(NEW YORK) — In reassuring news for the more than 12 million Americans vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson, a new study indicates the single-shot vaccine will likely offer good protection against the delta variant, according to the company.
The highly transmissible delta variant is now predicted to become the dominant strain in the United States.
The findings are preliminary but promising. In a laboratory experiment, researchers analyzed the blood of 10 people who had been vaccinated with the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and tested it against multiple concerning variants, including delta.
They found that the vaccine appeared to work against new variants, as indicated by so-called “neutralizing antibody titers” and other indications of immune system response.
Prior data has indicated that other vaccines, including those made by Pfizer and Moderna, are likely to hold up against the delta variant. But some experts worried the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which unlike the others, only includes one dose, might not fare as well.
“I would say it’s reassuring,” Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who helped lead the research, told ABC News. “We found the J&J vaccine induces neutralizing antibodies.”
In fact, Barouch said another reassuring finding of the study was that people vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson shot appeared to have a strong immune system response up to eight months later.
“We saw surprisingly good durability of responses,” Barouch said. “We followed these individuals for eight months, and over eight months, the antibody and T cell responses were very stable.”
A growing body of evidence suggests that COVID-19 vaccines may offer longer-lasting protection than some scientists initially anticipated. That’s because other parts of the immune system, cells called memory B cells, continue to mature over time, and retain their ability to fight infection.
Barouch cautioned there are limitations to this research, which offers researchers helpful clues from laboratory experiments rather than real-world evidence from thousands of people.
“Our findings show that a single shot of the J&J vaccine raises robust neutralizing antibody levels against the delta variant. Our study does not show clinical protection,” he said.
But for those who were vaccinated with the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, this study is a reassuring indication that the vaccine is likely to work just as well against the delta variant as it does for other circulating variants.
(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland has ordered a temporary halt to the Justice Department advocating any scheduling of further executions of federal inmates, according to a memo.
Garland in a memo to senior officials at the department Thursday echoed his own recently stated reservations about use of the death penalty, noting a number of defendants who were later exonerated as well as statistics showing possible discriminatory impact on minorities.
“The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system is not only afforded the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States, but is also treated fairly and humanely,” he wrote in the memo. “That obligation has special force in capital cases. Serious concerns have been raised about the continued use of the death penalty across the country, including arbitrariness in its application, disparate impact on people of color, and the troubling number of exonerations in capital and other serious cases.”
“Those weighty concerns deserve careful study and evaluation by lawmakers. In the meantime, the Department must take care to scrupulously maintain our commitment to fairness and humane treatment in the administration of existing federal laws governing capital sentences,” he continued.
The new directive comes after Garland’s predecessor in the job, William Barr, had resumed the department’s use of capital punishment against inmates a year ago, after a nearly two-decade lapse. He also pushed for executions of several federal prisoners during the transition period before President Joe Biden — who opposes the death penalty — took office.
The federal government in 2020 executed more people than all 50 states combined, according to a year-end report from the Death Penalty Institute, a non-partisan, death penalty information center that tracks death row inmates and executions.
The directive, however, is not expected to impact the department’s position taken recently in the case of Boston bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev, a person familiar with the matter told ABC News. Officials last month urged the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s ruling and reinstate Tsarnaev’s death penalty despite Biden’s stated opposition to capital punishment.
This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Richard Branson announced Thursday he will be joining the crew of his next spaceflight with Virgin Galactic, besting fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos to space.
The first fully crewed spaceflight for SpaceShipTwo Unity will take place July 11, pending weather and technical checks.
Branson, 70, will join the crew to “evaluate the private astronaut experience and will undergo the same training, preparation and flight as Virgin Galactic’s future astronauts,” according to a press release. Branson announced last week that Virgin Galactic was given the OK by the Federal Aviation Administration to launch customers into space.
“I truly believe that space belongs to all of us,” Branson said in a statement. “After 17 years of research, engineering and innovation, the new commercial space industry is poised to open the universe to humankind and change the world for good. It’s one thing to have a dream of making space more accessible to all; it’s another for an incredible team to collectively turn that dream into reality.”
The mission, dubbed Unity 22, will be a 20-second test flight for VSS Unity. It’s the company’s fourth crewed spaceflight. Unity’s pilots will be Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci, both of whom have flown Unity previously.
Unity is launched from a separate “mothership” aircraft called VMS Eve.
Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is expected to join the crew of Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft’s first flight on July 20.
Bezos announced on Wednesday that accompanying him, and his brother, on New Shepard will be pioneering female pilot Wally Funk.
Joining Branson on his flight will be Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor; Colin Bennett, the company’s lead operations engineer; and Sirisha Bandla, the company’s vice president of government affairs and research operations. Moses was also on the ship’s first test flight.
The British-born Branson founded Virgin Group in the 1970s and has delved into everything from music to cellphones and airlines.
Branson will turn 71 exactly one week after the flight.
ABC News’ Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.
(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — One week after a 12-story residential building partially collapsed in South Florida’s Miami-Dade County, at least 18 people have been confirmed dead while 145 others remain unaccounted for, officials said.
The massive search and rescue operation, now in its eighth day, was halted for much of Thursday due to structural concerns, as officials worried about the remaining condo building also collapsing. Crews continue to carefully comb through the pancaked pile of debris in hopes of finding survivors. The partial collapse occurred around 1:15 a.m. on June 24 at the Champlain Towers South condominium in the small, beachside town of Surfside, about 6 miles north of Miami Beach. Approximately 55 of the oceanfront complex’s 136 units were destroyed, according to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Raide Jadallah.
Among the bodies most recently pulled from the rubble were two children, ages 4 and 10, according to Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
“Any loss of life — especially given the unexpected, unprecedented nature of this event — is a tragedy. But the loss of our children is too great to bear,” Levine Cava said during a press conference in Surfside on Wednesday evening. “We’re now standing united once again with this terrible new revelation that children are the victims as well.”
All the victims recovered so far have died from “blunt force injuries” due to the collapse, Dr. Emma Lew, director of the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department, told ABC News.
Meanwhile, 139 people who were living or staying in the condominium at the time of the disaster have been accounted for and are safe, according to Levine Cava, who stressed that the numbers are “very fluid” and “continue to change.” Officials previously were including the number of deceased among those accounted for but are now separating the figures.
Concerns about remaining structure temporarily halt search and rescue efforts
Search and rescue efforts were paused early Thursday morning due to concerns about the stability of the remaining structure and the potential danger it poses to the crews. Structural engineers were on site monitoring the situation and determining the next steps, according to Levine Cava.
“We’re doing everything that we can to ensure that the safety of our first responders is paramount and to continue our search and rescue operations as soon as it is safe to do so,” she said at a press conference in Surfside on Thursday morning.
By Thursday evening, the search and rescue mission was “back to work full power,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told ABC News. The work resumed shortly before 5 p.m., Levine Cava said.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Alan Cominsky told reporters that crews observed a shift of 6 to 12 inches in a large column hanging from the still-standing structure as well as some slight movement in the concrete floor slabs just after 2 a.m. local time, prompting concerns that the rest of the condominium could collapse.
Earlier, police officers on site had told ABC News that rescuers reported hearing cracks and were investigating the stability of the building.
The structure was cleared by crews last week, and all search and rescue resources have since been shifted to focusing on the pile of rubble. But the two sites are side-by-side and the remaining building has posed challenges for the hundreds of first responders trying to locate any survivors or human remains in the wreckage.
One area of the site had to be roped off on Tuesday due to falling debris. Then on Wednesday, officials said crews were no longer entering the remaining structure because it was considered unstable.
“Given our ongoing safety concerns about the integrity of the building, we’re continuing to restrict access to the collapse zone,” Levine Cava said during a press briefing Thursday evening.
Poor weather conditions — from downpours to lightning storms — have also forced the crews to temporarily halt their round-the-clock efforts in recent days.
Engineers are currently planning for the likely demolition of the building amid the search and rescue operation, Levine Cava said Thursday.
“This is a decision that we need to make extremely carefully and methodically as we consider all the possible impacts to the pile of debris and to our search and rescue operation, as well as considerations of how to best manage the demolition in order to safeguard the integrity of the existing debris field,” she said.
Over the past week, crews have cut a vast trench through the pile of rubble to aid in their search as they try to tunnel through the wreckage and listen for sounds. As they work to reach the bottom of the pile, cameras placed inside show voids and air pockets where people could be trapped, according to officials.
Rescuers are using various assets, equipment and technology, including specially trained dogs that are searching for signs of life, underground sonar systems that can detect victims and crane trucks that can remove huge slabs of concrete from the pile. Crews have removed almost 1,400 tons of debris from the site so far, officials said.
Rescuers are each working 12-hour shifts at a time and the conditions on the pile are “tough” as they risk their lives in hopes of saving others amid heat, humidity and rain, according to Cominsky. But “spirits are high” and they are still “hoping for a positive outcome,” he told reporters.
“We’re exhausting every avenue here,” Cominsky said during the press conference on Wednesday morning. “But it’s a very, very dangerous situation and I can’t understate that.”
Some of the first responders are members of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s urban search and rescue team, Florida Task Force-1, which is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Urban Search and Rescue Response System and has been deployed to disasters across the country and around the world. Search and rescue teams from Israel and Mexico have also joined the efforts in Surfside.
Col. Golan Vach, head of a unit of the Israel Defense Forces that specializes in search and rescue operations, arrived in Surfside with his team early Sunday and has been on the scene ever since.
“We find every day new spaces, new tunnels that we can penetrate into the site,” Vach told ABC News on Wednesday.
The ongoing operation in Surfside is the largest-ever deployment of task force resources in Florida’s history for a non-hurricane event. But as the Atlantic hurricane season ramps up, officials are monitoring storms in the region in case some resources deployed to Surfside are needed elsewhere, according to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Meanwhile, Mayor Burkett has acknowledged that there have been questions from families about when the efforts will transition from search and rescue to recovery.
“This is going to go on until we get everybody out of there,” Burkett said at the press conference on Wednesday morning.
Although officials have continued to express hope that more people will be found alive, no survivors have been discovered in the rubble of the building since the morning it partially collapsed. Bodies, however, have been uncovered throughout the site, which crews have categorized into grids, Cominsky said.
Officials have asked families of the missing to provide DNA samples and unique characteristics of their loved ones, such as tattoos and scars, to help identify those found in the wreckage. Detectives are also in the process of conducting an audit of the list of those accounted and unaccounted for, according to Levine Cava.
Shortly after the building partially collapsed, first responders heard cries for help from a woman trapped in a lower level that was now inside the parking garage. But a wall of concrete and other debris stood in their way, one rescue worker who asked to remain anonymous told Miami ABC affiliate WPLG.
“The first thing I remember is thumping on the wall,” the rescuer recalled. “And then I remember her just talking, ‘I’m here, get me out! Get me out!'”
“We were continuously talking to her,” he added. “‘Honey, we got you. We’re going to get to you.'”
Crews never abandoned their effort to reach the woman but the rescue worker said he later learned that she did not survive.
Cominsky confirmed the report during the press conference on Thursday morning, saying crews are “trying to do the best we can” but that “unfortunately we didn’t have success with that.”
Biden meets with officials, rescuers, families in Surfside
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden traveled to Surfside on Thursday to tour the scene of the disaster and meet with officials, first responders, search and rescue teams, as well as families of the victims.
“I just want you to know that we understand,” President Biden told a group of first responders. “What you’re doing now is just hard as hell. Even psychologically. And I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Addressing reporters Thursday afternoon, Biden said he wanted to send a message to the impacted families that the nation is “here for you.”
“We’ll be in touch with a lot of these families continuing through this process. But there’s much more to be done. We’re ready to do it,” he said.
Prior to his remarks, Biden talked with the families of the victims for nearly three hours.
“I thought it’s important to speak to every single person who wanted to speak to me,” Biden said. “I sat with one woman who had just lost her husband and her little baby boy. Didn’t know what to do. I sat with another family that lost almost an entire family — cousins, brothers, sisters.”
The president said first responders are hopeful they will recover survivors, though acknowledged that the families are “very realistic.”
“They know that the chances are, as each day goes by, diminish slightly. But, at a minimum, they want to recover the bodies,” he said.
Last week, the president approved an emergency declaration in Florida and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts in the wake of the partial building collapse.
The Miami-Dade County mayor told reporters that Biden’s visit “will have no impact on what happens at this site.”
“The search and rescue operation will continue as soon as it is safe to do so,” Levine Cava said at the press conference on Thursday morning. “The only reason for this pause is concerns about the standing structure.”
Federal agency that investigated collapse of Twin Towers joins probe
The cause of the partial collapse to a building that has withstood decades of hurricanes remains unknown. The Miami-Dade Police Department is leading an investigation into the incident.
The Miami-Dade County mayor told ABC News last Friday that there was no evidence of foul play so far but that “nothing’s ruled out.”
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said she plans “to request that our Grand Jury look at what steps we can take to safeguard our residents without jeopardizing any scientific, public safety or potential criminal investigations.”
“I know from personally speaking with engineers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology that their investigation to determine exactly how and why the building collapsed will take a long time,” Rundle said in a statement Tuesday. “However, this is a matter of extreme public importance, and as the state attorney elected to keep this community safe, I will not wait.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology has activated its national construction safety team to investigate the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South. The federal agency investigated the collapse of the so-called Twin Towers in New York City after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
The probe in Surfside will be a “fact-finding, not fault-finding” and one that could take years, according to the agency’s director, Dr. James Olthoff.
“It will take time, possibly a couple of years, but we will not stop until we have determined the likely cause of this tragedy,” Olthoff said during the press conference in Surfside on Wednesday evening.
What went wrong
Built in the 1980s, the Champlain Towers South was up for its 40-year recertification when it partially collapsed, according to Surfside officials.
The Champlain Towers South Condo Association was preparing to start a new construction project to make updates to the building, which had been through extensive inspections, according to Kenneth Direktor, a lawyer for the association. Direktor told ABC News last Thursday that the construction plans had already been submitted to the town but the only work that had begun was on the roof.
Direktor noted that he hadn’t been warned of any structural issues with the building or about the land it was built on. He said there was water damage to the complex, but that is common for oceanfront properties and wouldn’t have caused the partial collapse.
A 2020 study conducted by Shimon Wdowinski, a professor at Florida International University’s Institute of Environment in Miami, found signs of land subsidence from 1993 to 1999 in the area where the Champlain Towers South condominium is located. But subsidence, or the gradual sinking of land, likely would not on its own cause a building to collapse, according to Wdowinski, who analyzed space-based radar data.
Miami-Dade County officials are aware of the study and are “looking into” it, Levine Cava told ABC News last Friday.
A structural field survey report from October 2018, which was among hundreds of pages of public documents released by the town late Sunday, said the waterproofing below the condominium’s pool deck and entrance drive was failing and causing “major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas.” The New York Times first reported the news.
In a November 2018 email, also released by the town, a Surfside building official, Ross Prieto, told the then-town manager that he had met with the Champlain Towers South residents and “it went very well.”
“The response was very positive from everyone in the room,” Prieto wrote in the email. “All main concerns over their forty year recertification process were addressed. This particular building is not due to begin their forty year until 2021 but they have decided to start the process early which I wholeheartedly endorse and wish that this trend would catch on with other properties.”
A former resident, Susanna Alvarez, told ABC News on Sunday that Prieto said during the 2018 meeting that the condominium was “not in bad shape” — a sentiment that appears to conflict with the structural field survey report penned five weeks earlier.
ABC News obtained a copy of the minutes from the November 2018 meeting of the Champlain Towers South Condo Association, which stated that Prieto had reviewed the structural field survey report and “it appears the building is in very good shape.” NPR was the first to report the news.
Prieto has not responded to ABC News’ repeated requests for comment. He is no longer employed by the town of Surfside. He has been placed on a “leave of absence” from his current post as a building inspector in nearby Doral, according to a statement from the city on Tuesday.
When asked on Monday whether Prieto misled residents during the 2018 meeting, Surfside’s mayor told ABC News: “We’re going to have to find out.”
Meanwhile, Surfside officials and engineers are concerned that recent construction of a nearby residential building may have contributed to instability at the Champlain Towers South and, according to one expert, could have potentially been “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“Construction of a neighboring building can certainly impact the conditions, particularly the foundation for an existing building,” Ben Schafer, a structural engineering professor and director of the Ralph S. O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, told ABC News on Tuesday. “A critical flaw or damage must have already existed in the Champlain Towers, but neighboring new construction could be the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’ in terms of a precipitating event.”
According to media reports from that time, the construction began in 2015 when Terra, a South Florida development firm, started erecting Eighty Seven Park, an 18-story luxury condominium in Miami Beach, across the street from the Champlain Towers South. The project caused such a raucous for residents that Mara Chouela, a board member of the Champlain Towers South Condo Association, reached out to Surfside officials in January 2019, according to records released by the town.
“We are concerned that the construction next to Surfside is too close,” Chouela wrote in an email. “The terra project on Collins and 87 are digging too close to our property and we have concerns regarding the structure of our building. We just wanted to know if any of tour officials could come by and check.”
Chouela received an email back from Prieto, saying: “There is nothing for me to check.”
“The best course of action is to have someone monitor the fence, pool and adjacent areas for damage or hire a consultant to monitor these areas as they are the closest to the construction,” Prieto added.
Residents and board members continued to complain about the project next door for several months, mostly about styrofoam and dirt from the construction site ending up on the Champlain Towers South pool deck and plaza, according to documents released by the town.
A spokesperson for 8701 Collins Development LLC, a joint venture that was established by Terra and other developers involved in the project, told ABC News in a statement Wednesday that they “are confident that the construction of 87 Park did not cause or contribute to the collapse that took place in Surfside on June 24, 2021.”
Another expert, forensic structural engineer Joel Figueroa-Vallines, said that because Eighty Seven Park is “lower in elevation” than the Champlain Towers South, there is a possibility that the construction of the newer building could be cause for concern. But he emphasized that more evidence is still needed.
“It’s almost important and necessary to not discard anything so early on that could potentially be a consideration,” Figueroa-Vallines, founder and president of SEP, an Orlando-based structural engineering firm, told ABC News on Wednesday.
Mehrooz Zamanzadeh, a Pittsburgh-based corrosion engineering expert, told ABC News on Wednesday that any cracks and spalling on the Champlain Towers South should also be examined to determine whether the vibrations from the construction next door played any role in the structural integrity of the condominium.
Regardless, Zamanzadeh said the accelerated deterioration and corrosion of the Champlain Towers South was a critical factor in the partial collapse. He called for mandated corrosion inspections of buildings as well as a recertification process shorter than the town’s current 40-year term.
Jose “Pepe” Diaz, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Commission, told ABC News on Tuesday that he would not speculate what role neighboring construction had on the partial collapse but said officials will investigate it.
Mounting lawsuits in wake of disaster
A slew of lawsuits against the Champlain Towers South Condo Association have already been filed on behalf of survivors and victims, alleging the partial collapse could have been avoided and that the association knew or should have known about the structural damage.
A spokesperson for the Champlain Towers South Condo Association said they cannot comment on pending litigation but that their “focus remains on caring for our friends and neighbors during this difficult time.”
“We continue to work with city, state, and local officials in their search and recovery efforts, and to understand the causes of this tragedy,” the spokesperson told ABC News in a statement Monday. “Our profound thanks go out to all of emergency rescue personnel — professionals and volunteers alike — for their tireless efforts.”
Two law firms, Morgan & Morgan and Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky, announced Wednesday that they have filed an emergency motion — in addition to a lawsuit — requesting site inspection and evidence preservation on behalf of the family of Harry Rosenberg, a resident of the Champlain Towers South who is still missing, along with his daughter and son-in-law.
“The families have no idea whether it is being documented as they peel through that collapse, layer by layer, have no idea what is going to happen to that evidence, and they deserve a voice and a role in this process,” Robert Mongeluzzi, a Philadelphia-based attorney and founder of Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky, said during a press conference in Miami on Wednesday. “We believe that we could give the families a voice and a set of eyes without impairing the critical work of the search and rescue teams that are there, and without affecting at all the investigating agencies that are there.”
Mongeluzzi said the Rosenberg family “do not want this to be about them.”
“They have merely filed this so that we can file this motion on behalf of all the families, all the victims, so that they could start to get answers about why their loved ones are missing,” he added.
ABC News’ Faith Abubey, Judy Block, Lucien Bruggeman, Rachel DeLima, Alexandra Faul, Matt Foster, Stephanie Fuerte, Justin Gomez, Kate Hodgson, T.J. Holmes, Joshua Hoyos, Soorin Kim, Sarah Kolinovsky, Josh Margolin, Victor Oquendo, Dawn Piros, Stephanie Ramos, Laura Romero and Stephanie Wash contributed to this report.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — California voters will decide whether to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and replace him with another candidate in an election set for Sept. 14, the lieutenant governor announced Thursday.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber certified the gubernatorial recall petition earlier Thursday, prompting Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis to set an election date between 60 and 80 days from the date of certification.
While the signatures have only just been officially certified, Weber announced in late April that the organizer of the recall petition had collected more than the approximately 1.5 million validated signatures required.
During a 30-day period, voters who signed the recall petition could request their signatures be removed, but only 43 voters did so, Weber announced last week. More than 1.7 million signatures supporting the recall were verified.
The California Department of Finance estimated on Thursday the cost of the recall election to be $276 million.
Recent polling suggests Newsom is on his way to easily defeating the recall effort.
According to the Public Policy Institute of California’s May statewide survey, only 40% of likely voters would vote to recall Newsom if the election were held, while 57% would vote against recalling him as governor. To successfully recall the state’s governor, a majority of voters must vote “yes.”
Among Californians, 55% approve of the way Newsom is handling his job overall — and on his handling of COVID specifically, he fares even better, with 64% of Californians approving of his response, according to PPIC.
Newsom’s campaign has blasted the recall as a partisan, Republican-led effort that’s a waste of taxpayer money.
In response to the date being set, Juan Rodriguez, the leader of the Newsom-aligned group, “Stop The Republican Recall,” said in a statement, “This Republican recall is a naked attempt by Trump Republicans to grab control in California — powered by the same Republicans who refused to accept the results of the presidential election and are now pushing voter suppression laws across the country. On September 14, Californians will have the chance to defend our state and reject this Republican power grab once and for all.”
Most voters likely know Newsom is a Democrat, but back in February 2020, when responding to the recall petition, his team failed to indicate he wanted his party affiliation on the potential recall ballot. A spokesperson for the secretary of state confirmed to ABC News Tuesday that Newsom’s campaign filed a notice of his party preference to Weber on June 19, but the secretary declined to accept it, saying in a statement, “The Secretary of State’s office has a ministerial duty to accept timely filed documents. Acceptance of filings beyond a deadline requires judicial resolution.”
In a statement Thursday, Orrin Heatlie, the chief proponent of the recall effort, said they objected to the legal move, while Mike Netter, another proponent of the recall, blasted Newsom, saying, “The absurdity of this suit is almost surreal. This Governor is so focused on identity politics it is that important to him to actually sue his own appointed Secretary of State to demand she override a regulation which he signed into law.”
The California Patriot Coalition, which Heatlie and Netter co-founded, plan to intervene in the lawsuit next week.
When voters cast ballots, they will face two questions. The first is whether they want to recall Newsom and the second is who they want to replace Newsom if a majority of voters support the recall.
Though the recall organizers said they are nonpartisan, Republicans have rallied around the effort, including the California Republican Party, whose chairwoman called Newsom the “worst governor in California history” in a statement after the date was set.
So far, no major Democrats have announced campaigns to be on the recall ballot to replace Newsom. Organizers and Republican candidates vying to replace the governor have pointed to his handling of the pandemic, in particular government-mandated restrictions on businesses and schools, and general government overreach.
Prominent Republicans in the race to replace him include San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Newsom’s 2018 challenger John Cox and reality star and former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner.
This is the sixth official attempt to recall Newsom. Only one California governor has ever been successfully recalled in the United States. In 2003, California’s Democratic governor, Gray Davis, lost the recall election, and actor and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger won the election to replace him.
According to PPIC’s polling, Davis’s approval rating was significantly worse than Newsom’s ever has been while in office. In five polls over nine months leading up to the 2003 election, over 70% of California voters disapproved of Davis. The state today is also far more Democratic than it was in 2003.
ABC News’ Meg Cunningham contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump called the criminal charges unsealed Thursday against his organization’s long-serving chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg a “disgrace” and “shameful,” telling ABC News he is a “tremendous man.”
Weisselberg and the Trump Organization pleaded not guilty in Manhattan State Supreme Court to 15 charges related to what the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office general counsel Carey Dunn called a “15-year-long tax fraud scheme.”
Weisselberg allegedly benefitted from the scheme to the tune of $1.7 million, Dunn said.
“During the operation of the scheme, the defendants arranged for Weisselberg to receive indirect employee compensation from the Trump Organization in the approximate amount of $1.76 million … in ways that enabled the corporate defendants to avoid reporting it to the tax authorities,” the indictment said.
Weisselberg arrived at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office with his lawyer hours after a grand jury on Wednesday voted to indict him and the Trump Organization on the charges, which include grand larceny, criminal tax fraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records.
A special grand jury in Manhattan voted Wednesday to indict Trump’s firm and its chief financial officer.
The indictment said that beginning in 2005, Weisselberg used the Trump corporation’s bank account to pay the rent for his apartment and his utility bills, and to cover nearly $360,000 in upscale private school payments for his family and nearly $200,000 in luxury car leases.
“Weisselberg intentionally caused the indirect compensation payments to be omitted from his personal tax returns, despite knowing that those payments represented taxable income and were treated as compensation by the Trump Corporation in internal records,” said the indictment.
“Allen Weisselberg is a loving and devoted husband, father and grandfather who has worked at the Trump Organization for 48 years,” the Trump Organization said in a statement about the charges. “He is now being used by the Manhattan District Attorney as a pawn in a scorched earth attempt to harm the former President. The District Attorney is bringing a criminal prosecution involving employee benefits that neither the IRS nor any other District Attorney would ever think of bringing. This is not justice; this is politics.”
Trump has called the investigation a politically motivated “witch hunt,” and said that the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance and New York Attorney General Letitia James are pressuring Weisselberg to lie against him. When asked if he thought Weisselberg would cooperate, he told ABC News, “No.”
(WAUKESHA, Wis.) — Anissa Weier, one of two girls who said they attacked a friend in 2014 to please the fictional character “Slender Man,” will be released from her mental health facility, a judge ordered Thursday.
Weier, 19, was sentenced in 2017 to up to 25 years in a mental institution for her role in the stabbing. Weier and Morgan Geyser lured classmate Payton Leutner to the Waukesha, Wisconsin, woods, where Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier watched. Leutner survived life-threatening injuries. All three were 12 at the time.
In April, Weier asked for conditional release from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute in Oshkosh, which a judge granted on Thursday.
Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren said during a hearing that Weier does not pose a significant threat to herself or the community.
Weier will remain institutionalized for 60 days while a conditional release living plan detailing where she will live and how she will support herself is prepared, according to Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN.
Leutner’s family will have the opportunity to review the details of the plan, her parents said in a statement to ABC News.
“Our family has worked very closely with the Waukesha District Attorney’s office throughout this process and we are aware of the pending conditional release,” Stacie and Joe Leutner said in a statement. “Through this entire ordeal — we have continued to place Payton’s safety and the safety of the community as our top priorities and those priorities will not change.”
A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 10, according to The Associated Press.
Bohren had reviewed several medical reports and a letter written by Weier before the ruling. Three doctors said she could be released early, according to WISN.
“I have exhausted all the resources available to me at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. If I am to become a productive member of society, I need to be a part of society,” Weier wrote in her letter.
Weier said she’s taken the responsibility that comes with “living with a mental illness, by communicating with total transparency to my treatment team members, participating wholeheartedly in all aspects of my treatment, and maintaining 100% medication adherence.”
“I am sorry and deeply regretful for the agony, pain, and fear I have caused,” Weier wrote. “I take full responsibility for my actions.”
“I vowed after my crime that I would never become a weapon again, and I intend to keep that vow,” she added.
Geyser and Weier were charged as adults with first-degree attempted intentional homicide.
Weier pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and a jury found her not guilty by mental disease or defect.
Geyser pleaded guilty to the first-degree charge and, as part of her plea agreement, was convicted but found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. She was sentenced to up to 40 years in a mental health facility. A state appeals court upheld her sentence last year.
Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(LITTLE ROCK, Ark.) — As COVID-19 vaccination rollouts continue and the U.S. returns to a semblance of normality, Arkansas officials are warning of a third surge following a spike in cases.
Arkansas, which never issued an official stay-at-home order during the pandemic, reported 686 new probable and confirmed COVID-19 cases Wednesday — the largest one-day increase in more than four months.
The state’s COVID-19 hospitalizations also rose by 19 to 325, and deaths increased by four to 5,909.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson said in a statement that “the high number of cases today makes it clear that the delta variant is increasing the spread of the virus” in the state.
So far, 34.3% of the state’s population has been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hutchinson touted the effectiveness of vaccines during a Tuesday coronavirus briefing, saying 90.5% of current active cases in the state are among the unvaccinated, who, officials noted, also account for 98.3% of Arkansas’ 3,765 hospitalizations and 99.6% of the deaths since Jan. 26.
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Chancellor Dr. Cam Patterson said at the press conference that the delta variant is driving up case numbers.
The delta variant, first detected in the state on May 1, makes up more than 25% of infections in the state and is projected to make up more than half of all infections within a matter of weeks, Patterson added.
“We have to be concerned that this would be a trend that could continue, and if it does, it would appear that we may be in the third surge of COVID-19 here in the state of Arkansas,” he said.
Hospitals see more younger patients
Doctors in Arkansas told ABC News that the highly transmissible new variant, low vaccination rates and infrequent mask-wearing are fueling the surge.
Hospitals are seeing more and younger patients arrive, many with more severe symptoms, Dr. Jason McKinney, a pulmonologist and the ICU medical director at Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas, told ABC News. He said this isn’t because younger people are more susceptible to the virus but because more older people have been vaccinated.
“Most definitely we are seeing the beginning of a third surge,” McKinney said. “And as far as our inpatient load of COVID, we’re at about 30% of where we were previously. And so that makes me very concerned, because we’re very early on.”
As of Thursday, Mercy Hospital Northwest was treating about 16 COVID-19 patients at the hospital.
“The misconception of younger people is that if I’m at low risk of dying, I’d rather risk getting the disease and just be sick than get the vaccine,” he said, referring to people in their 20s to 50s. “COVID is often a virus that keeps on giving after you’ve gotten rid of it. And the amount of chronic fatigue, the neurologic problems, the vascular problems, cardiac problems and the pulmonary problems that people suffer from this disease long term, it’s scary.”
Last week, UAMS Medical Center in Little Rock reopened a unit for COVID-19 patients after shuttering it in April.
Dr. Steppe Mette, CEO of UAMS Medical Center, told ABC News that the hospital has seen a “300 to 400% increase in the number of patients with COVID just over the last three to four weeks.”
“So,” he added, “we’re back to hospitalization numbers that we haven’t seen since February or March. And that’s happening around the state.”
UAMS last reported having 22 COVID-19 patients in hospital beds and nine in the ICU. Around the city, there are over 100 hospitalized with the virus, Mette added. Previously “about a quarter of our patients hospitalized in the ICU, and now we’re running more like 50 to 70% in the ICU.”
Failed incentives
The vaccination rate in Arkansas, one of the lowest in the U.S., has slowed further despite the introduction of several incentive efforts.
Last month, the state launched a million-dollar vaccine incentive program, giving out Arkansas Lottery Scholarship $20 scratch-off tickets or a $20 gift certificate for the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission for new first doses, but it’s failed to bring up vaccination numbers.
Only 2,482 lottery tickets and 926 Game & Fish Licenses have been given out as part of the program, a Health Department spokeswoman told ABC News.
Data from Johns Hopkins shows that the state’s seven-day average vaccination rate sunk from 27,298 on April 1 to 4,591 on June 30.
Mette said while earlier in the year there were issues of accessibility, now the real battle is vaccine refusal.
“It’s more that there is a resistance, refusal or hesitancy to get a vaccine,” Mette said. “It’s more that they’ve been influenced by somebody else, that the vaccines are not safe, or they’re not necessary, or that the pandemic isn’t even anything real or to worry about it. That degree of resistance is pretty concerning.”
Stepping backwards
In a bid to curb an outbreak, some facilities have stopped in-person visitations, an echo of earlier on in the pandemic.
The Conway Human Development Center, a state-run residence for people with disabilities, stopped visitations after 20 staffers and 13 residents tested positive for the virus within a two-week period, according to ABC Little Rock affiliate KATV.
Under the state’s recently passed “No Patient Left Alone Act” visitors will be allowed if a resident requires emergency care or hospice care.
Baxter Regional Medical Center in north Arkansas tried to ban visitations at its emergency department last week only to walk that back after realizing it could no longer enforce it.
“We’ve been through a lot over the past year and a half,” McKinney said. “We’re worried that we’re looking at a similar situation where we’ve all been working extra days and nights and taking care of a high volume of patients. We’re very worried that we’re going back in that situation.”
(ANNAPOLIS, Md.) — A reward has climbed to more than $30,000 for the suspect who shot and killed a Houston mom while she was in Maryland to drop off her son at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Michelle Cummings, 57, was sitting on a hotel patio, enjoying the breeze, when she was shot multiple times just after midnight on Tuesday, Annapolis Police Chief Edward Jackson said.
Cummings was with her husband and another couple at the time, police said.
“It is believed that the shots were fired on Pleasant Street and traveled a short distance shooting the victim,” Jackson said at a news conference Tuesday.
Cummings didn’t appear to be the intended target, police said.
Cummings and her husband were in Annapolis to bring their son, a football prospect, to the U.S. Naval Academy, Jackson said.
Her son, Midshipman Candidate Leonard Cummings III, graduated this year from the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Rhode Island, and is an incoming freshman for the Naval Academy Class of 2025, the Academy said.
Last year, when he committed to the Naval Academy, Michelle Cummings told ABC Houston station KTRK-TV, “I love this kid dearly … We could not ask for a better son.”
Superintendent Vice Adm. Sean Buck said in a statement, “We will do all that we can to support Leonard, his father and the entire Cummings family during this unfathomable time. My wife, Joanne, and I, on behalf of all of us here in Annapolis, offer our deepest sympathies.”
Leonard “Trey” Cummings graduated last year from Westfield High School in Texas, the Spring Independent School District said.
“Ms. Cummings was a very engaged parent,” the district said in a statement. “She served in 2019-20 as the president of the Westfield High School Football Booster Club and was always ready to support our student athletes. Our hearts and prayers go out to the Cummings family during this time of sorrow.
Jackson said at a Wednesday news conference, “I’m a bit emotional with this case … this is a true victim.”
Rachel Byrd of the FBI said Wednesday, “I know the pride she must have felt bringing her son to start his new life … only to have her life cut senselessly short.”
“Somebody has lost their mom on the proudest day, probably, of her life,” Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley told reporters Tuesday.
“We are focused on getting guns off the street, but it only takes one criminal with a gun for the results to be tragic,” Buckley said.
Jackson announced Wednesday that a reward of $22,000 was offered for information leading to the gunman’s arrest and conviction. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday said the state, at his direction, is adding another $10,000 to that reward.
The governor said he spoke to Michelle Cummings’ family on Thursday to offer his condolences.
Jackson on Wednesday said police have leads, though he declined to go into detail.
The mayor vowed, “The perpetrators will be found and they will be held to account.”
To the gunman, the chief said, “Turn yourself in — we’re coming after you.”
Police ask anyone with information to contact the department at 410-260-3439.
ABC News’ Sarah Shales, Ben Siu and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(SPARTANBURG, S.C.) — A 3-year-old boy has died after he was left in a hot car in Spartanburg, South Carolina, authorities said.
When officers responded to a home around 5:45 p.m. Wednesday, the boy’s guardian told them that he was mistakenly left in the car, Spartanburg police said. She said she thought she dropped the 3-year-old off at day care with her other children that morning, but didn’t notice he hadn’t gone inside with them until later that day, police said.
The woman said she called 911 as soon as she found the boy in the back of her SUV, police said.
The preliminary autopsy found that the boy died from heat, Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger said. Spartanburg reached a high of 92 degrees Wednesday.
Police said the investigation is ongoing but it appears that the boy’s death was accidental.
The boy, whose name was not released, was in foster care, Clevenger said. Authorities are working to reach his biological mother, he said.
This marks the sixth child to die in a hot car in the U.S. this year, according to national nonprofit Kids and Car Safety.
A record 54 children died in hot cars in 2018, followed by 53 fatalities in 2019, according to Kids and Car Safety. Twenty-five children died in hot cars last year, a drop which director Amber Rollins attributed to the pandemic.
“Hot car deaths continue to take place because nobody believes this could happen to them,” Janette Fennell, president of Kids and Car Safety, said in a statement. “The unfortunate reality is that this has happened to even the most loving, responsible, and attentive parents. Factors such as fatigue, stress, or a sudden change in routine can contribute to parents unknowingly leaving a child alone in a car.”
