, according to Kim H. Pendleton, Ph.D., the principal of Southwood High, a public school with around 1,500 students.
Pendleton said the school faced serious gang violence at the beginning of the school year, but that has tapered off since the start of the “Dad’s on Duty” effort.
“After the fights, there was a heavy police presence at the school and the kids told me they did not like that,” said Pendleton. “The dads are from the community.”
“They care and they’re committed to being present,” she said. “The kids see them as they’re walking in in the morning. They greet the kids. They tell corny jokes. When I do my rounds to classrooms, they walk with me. They’re making sure that kids are leaving school safely. People are able to talk to them.”
With the success of their effort, the dads said they are working to expand “Dad’s on Duty” to other schools in their school district and then hope to make the effort national.
“We just want people to know that it’s possible,” said Johnson. “We went with it hoping it would make an impact on the school, and now that we see that it’s working, we want to take it to other schools.”
“We’d like this to be the same as the PTA, something that is in every school in every county,” added LaFitte.
Pendleton said the dads have helped her fulfill her mission to make sure every student on campus feels seen and heard.
“My biggest charge to kids is to find one adult that you can interact with and you can trust and you can share information with and we can help you,” said Pendleton. “I want them to find one person on campus who knows who they are, and the dads help with that.”
To her, it’s a great demonstration that it takes a team “to make sure that a school works and works well.”
(NEW YORK) — Amid a nationwide campaign to promote COVID-19 booster shots, vaccine scientists and public health experts say vaccines are still holding up remarkably well for most people — depending on how effectiveness is measured.
In fact, many scientists now worry that the recent booster shot authorization could give the false impression that existing vaccines are no longer offering protection.
“They all work well,” said Dr. Paul Goepfert, an infectious disease physician and director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic. “They aren’t perfect by any means. But if your bar is prevention of hospitalizations in the United States, they still work incredibly well.”
A vaccine’s effectiveness can be measured in several different ways. One is their ability to protect people from mild infections. When first authorized, Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines proved 95% and 94% effective using this threshold, and Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine proved 75% effective.
“No vaccine entirely prevents disease,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Even protecting from mild infections is “a high bar for a vaccine,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an FDA advisory panel member and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
And even if a vaccine achieves that high bar, t quickly starts waning. Antibodies, which protect against infection, surge after vaccination — but then rapidly fade. Other parts of the immune system, like T cells and B cells, remain more stable over time, protecting against severe disease and death.
Scientists and public health experts say what really matters is a vaccine’s ability to prevent severe illness and hospitalization. And on that metric, all three vaccines performed well from the start — each more than 90% effective — and have remained relatively stable, even through the emergence of a new delta variant
“It’s the unusual vaccine that protects you against mild illness,” Offit said. “It’s OK to get infected. It really is. You just don’t want to get seriously infected.”
A comprehensive study from New York state offers a glimpse of this phenomenon, finding that all three vaccines remained roughly 86% effective when it came to reducing the risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19 from May to August.
But over the same time frame, all three lost some ability to protect against breakthrough infection. Though vaccine efficacy started from a high point, from May to August, efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine declined by 25% to 14% depending on age, the Moderna vaccine declined 18% to 9% and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine declined 19% to 11%.
When it comes to booster shots, experts agree there are some people who clearly need them — chiefly, people with weakened immune systems and the elderly, who also mount a less robust immune response.
Today, more than 13 million people in the United States have already received a booster shot. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are authorized six months after the first shot for those 65 and older, and those at high risk of developing COVID-19. Johnson & Johnson boosters, meanwhile, are authorized for anyone at least two months after the first shot. After the Pfizer booster shots were authorized, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said it was a “walk, don’t run” situation, during a conversation with The Atlantic.
“There is no doubt that if you were to get a booster every two months or so, you may prevent all symptoms,” Durbin said. “But there’s a cost to that.”
It’s expensive, for one. And there are concerns that frequent boosting could dull the immune system’s ability to fight future variants, because the boosters could focus the immune response on the COVID-19 strain used to make the current vaccines.
Widely publicized concerns about breakthrough infections may have “focused the conversation prematurely on the need for boosters,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
“Concerns about waning immunity and breakthrough cases have likely been overblown,” Brownstein said.
And boosters for the vaccinated — while offering a temporary shield against mild infection — are unlikely to dramatically turn the tide of the pandemic.
“Boosting is not going to be what’s going to be the issue for us as a country,” said Goepfert. “It’s finding the people who are still unvaccinated.”
(NEW YORK) — The travel industry is gearing up for what could be its busiest season since the coronavirus pandemic began, and at least one U.S. airline is aiming to make things quicker and easier — one face at a time.
Delta Air Lines is just days away from launching a first-of-its-kind pilot program that will implement facial recognition technology at two of America’s largest airports — in Atlanta and Detroit.
The Atlanta-based company partnered with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to create a completely touchless experience, from bag drop to security to boarding.
“So is this the future of flying?” asked ABC News transportation correspondent Gio Benitez.
“This is the future in so many ways,” replied Ranjan Goswami, Delta’s senior vice president of customer experience. “Basically, we want to make the airport experience as effortless as possible. What does that mean? Getting out of lines, not having to stop discombobulated.”
To participate in the voluntary pilot program, passengers must have TSA pre-check and be a member of Delta’s loyalty program.
When participating passengers arrive at the airport’s bag drop, TSA checkpoint or boarding gate, they will just need to lower their face mask to utilize the new technology. Their face will be recognized within seconds, and there will be no need to pull out a boarding pass or record locator.
Delta has previously used similar facial recognition technology for passengers to board some international flights.
And it’s not just Delta.
American Airlines started testing its own biometric screening for boarding in March, and that system is still being tested in Dallas.
“A lot of people may be wondering: ‘Wait a minute, what’s going to happen to my photo?'” Benitez asked. “‘Is Delta going to keep my information?'”
“It’s a very valid concern,” Goswami said. “First, we are not storing any photographic imagery at all. All we do is take your photo. And because you’ve uploaded your passport number as part of your Delta profile… we take that passport number and that picture. We just check it against the customs database from your passport photo.”
With Delta expecting more than 5.5 million travelers over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, the pilot program will come at the perfect time.
“It’s actually a good congruence of circumstances that we have this technology ready,” said Byron Merritt, Delta’s vice president of experience design. “We’re going to be able to bring it to life before the holidays and hopefully make a better experience for our customers as they come back.”
