(WASHINGTON) — The House on Tuesday passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act legislation that aims to strengthen a key component of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 after it was weakened by two Supreme Court decisions.
The legislation, named after the late civil rights icon, passed the House with a final vote of 219- 212. There was no Republican support.
HR 4 would restore the pre-clearance formula from the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a key provision that mandated federal review of local election laws and states with a history of voter discrimination, was removed after Shelby County, Alabama, filed a lawsuit in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court ruled that requiring states to seek approval from the Department of Justice prior to changing voting procedures was unconstitutional.
With at least 17 Republican-led state legislatures passing voting restrictions recently, Democrats and voting-rights advocates said the bill will ensure ballot access for minority voters.
“It is unpatriotic to undermine the ability of people, who have the right to vote and to have access to the polls. As John knew, this precious pillar of our democracy is under attack from what is the worst voter suppression campaign in America since Jim Crow. Unleashed by the dangerous Shelby v. Holder as mentioned in 2013, in 2021 state lawmakers have introduced over 400 suppression bills,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a debate on the House floor.
House Republicans blasted the bill as a “federal takeover of elections” and a “power grab” by Democrats who would undermine the state election process.
Alabama Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, who authored the bill, told reporters that federal intervention is necessary to combat what Democrats describe as voter suppression across the country.
“Old battles have become new again,” Sewell said in a joint presser with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, and Democratic state lawmakers from Texas who have remained in the nation’s capital after “fleeing” their home state to break quorum over six weeks ago to prevent a new state election law.
“When we see states running amuck, we need federal oversight. If it wasn’t for federal oversight, we not only would not have gotten the Voting Rights Act, we wouldn’t have gotten the Civil Rights Act. After the Shelby v. Holder decision, we saw states like North Carolina and Texas reinstate restrictive voting laws and those voting laws are suppressive, oppressive, and depressive. They stop the people who need to vote from voting,” Sewell said Tuesday.
The House passed an older version of the voting rights act last year following the death of Lewis, but it ultimately stalled. The bill now faces a similar uphill battle this year as it moves to the Senate, where there is strong Republican opposition in the evenly divided body.
(Reno, Nev.) — Smoke from the raging wildfires in the West Coast was so severe that it created an air quality alert as far as Reno, Nevada, on Tuesday.
Several Nevada counties reported their worst recorded air quality index numbers in the two decades they’ve been monitoring air quality.
Washoe County, which includes Reno, recorded a high of 291 AQI Tuesday, according to the Washoe County Air Quality Management Division.
To get an idea of what Reno/Sparks looks like right now compared to one of the cleaner days in the last month.
Left is the current view from @NWSReno‘s webcam (AirNow NowCast AQI of 289) w/ #CaldorFire smoke
The agency noted that the levels of fine particle matter, PM, was dangerously high.
“With a new record set, the top 10 worst PM2.5 daily average AQIs have now all occurred within the last 11 months. We also set a record for the worst PM10 day as well with an AQI of 183,” the agency tweeted.
The poor air quality resulted in the closure of schools in several Nevada counties and Lake Tahoe Community College Tuesday. Clark County, Nevada, issued an air health advisory and urged people to stay indoors and close their windows.
The smoke has been an ongoing problem for the West Coast as several wildfires are burning in California. The Caldor Fire, which Washoe County AQMD said is the cause of its poor air quality, has burned 117,704 acres and was only 9% contained as of Tuesday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
(HONOLULU) — Many local Hawaiians have been asking tourists to stop visiting the islands during the pandemic, and the governor is now echoing their calls.
“It is a risky time to be traveling right now,” Gov. David Ige said at a press conference on Monday. “We know that the visitors who choose to come to the islands will not have the typical kind of holiday that they expect to get when they visit Hawaii.”
The delta variant is ravaging Hawaii, with the state having more confirmed cases than at any point in the pandemic. Averaging more than 700 cases a day, according to Johns Hopkins University & Medicine, roughly 72% of the state’s hospital beds are full.
Despite the growing number of cases across the country, particularly in areas with low vaccination rates, tourism is quickly matching pre-pandemic levels. In June 2019, there were 277,930 daily visitors on average, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority. In June 2021, that figure was back up to 255,936.
Only about 62% of Hawaiians are fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins, creating a growing risk for those who remain unvaccinated as tourism ramps back up.
Hawaii Tourism Authority President and CEO John De Fries told ABC News that the visitor experience to the state will not be the same. Restrictions are in place that reduce restaurant capacity, and many events or venues are simply closed.
However, De Fries added, although tourism in Hawaii tends to slow toward the end of the summer anyway, residents have said for quite some time that wide-reaching tourism has been a danger to locals.
“During our lockdown in 2020, we were able to see what Hawaii was like without tourists and we realized the adverse impacts that tourism is having on our islands,” said Healani Sonoda-Pale, a spokesperson for the local advocacy group Ka Lahui Hawaii. “When tourism came back, it came back with a vengeance.”
During the lockdown, Sonoda-Pale and other Hawaiians enjoyed empty beaches, emptier streets, short lines at grocery stores and the comfort of knowing that delicate ecosystems were safer. Tourism was taking a toll on the natural environment and the well-being of locals and native Hawaiians, according to the HTA.
But when the islands began to loosen restrictions during the summer, coronavirus cases began to climb, and endangered animals quickly became playthings for tourists.
The island has had to increase the patrolling of Turtle Beach, where sea turtles were being harassed by hundreds of tourists, and one visitor was fined $500 for touching endangered monk seals, as more videos of tourists posing with the Hawaiian animals has gone.
“They don’t come here with any kind of respect or idea of some of the things that they’re doing are actually hurting our environment, or hurting our communities and hurting the residents and the Kanaka Maoli people here,” Sonoda-Pale said.
However, tourism doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon — it’s the largest source of private capital for the Hawaiian economy, according to the HTA. But Sonoda-Pale said the pandemic is a perfect time to reimagine the community’s relationship to tourism.
Before the pandemic, which highlighted the island’s alarming reliance on tourism, De Fries said the HTA has been attempting to make moves toward educating visitors on the culture and the treatment of the land and people.
“Malama means ‘to care for, to protect, to nurture,'” said De Fries. “If you care about Hawaii, when you travel here, you must understand the ways in which we Malama. There’s a heightened level of visitor awareness and appreciation and sensitivity that we are committed to sharing with the visitor.”
(WASHINGTON) — The clock is ticking for thousands of Americans and allies trapped in Afghanistan, with an evacuation deadline in exactly one week.
Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Farrell J. Sullivan, one of the two American generals in charge of the operation to evacuate American citizens and Afghans, said they’d “get as many out as we possibly can with the time we have available.”
Sullivan and U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne, spoke with ABC News’ Ian Pannell in an exclusive interview at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport about the evacuations taking place there.
Both Donahue and Sullivan have served multiple tours in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, but in the wake of the Taliban retaking control of the country, Sullivan acknowledged that his Marines are managing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
“I think whether you’re in a combat situation or a humanitarian operation, the human element is always there,” Sullivan said. “But this event is an unprecedented event. I have my years of deploy[ment] into combat and to other crisis areas… I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, approximately 70,000 people have been evacuated from Kabul since Aug. 14, when the Taliban took control of the government, according to President Joe Biden.
More than 33,000 people had been flown out in a 36 hour period, Biden said, showing how much the operation to evacuate American citizens and Afghans has ramped up in recent days.
Although the world has watched disturbing images of crowds beaten back by Taliban fighters and crowds clamoring outside the walls of Hamid Karzai Airport, desperate to evacuate, Donahue says the U.S. has prepared extensively for such a situation.
“That’s the reason why the 82nd Airborne Division exists. … We exist to come in and create the order out of the chaos that you’re seeing happening right now,” he said. “What has been accomplished so far, it’s remarkable. … You’re seeing things stabilize here in the process of getting our citizens and other citizens out — [it all] is going much better.”
Officials have not given an exact number of Americans who still need to be evacuated, only saying that there are “thousands.” ABC News has learned that as of Tuesday 5,100 American citizens had been evacuated.
Donahue says the pace of evacuations from Kabul has improved since the country’s fall 10 days ago and that it continues to optimize as the deadline approaches.
“Each day, we’re coming up with new and innovative ways to bring people in and we are doing better and better each day,” he said.
Taliban leaders have said that Aug. 31 is a “red line” for troops to leave and doubled down Tuesday, saying they will reject any U.S. military presence or evacuations past the end of the month.
Biden announced Tuesday afternoon that the evacuation mission would end on that day as well, although he said he’d ask for contingency plans if it needed to be extended by a short time.
His announcement followed a virtual meeting with G-7 partners who had pressured him to extend the deadline.
Biden had previously said that U.S. troops would stay until every American and Afghan special immigrant visa applicant has been evacuated. But he ultimately decided to stick with the Aug. 31 deadline, U.S. officials told ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz.
Only one week remains before the deadline.
“This is a 24/7 operation,” Sullivan said. “In terms of the numbers we have gotten out thus far, the numbers we’ve gotten out are unprecedented as well, so I’m confident we will get out as many as we possibly can with the time that we’re provided.”
He added that they constantly learning about their security and risk and that they will continue to evacuate people safely as possible. He said he anticipates their risk will only rise, especially with regard to helicopter rescue missions outside of Hamid Karzai Airport.
“Clearly we’re going to go out and we’re going to bring our citizens back in and citizens of other nations,” Donahue said. “I’m not going to get into operational matters, but we have a task here [to] safely and quickly get our citizens and other citizens of other nations out.”
Sullivan and Donahue agreed that they remain laser-focused on getting as many people out of the country as possible.
“You can see it on the faces of those Americans, third-country nationals, those that are American Afghans or interpreters or whatnot, as they’re going through the terminal about to get on to an airplane, the relief, the thankfulness on their faces and that of their families,” Sullivan said. “It makes it all worth it in the end.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court Tuesday night rejected an effort by the Biden administration to formally discontinue the Trump administration’s controversial 2018 policy forcing asylum seekers along the southern U.S. border to remain in Mexico while awaiting a hearing on their claims.
In a single-page order, the court sided with Texas and a group of Republican-led states which claimed President Joe Biden did not lawfully cancel the policy and in so doing encouraged the record surge of migrants seen in recent months.
The vote was 6-3, pitting the court’s conservative majority against three liberal dissenters, Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The court’s majority said the administration “failed to show a likelihood of success” for its argument that a Department of Homeland Security memorandum rescinding the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious.
Earlier Tuesday, the administration told the court that forcing them to reinstate the MPP policy “would intrude on the Executive’s immigration-enforcement and foreign-affairs authorities by disrupting border operations, diverting scarce resources from other urgent priorities, and intruding into the nation’s relations with Mexico and other foreign partners.”
Those arguments failed to persuade the court’s conservatives, who similarly blocked several administrative policy changes sought by the Trump White House which were deemed to run afoul of federal law requiring that agencies provide public notice, accept input and consider the ramifications of an executive decision before completing it.
This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Ellie Zeiler is known by her 10 million TikTok followers for her fashion hauls, beauty hacks and viral dance videos.
Although her feed often includes endorsements for major brands, her latest partnership came from the U.S. government, which asked her for help encouraging people to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
“They said they were starting this whole process of reaching out to influencers — people who were in the public eye … really wanting to stop these rumors and get the word out about the vaccine,” Zeiler told ABC News.
The 17-year-old, who was vaccinated in May, has continued to share her experience of getting the shot in an effort to ease the concerns of other young Americans, which are the least-vaccinated age group in the country.
“I feel great after. I feel like I have this armor around me,” she said. “I had no side effects.”
With the highly contagious delta variant continuing to impact communities and many children already beginning school, there is now a race to inoculate America’s youth.
Youth aged 12 to 15, 16 to17, and 18 to 24 have only 33.9%, 44% and 46.5% of their age group vaccinated, respectively, according to the CDC. Ages 25-39 have 50.8% of their demographic vaccinated.
President Joe Biden’s administration is reaching young people through their smartphones. They’ve enlisted some of the generation’s social media icons, like Olivia Rodrigo and Benny Drama to help get the word out.
Influencers like Zeiler are now helping inform the country about the realities of the vaccine.
“I think that that’s just the impact of social media — that anyone can do it — which is very, very special,” Zeiler said.
They aren’t just promoting vaccines, but fighting a growing tide of vaccine misinformation and unfounded conspiracies that have run rampant on social media.
“I was used to, in the beginning of the pandemic … being a friend for these people that followed me … giving them advice on whether it be fashion or friends or people … to [now, I] actually give them useful and straight up factual advice,” she said.
In an effort to encourage the vaccine and dispel misinformation, the Biden administration has organized interviews between Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the president, and a plethora of creators across social media platforms.
Many creators often rely on paid posts for their income, but many of those who have been working directly with the White House on the vaccine push are doing it for free.
“They’re doing it because they believe in it,” Taylor Lorenz, a tech reporter for The New York Times, said.
However, it can’t be forgotten that “promoting vaccination and working with the White House is a status symbol,” Lorenz said. “Dr. Fauci is a hugely viral figure. And by the way, you know, doing an interview with Dr. Fauci, that generates enormous engagement on their social channels. So these influencers are getting a lot from the deal, even if it’s not direct payment.”
This is not the first time the government has tapped digital creators to get messaging out.
“It didn’t surprise me,” Lorenz told ABC News. “Obama actually leveraged YouTube to promote the Affordable Care Act and encourage people to enroll in their health care program back in the mid-2010s and, obviously, Trump also leveraged influencers. He had very high-profile meme accounts. … This is kind of becoming more and more of a trend among politicians, I think, as they recognize that the media environment has shifted and these influencers are undeniably impactful.”
This trend among politicians has given way for a new generation of creators to organize.
Aidan Kohn-Murphy founded Gen-Z For Change, one of the organizations that Biden’s administration collaborated with to promote the vaccine.
The group has most recently been partnering with MadeToSave, an organization helping share information about the vaccine, the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services and the White House to combat misinformation and promote vaccination efforts.
Gen-Z For Change is an organization of over 500 creators, who have a combined following of about 432 million people and garner a total of 1.5 billion views a month.
Their efforts have gotten over 27.5 million views on COVID-19 related videos since the start of the pandemic.
“These numbers are huge, and I think for a long time, adults really struggled to contextualize them,” Kohn-Murphy told ABC News. “I think adults are realizing that these numbers … are actual things that you can put into action.”
Gen-Z For Change’s coalition of creators ranges from dancers to comedians to activists.
Missouri-based TikToker Alaysia Brandy, who goes by “Laysie B” online, has over 1.5 million followers. She began her online activism speaking out about social justice issues related to Black and LGBT communities. As the vaccine rolled out, she made it a point to ask Fauci about her community’s vaccination concerns.
“I know people do not trust the government,” she said, adding that she understands why there would be mistrust given the abuse that Black people have faced in the U.S.
“I understand the hesitation… But I also want to make sure that they are getting the research themselves and making sure they have reliable sources … even when I speak on these issues, I also leave [hyper]links in ways that you can go look at it yourself and see this information yourself.”
Brandy said she hopes to bridge the information gap that has resulted in concerns about getting the shot throughout communities of color. In her home state, fewer than 50% of the total population is fully vaccinated and only 28% of the Black community is part of that group.
“In my videos, I do speak in English and Spanish and make sure I have subtitles just because I want to reach the largest audience possible,” Brandy told ABC News. “And I want to make sure that you understand, like I completely understand where you’re coming from, and I’m not trying to make you feel any less than whatsoever. But I want to talk about this and I want to understand your concerns.”
She said she wants to make sure she addresses all the reasons someone might be wary of the vaccine.
“You can’t lump people in who are distrusting of the government because we have been treated so poorly our entire existence in this country, versus people who just don’t believe in science — because that’s two completely different groups,” Brandy said.
“It is definitely very hard to navigate,” she added. “But when it comes to people saying … ‘The vaccine is going to microchip you’ … you just want to immediately knock down and debunk the stuff that’s disinformation. … Let’s stop the fear mongering so they can actually address the real concerns.”
Lorenz pointed out, however, that the misinformation is only one part of the problem. She said there are influencers who also promote fallacies.
“The campaign is up against a huge tsunami of misinformation on social media. So you have people that are also influencers. They’re solely anti-vax influencers,” Lorenz said. “You have tons of other lifestyle influencers and other people who are promoting just absolute lies. … I mean, it’s actually shocking that people believe some of this stuff.”
She said that seemingly minor inaccuracies like explaining things out of context “can plant a seed of doubt in peoples’ minds, priming them for “absolutely crazy disinformation.” Gen-Z For Change makes it a point to coach its creators about different types of misinformation online. Kohn-Murphy said he brought misinformation and disinformation specialists to the organization, who taught them about the value of a “truth sandwich.”
“[It’s] kind of coming in with a very empathetic approach, explaining a little bit of the truth behind the vaccine and then kind of dislodging the rumors and the misinformation that the person might believe without making them feel small, because nobody ever wants to be told that they’re wrong,” Kohn-Murphy explained. “Then closing out with, again, an empathetic approach and linking them to sources where they can do their own research.”
Each creator that ABC News spoke to noted that some of the inaccuracies they saw online came from their followers’ own parents. Zeiler described this reality as “frustrating.”
“It kind of transferred over [from] what parents wanted, and what adults wanted, which I think [is] why the marketing strategy with the White House was so crucial and so important,” Zeiler said. “Now, I see my friends and people on TikTok who are scrolling through, and they get to be educated themselves before having … past thoughts about the vaccine that their parents created for them, and they get to make their own narrative.”
Brandy said that some of her followers are minors with anti-vax parents who still want to get the vaccine. She said they’ve had to try and convince their parents. “Just talking about how you can help your parents find this information on their own so that they receive it and being able to try to help ease their tensions,” she said.
Experts say it is an uphill battle for these creators. A study published in July by UC San Francisco researchers found that about one in four unvaccinated people aged 18 to 25 said that they “probably will not” or “definitely will not” get the COVID-19 vaccination.
Lorenz said pro-vaccine campaigns do well and can reach millions. However, she said “it’s no match for the stuff that Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok has allowed to spread rampantly for years.”
“They’re up against this very coordinated disinformation network,” she added. “It’s very hard. I think it might just be a drop in the bucket in the end. That’s not to say that it’s not worth doing, but that is all they have control over.”
Kohn-Murphy, on the other hand, believes that if they’re convincing “one person to get vaccinated” or “debunking one person’s misinformed belief” or helping one kid gather the courage to talk to their parents about getting vaccinated, then they’re successful.
A year from now, Brandy said she hopes the pandemic is a thing of the past. She said she wants to do whatever is necessary to make that happen.
“It’s definitely a motivation factor in constantly keeping a fire under me to make sure that I’m doing my part and using my platform and my voice to get that information out there to the audience,” she said.
Zeiler, meanwhile, expressed hope and purpose in the work that she’s been doing.
“I hope that I’m helping, especially when I get that one-on-one interaction where [someone tells me], ‘I got my first shot of the vaccine today because I saw your video,’ or, ‘Because I saw you,’ which is so crazy to say out loud,” she said. “But that is what makes me continue [to] want to do it.”
(NEW YORK) — Det. Brittney Hilton had no idea she had just been shot. All she said she felt at first was an incredible amount of pain, and a “very sick feeling.”
“I was cold at some points, shaking. The fear kind of takes over, the adrenaline takes over,” Hilton told ABC News. “I just said, ‘Am I going to die?’”
“I said, ‘Please just tell my kids that I love them and don’t let them find out on social media that I’ve been shot,’” she continued. “I didn’t know if I was going to make it to the hospital.”
Hilton, a mom of three who has been with the Bridge City, Texas, Police Department for 11 years, said the bullet came within one millimeter — the edge of a penny — from killing her.
But what Hilton said she also didn’t realize at first was that the bullet had come from her own service gun, a semi-automatic pistol called the P320. It was still holstered inside her purse, according to the police report.
Hilton is now suing gunmaker Sig Sauer over the December 2020 incident.
“Never, in my wildest dreams, would I have believed that my gun would just have shot me,” she said. “Gun owners don’t want to think that their gun can just go off without the trigger being pulled.”
Sig Sauer’s P320 is widely used by police departments across the country, and is a big seller in the civilian market, with about half a million sold nationwide.
But now, P320 is the subject of multiple lawsuits in connection with incidents like Hilton’s, where owners claim the weapon fired without the trigger being pulled.
Hilton said she was inside the Bridge City Police station when her gun went off. She still has the purse with the bullet hole in the bottom.
“I picked up my bag, my keys were on top,” she said. “As I walked around my desk, my purse swings out and it shoots out the bottom of my bag.”
It happened so fast, Hilton said, that she didn’t process what was going on at first, but she smelled the gunpowder.
“And then I took one step, and I felt this pain. It felt like a hot rod of metal had just been placed not only in my private, but through my leg,” she said. “and it [the bullet] exits out [of] my lower buttocks.”
Hilton said she still has pain from her injury.
“There’s never a point that I’m really not in pain unless I’m laying down,” she said.
Attorney Jeffrey Bagnell represents Hilton and several other police officers who have filed individual lawsuits against Sig Sauer over the P320.
“I think it’s a very, very serious safety problem for law enforcement and for the public at large,” Bagnell said. “I’m not aware of any other semi-automatic pistol today that has this problem.”
Hilton’s $15 million lawsuit said, “there have been 54 reported uncommanded discharges of the P320,” meaning the gun went off by itself, over the last five years in 22 states and Washington, D.C.
Sig Sauer did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment. The gunmaker has previously denied liability for these incidents and, in some cases, blamed the plaintiffs for negligence. The gunmaker said in an August 2017 press release that “the P320 meets and exceeds all U.S. standards for safety.”
After Hilton’s incident, the Bridge City Police Department had Sig Sauer examine the gun. In Sig Sauer’s response to the Bridge City Police Department after Hilton’s incident, the company contends that “a foreign object entered the trigger guard (causing) the pistol to discharge.”
Hilton disputes that, saying the gun was holstered in her purse and that it would be near impossible for something to wedge inside the holster and be enough to pull the trigger.
“I’m very pro-gun,” Hilton said. “But this gun is so dangerous, and it just scares me that there are so many out there that don’t know the potential it has to go off.”
There are currently 10 pending lawsuits against Sig Sauer for this particular firearm, all alleging the gun went off on its own. A number of those suing the gunmaker said they are in law enforcement with extensive firearms experience.
“It’s not credible to claim that people with this amount of training, this amount of skill are all shooting themselves,” Bagnell said. “These are experts. It’s happening all over the country. … you would have to conclude there’s a problem with the product, not with the people.”
Virginia Sheriff’s Deputy Marcie Vadnais was injured in 2018 when she said her P320 handgun went off on its own as she was removing the weapon from her belt, still in its holster. She said the bullet hit her in the thigh and shattered her femur.
Sig Sauer settled her lawsuit, without admitting wrongdoing, for an undisclosed amount of money the day after the jury heard Vadnais testify at the start of the trial.
Vadnais said she wants the gun off the market.
“I saw what it did to me. I saw what it did to my family. And I don’t want that to happen to anybody else,” she said.
Bagnell said he’s been pressing Sig Sauer to recall the P320 for years, noting that firearms are not subject to any federal safety regulations.
“If this were a car, a phone, a refrigerator, it would’ve been recalled long, long ago,” Bagnell said. “So I think it is unconscionable, given the number of incidents of this gun defectively discharging without a trigger pull would necessitate that someone order it to be recalled, and only Sig can do that.”
While Sig Sauer has continued to dispute that there is anything wrong with the P320, the company offered what it called a “voluntary upgrade” in 2017, saying, “the upgraded P320 has lighter internal components, including a new thinner-profile trigger and a lighter sear and striker. These upgrades will enhance the protection against unintended discharges if the pistol is dropped.”
Then the gunmaker began manufacturing all P320s with the upgrade.
Vadnais’ P320 handgun was not the upgraded version, however, Hilton’s P320 was the upgraded version and her lawyer is convinced the modifications have not fixed the problem.
“The defect has not been addressed,” said Bagnell.
Peter Villani is a veteran police officer with 35 years of experience, including as a firearms instructor and a Sig Sauer-certified armorer — someone who is certified to repair and inspect a firearm — of the P320. He said he believes there are design flaws and manufacturing issues with the firearm.
“I carry Sig. I own Sig. I just don’t own a [P]320, nor would I ever,” he told ABC News, referring to all models of the P320 pistol, including the upgraded version.
Villani, who is an expert witness for Hilton in her lawsuit, said he began investigating the P320 after an officer in his police department was injured by an upgraded version of the gun.
He also referred to body camera footage captured in 2016 that shows an officer’s P320 firing as he was getting out of his cruiser during a traffic stop.
“Something hit my leg,” the officer can be heard saying on the video. “I don’t know if I’m shot or what… I just for the life of me can’t figure out how that went off.”
A second officer whose body camera captured the incident responded: “Yeah, because there’s no– your seat belt wouldn’t have–“
“No, the trigger was completely covered,” the first officer said. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know… I’m glad you’re my witness.”
“When I see videos of police officers getting out of their car and their weapon discharges in their holsters … There’s a problem with the gun,” Villani said.
Firearms expert and ABC News consultant Joshua Harrison agrees there was a problem with the P320, but he believes it’s been fixed.
“There were a lot of changes. It was expensive, and they would not have done that for no reason at all,” Harrison told ABC News. “In my opinion, the only reason Sig would have done that is if they knew there was a safety problem with the original gun, otherwise they would not have done it.”
Harrison said if indeed there are cases of the upgraded versions of the gun firing on their own, it is unclear what would be causing them to do so.
“I have not seen enough to convince me that the upgraded version’s dangerous,” Harrison said. “I do not have an explanation for why the updated version should have these complaints from trained individuals. If it’s not legal momentum, then it would have to be some other mechanism of failure.”
Still, there are at least two police departments that had safety concerns about the P320 and replaced it with a different gun.
In Philadelphia, the transit police SEPTA swapped out its P320s for Glocks after one of its officers had a P320 go off unexpectedly in 2019. The bullet in that case narrowly missed the officer and a woman nearby.
In Stamford, Connecticut, an officer sued Sig Sauer after he says he dropped his P320 and it shot him in the knee. That department replaced all P320s in 2017.
Hilton said her department in Bridge City is ordering new guns, but in the meantime, many of its officers still carry the modified version of the P320 pistol.
“I have a lot of anxiety every day [over this],” Hilton said. “The fact that I carried my purse into my house every single day and my children were at home … Sig put their life at risk. Sig knows they put their life at risk.”
She said she continues to live with the physical and emotional scars from her incident.
“I think that this gun needs to be removed from the shelf,” Hilton said. “I hope it doesn’t take something fatal, and I’m hoping by bringing awareness to the public that maybe it’ll bring attention to Sig to say, ‘Hey, this gun’s an issue, and before it gets someone killed, take it off the shelf. Stop manufacturing this gun. Find a different solution.’”
(NEW YORK) — Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has died at the age of 80.
A spokesperson for the musician confirmed the news of his death on Tuesday.
‘’It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Charlie Watts,” the statement read. “He passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier today surrounded by his family.”
“Charlie was a cherished husband, father and grandfather and also as a member of The Rolling Stones one of the greatest drummers of his generation,” the statement continued. “We kindly request that the privacy of his family, band members and close friends is respected at this difficult time.’’
The Stones announced earlier this month that Watts likely wouldn’t be able to join the band when it kicked off its 2021 “No Filter Tour” of North America.
Fans were told he was recovering from an unspecified medical procedure.
Watts released a statement at the time about his absence from the tour: “For once my timing has been a little off. I am working hard to get fully fit but I have today accepted on the advice of the experts that this will take a while. After all the fans’ suffering caused by Covid I really do not want the many RS fans who have been holding tickets for this Tour to be disappointed by another postponement or cancellation. I have therefore asked my great friend Steve Jordan to stand in for me.”
A longtime jazz aficionado, Watts developed a rock-steady style and swing that was the perfect complement to The Stones’ blues and R&B-influenced rock.
Other than frontman Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, Charlie was the only member of the band to appear on every Rolling Stones album.
Here’s just a small sampling of the classic Stones hits featuring Watts: “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Paint It, Black,” “Ruby Tuesday,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Brown Sugar,” “Angie,” “Miss You” and “Start Me Up.”
Watts was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Rolling Stones in 1989.
Outside of the band, Watts has released albums with various jazz, blues and boogie woogie groups, including Rocket 88, The Charlie Watts Orchestra, The Charlie Watts Quintet, The Charlie Watts Tentet and The ABC&D of Boogie Woogie.
In addition to his drumming skills, Watts was known for being a stylish dresser who enjoyed wearing tasteful suits. In 2006, he was chosen for Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed Hall of Fame List.
Contrary to The Rolling Stones’ bad boy image, Watts was a devoted husband who was married to his wife, Shirley, for over 56 years. The couple have one daughter, Seraphina, born in 1968.
In 2004, Watts was diagnosed with throat cancer, but after receiving radiotherapy treatment, the disease went into remission.
In a 2008 video interview posted on The Stones’ YouTube channel, Charlie reflected on his drumming style, noting, “My thing, whenever I play, is to make it a dance sound. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a blues or whatever, it should swing and bounce.”
Richards was one of the most passionate and vocal fans of Watts’ drumming. In a 2019 interview with U.K. newspaper The Sun, Richards gushed, “He’s absolutely amazing. It’s indescribable to find a drummer like Charlie Watts, exceptionally brilliant.”
(NEW YORK) — Two grandparents with one great love story celebrated 59 years of marriage by recreating their wedding day — complete with the bride’s original dress.
When Karen and Gary Ryan, both 79, got married in July of 1962 in Pocatello, Idaho, they said their wedding day looked very different to the ones we’re used to seeing today.
“It was so simple,” Karen told Good Morning America. “We went down the aisle, said our vows and went to the basement of our church for the reception.”
“I think we had punch and cookies. It was all over within an hour,” added Gary, who now has two sons and five grandchildren with Karen.
The couple’s daughter-in-law, Nikki, and granddaughter, McCall, each have their own wedding photography business and came up with the idea to stage a wedding photo shoot after the family found Karen’s wedding dress in storage at their current home in Handford, California.
The family was shocked when the wedding dress still fit her perfectly.
“I was really excited, but I just I couldn’t believe what was happening,” Karen said.
And after recent heart trouble for Gary, including a surgery this year to put in another stent, Nikki admitted they “didn’t think he was going to make it.” But after nursing him back to health, the family was determined to make every moment together count.
They still kiss every day, they still hug every day, they still tell each other ‘I love you’ every day, so it’s just really special.
“He’s on oxygen now, so he was really not doing very well the last few months, so we’re like, ‘If we could do this for their anniversary, and he can walk outside, then it’s going to be awesome.'”
The Ryans rented Gary a white tux to match the one he wore in 1962 and spent an hour one afternoon snapping photos of the couple and recreating special details from their original wedding day — and adding some modern traditions.
The couple did a “first look” during the shoot where Karen surprised Gary in her dress for the first time in nearly six decades.
“It was really emotional,” Gary said, adding: “She still looks pretty hot.”
The pair popped champagne and fed each other cake, true to their original reception all those years ago. Karen even wore the veil garter that came with her wedding dress.
“Just looking at the two photos, like that was them 60 years ago, and this is them now and they’re still just as in love. They just have so much fun together, always laughing, and they are such a solid team,” granddaughter McCall said.
The Ryans said one difference between weddings then and now is the price tag. The couple estimated their 1962 nuptials cost $500, a far cry from The Knot’s average 2019 wedding cost of $23,000.
“They spent $500 and they are still happy and in love,” said McCall.
“They still kiss every day, they still hug every day, they still tell each other ‘I love you’ every day so it’s just really special,” Nikki added.
Their biggest advice to other couples is to “just don’t take anything too seriously, unless it is serious. Just have fun in life.
(NEW YORK) — Laverne Cox is opening up to fans about her decision not to have children.
Taking to Instagram on Monday, the Emmy nominated actress made it clear that she isn’t interested in raising children because she is still working on herself.
“I see so many friends and colleagues becoming parents. I’m happy for all of you,” said Cox, 49, in a black and white text post. “I’m even happier for me, ecstatic even that I am NOT becoming a parent ever, never ever.”
She declared, “The thought brings me so much joy!”
“Enjoy the most important job on the planet, raising children. I’m enjoying watching you from a distance,” the “Promising Young Woman” star explained.
She said she is “doing the work of reparenting” her “inner child,” which she said is “more than enough work.”
Cox captioned the announcement, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”
Many of the actress’ fans and followers took to the comments to praise her honesty. Many also said they related to not wanting children and commended her for publicly stating it.
