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FAA urges airports to help stop alcohol ‘to go’ amid unruly passenger spike

August 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Aviation Administration is calling on U.S. airports to help put an end to the recent spike in unruly passenger cases.

The FAA is urging airport police to arrest more people who are unruly or violent on flights and asking airport bars and restaurants to stop serving alcoholic drinks to go.

“Even though FAA regulations specifically prohibit the consumption of alcohol aboard an aircraft that is not served by the airline, we have received reports that some airport concessionaires have offered alcohol ‘to go,'” FAA Administrator Steve Dickson wrote to airport leaders nationwide. “And passengers believe they can carry that alcohol onto their flights or they become inebriated.”

The agency’s investigations into the surge in aggressive behavior on-board has shown that alcohol is often a contributing factor.

“Airports can help bring awareness to this prohibition on passengers carrying open alcohol onboard their flights through signage, public service announcements, and concessionaire education,” Dickson said.

Some major U.S. airlines, including American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, have prohibited purchasing alcohol on board until the mask mandate expires. It is currently in place until mid-September.

Southwest was prompted to make the change in June after an unruly passenger allegedly knocked a flight attendant’s two front teeth out.

“Certainly with the number of incidents you can tell why flight attendants would feel leery about beginning to sell alcohol onboard the aircraft again,” Lyn Montgomery, a spokesperson for the union that represents Southwest flight attendants told ABC News.

Alcohol was reported to be a factor in one of the most recent unruly passenger incidents that occurred on a Frontier Airlines flight on Saturday.

The 22-year-old had at least two drinks on the flight, according to authorities, before allegedly groping two flight attendants and punching a third flight attendant in the face. The crew resorted to duct taping the man to his seat for the duration of the flight.

He was arrested when the plane landed in Miami and is now facing three counts of battery.

But not all unruly passengers face criminal charges, the FAA said.

“While the FAA has levied civil fines against unruly passengers, it has no authority to prosecute criminal cases,” Dickson told airport executives.

The agency has received more than 3,700 reports of unruly passengers since January with more than 2,700 of them involving fliers who refuse to wear a mask.

He said they see many passengers — some who physically assaulted flight attendants — interviewed by local police and then released “without criminal charges of any kind.”

“When this occurs, we miss a key opportunity to hold unruly passengers accountable for their unacceptable and dangerous behavior,” he said.

The FAA is still enforcing its zero-tolerance policy for in-flight disruptions which could lead to fines as high as $52,500 and up to 20 years in prison. The agency has looked into more than 628 potential violations of federal law so far this year — the highest number since the agency began keeping records in 1995.

The largest flight attendant union in the U.S. doubled down on its call last week for the FAA and Department of Justice to “protect passengers and crew from disruptive and verbally and physically abusive travelers.”

A DOJ spokesperson told ABC News that “interference with flight crew members is a serious crime that deserves the attention of federal law enforcement.”

“As with any case, we exercise prosecutorial discretion in deciding which cases to charge federally,” the spokesperson continued. “Factors include egregiousness of the offense, were lives in danger, victim impact, mental health, did the plane have to make an unscheduled landing, is this a repeat offense, are there mitigating factors, etc. This is a serious crime that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.”

ABC News’ Sam Sweeney contributed to this report.

1-in-100-year floods happening so often, the term may change

August 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Recent deadly flooding events around the world are evidence of the planet’s changing relationship with precipitation as global temperatures continue to warm, according to environmental experts.

While the link between the climate change and extreme precipitation is straightforward, quantifying the link remains a critical area of research, Frances Davenport, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University’s Earth System Science program told ABC News Chief Meteorologist Ginger Zee.

“We’re seeing that climate change increases extreme precipitation and makes the most extreme events bigger,” Davenport said.

Attempts to quantify a flooding event often involves the use of the term “a one in 100-year event.” In terms of floods, it pertains to the flood flow rate that has a 1% chance of being equaled or exceeded in a given year, Robert Mason, extreme hydrologic events coordinator and Delaware River master for the U.S. Geological Survey, told ABC News.

But this term is expected to change because it is only an estimate based on data, Mason said, and it is possible for major floods to happen in back-to-back years.

“The ‘back-to-back’ phenomena is difficult to explain,” Mason said. “It happens even without any trend in the data and is likely just chance events.”

The USGS is looking at different ways of quantifying back-to-back major flooding events, Mason said.

In some incidents, the flooding comes with little warning.

The death toll from flash flooding in central China tripled to more than 300 on Wednesday with another 50 people missing, according to officials. Record rain in the Henan province on July 20 turned streets in Zhengzhou into rushing rivers strong enough to sweep vehicles away.

In western Europe, more than 100 people died last month after a catastrophic flood triggered flash floods in parts of western Germany and eastern Belgium. The region also saw record rain from a slow-moving system, causing banks at rivers and reservoirs to burst, sending raging floodwater into streets, swallowing cars, homes, businesses and even entire villages.

A ferocious storm on July 24 flooded Interstate 94 and many other roadways around the Detroit area, as well as some homes. The storm knocked out power to nearly 140,000 customers in Michigan.

While scientists have understood the link between climate change and flooding for some time, the severity of recent events is signaling an indisputable presence of climate change, Davenport said.

The increases in extreme precipitation have also had a direct economic impact, she added.

“We’ve looked at data flood damage over the past 30 years, and we have estimated that a third of the damages from that period were because of increases in precipitation,” Daveport said, citing research published earlier this year.

In a 30-year period from 1988 to 2017, the cost in additional flood damages from increased precipitation totaled about $73 billion, she said.

Climate change is arguably changing Earth’s relationship with water overall, according to scientists. For a region like the Western U.S., the snowpack that builds up during the winter is critical as a water resource.

“When storms that used to bring snow are now bringing rain, this can lead to pretty severe flooding in the winter that we didn’t see in the past,” Davenport said. “Unfortunately, it both increases flooding and can exacerbate some of our drought conditions in the spring and summer.”

ABC News’ Samara Lynn, Morgan Winsor and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cuomo report: Could he face criminal charges?

August 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Governor Andrew Cuomo is facing further scrutiny after the New York attorney general’s office concluded he violated state and federal law in sexually harassing at least 11 women.

While State Attorney General Letitia James’ civil probe didn’t include a criminal referral, several district attorney offices from across the New York area have asked to review the investigation’s materials to determine whether criminal charges could be filed.

James’ findings, released on Tuesday, concluded that Cuomo “sexually harassed current and former New York state employees by engaging in unwelcome and non-consensual touching and making numerous offensive comments of a sexually suggestive nature that created a hostile work environment for women.”

Cuomo has denied all allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct, including inappropriate touching and sexual advances.

The attorney general’s report also concluded that Cuomo may have violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlaws discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sex and prohibits gender-based harassment in the workplace. The report also cited the New York State Human Rights Law, which is similar to the federal law.

Under that law, an employee can be held liable if they engaged in conduct that violates those guidelines or if they aided and abet conduct that violates state laws. “Failure to investigate [discriminatory acts] can constitute ‘active participation’ to support an ‘aiding and abetting’ claim,” the report stated.

In 2019, Cuomo signed legislation, to much fanfare, to strengthen protections against discrimination and harassment under New York State Human Rights Law, including extending the statute of limitations for employment harassment claims to three years from one year.

James’ report also concluded that Cuomo allegedly violated federal and state law in retaliating against one of his accusers, Lindsey Boylan, who came forward with her allegations in December, by “actively engaged in an effort to discredit her,” the report stated.

“The Governor and some of his senior staff questioned at the time (and continue to question) Ms. Boylan’s motivations, claiming that she made her allegations of sexual harassment for political reasons, i.e., to bolster her political campaign, or generally to be vindictive or retaliatory herself. But retaliation is unlawful regardless of whether the employer believes the complainant is acting with a good faith belief that she was harassed,” the report stated.

Further, Cuomo and his office failed to report and investigate the allegations of sexual harassment, in violation of their own internal policies and procedures, the report found.

Karen Agnifilo, a lawyer at Geragos & Geragos and a former prosecutor with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, told ABC News the allegations contained in the report released on Tuesday “absolutely articulates criminal behavior in many of the instances.”

Whether charges are pursued depends largely on “if the victims are willing to come forward, if it’s within the statute of limitations for a misdemeanor, and if there’s jurisdiction,” Agnifilo added. “This report couldn’t have been clearer. It found over and over again, that the victims were credible and, stunningly, the governor was not credible.”

ABC News Legal Analyst Dan Abrams said it’s important to note the difference between potential civil and criminal charges.

“It’s very important to distinguish between sexual harassment, which is a civil law issue, meaning people can sue over it, but the remedy is money damages — it’s an individual suing him,” Abrams said. “A criminal case is the government saying, ‘We are going to seek to punish you and potentially take away your freedom,’ and in a criminal case, the legal standard is also higher. It’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Abrams said the strongest case is for a misdemeanor criminal charge in connection with the claim that Cuomo allegedly groped the breast of his executive assistant who worked at the executive chamber in 2020.

“The criminal law in New York that I think that most people will be focusing on is a law called ‘forcible touching’ — it’s a class A misdemeanor, it’s up to a year in prison,” Abrams explained. “And the definition of it is forcibly touching the sexual or other intimate parts of another person for the purpose of degrading or abusing such person, or for the purpose of gratifying the actor’s sexual desire.”

“I think we are still a ways away from criminal charges,” said Abrams, adding that even if Cuomo is charged with the misdemeanor “you still have to also prove that it’s for the purpose of gratifying the actor’s sexual desire. And that’s one of these legal things people don’t think about every day, but in the very definition of the statute makes it harder to prove.”

That woman came forward anonymously to the Albany Times-Union in April.

Cuomo’s lawyer, Rita Glavin, issued a denial after the report was released on Tuesday that Cuomo ever groped this anonymous assistant.

“The Governor was stunned by her claim made for the first time in early March 2021 that he groped her breast,” Glavin said in a statement. “This claim is false, as the Governor has stated repeatedly and unequivocally.”

What is a HIPAA violation?

August 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Late last month Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, raised eyebrows around the country when she claimed that a reporter’s question about her COVID-19 vaccination status was a “violation of my HIPAA rights.”

Not even close, legal experts say.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a 1996 federal law, is a widely cited and misunderstood privacy statutes. In the age of COVID and questions about the disease and vaccines in the workplace, schools and elsewhere, debate over and misinformation about the law, which “gives you rights over your health information and sets rules and limits on who can look at and receive your health information,” according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has taken on a whole new life.

“HIPAA is the tool the government uses to try and protect some of your personal health care information,” explained Juan Morado, a health care regulatory and policy attorney at Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff, LLP. “It’s a rule that prevents hospitals, health insurance companies, pharmacies, and health care companies from sharing certain protected health information (PHI) you provide them with anyone else without your permission.”

In other words, the law primarily applies to health insurance companies and health care providers. Neither individual citizens nor most employers are considered “covered entities” under HIPAA, according to HHS.

“HIPAA’s protection is incomplete,” said Dr. M. Gregg Bloch, a professor of health law, policy and ethics at Georgetown Law. “The bottom line is that HIPAA is meant to provide some control for the consumer, for the patient, over how his or her information flows,” he added.

“Here’s the huge misunderstanding: What HIPAA does not do is stand in the way of anybody answering the question, ‘Have you been vaccinated?'”

When asked about Greene’s HIPPA comments, communications director Nick Dyer told ABC News, “It’s none of the media’s business. Privacy still exists in America, even though the fake news works every day to erode it.”

Who and what falls under HIPAA?

Three main entities are covered under HIPAA: health care providers, health plans and health care clearing houses. Health care providers include doctors, clinics, mental health providers, dentists, nursing homes and pharmacies. Health plans include health insurance companies, HMOs, company health plans and government health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Health care clearing houses process health information.

A few practical examples of when the law would come into play: “Your doctor can’t share your blood test results without your permission,” Morado said. “A pharmacist isn’t allowed to tell your employer if you’re on medication without your permission.”

Greene is far from the first to wildly misinterpret HIPAA.

Public relations departments and health care organizations are notorious for artfully misinterpreting the law, and claiming health information disclosures fall under HIPAA when they do not, in order to block information they’d prefer not to disclose to the public.

Bloch pointed to the early days of the pandemic, when U.S. nursing homes suffered major outbreaks. While nursing homes are covered entities under HIPAA, he explained, data needs to be identifiable in order to be protected for privacy reasons.

“The main misuse of HIPAA is by health care entities that want to hide the ball when they feel they have numbers that are going to make them look bad,” Bloch said. So when health care journalists, for example, ask a nursing home for de-identified data about people who died there during an outbreak, HIPAA is not a relevant factor.

“That’s utter nonsense,” Bloch said of health care firms blocking requests for de-identified data by citing HIPAA. “HIPAA does not stand in the way of sharing that kind of data.”

Widespread misinterpretations of HIPAA have also trickled down to ordinary citizens, who wind up thinking the law extends further than it does. “These things become on the surface, conventional wisdoms, and then people believe it,” Bloch explained.

“Maybe a doctor’s office doesn’t want to bother with sharing a medical record, and so some assistant up front says HIPAA,” he added. “He or she doesn’t know what they’re talking about. But the typical patient is not a lawyer, so the patient might not want to get into anything resembling a confrontational relationship with his or her doctor’s office.”

The result: The patient takes the incorrect information about HIPAA at face value and the myth proliferates. “Those are some of the ways that this mythology leeches into public space,” Bloch said.

Other everyday situations that aren’t covered under HIPAA: “If your boss/teacher asks if you’re vaccinated, that’s not covered by HIPAA,” Morado said. Neither is your step count or heart rate recorded by an Apple Watch or Fitbit, he added.

“The biggest misconception is HIPAA protects all of your personal health care Information and that it applies to all businesses,” Morado said. “HIPAA only protects information given to covered entities.”

A non-exhaustive list of entities that are NOT covered by HIPAA, according to HHS:

Life insurers
Employers
Workers compensation carriers
Most schools and school districts
Many state agencies like child protective service agencies
Most law enforcement agencies
Many municipal offices

At the end of the day, HIPAA is “porous, maybe even squishy,” according to Bloch. It’s also subject to politics and political interests. While the law was meant to protect patient privacy, “the players that saw their business strategies as vulnerable got into the game, and made sure that there was plenty of Swiss cheese,” he said of HIPAA. In addition to being misinterpreted, the law has many loopholes that benefit the marketing and the pharmaceutical industries, for whom health care data is extremely valuable.

GOP leaders step into Biden’s way on COVID

August 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

The TAKE with Rick Klein

Debates over masks and mandates might make it seem like 2020.

It might also well be a taste of 2024. President Joe Biden’s admonition that lawmakers who are blocking vaccine requirements should “get out of the way” accomplished nothing of the sort — and may have had the opposite reaction.

“I am standing in your way,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday, declaring that Florida will remain a “free state” where no one will be required to show proof of vaccination or force children to wear masks.

DeSantis and other potential presidential contenders who are Republican governors — including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem — have sought to one-up each other when it comes to establishing themselves as champions of personal liberty before and now during this troublesome period of the pandemic.

New polling shows Biden’s trust in handling the pandemic slipping among voters. Quinnipiac University numbers out Wednesday found the president’s approval on COVID at 53% of Americans — down a dozen points since May.

Biden aides, meanwhile, have begun calling out states, including Texas and Florida, where the delta variant is contributing to spikes in cases. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday “that’s not meant to be political,” and is simply “meant to convey that more action is needed in some part of the country.”

Of course, it is political. Republican leaders don’t need the contradictory messaging of former President Donald Trump to make resistance to vaccine and mask mandates a mantra, and skepticism of conflicting advice from scientists crosses party lines.

Now with the concept of “vaccine passports” gaining currency in some localities and businesses, partisan lines are hardening as quickly as campaign fundraising pitches can be written.

The RUNDOWN with Averi Harper

The walls are closing in on disgraced New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

After the announcement of the devastating findings in the state Attorney General’s report on Cuomo’s misconduct and an avalanche of calls for him to resign, state lawmakers could move toward impeachment.

The New York State Assembly, where Democrats hold a vast majority, needs 76 votes to proceed with impeachment. According to ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, at least 82 of the state Assembly’s 150 members are in favor authorizing an impeachment trial. This as Cuomo clings to power with no sign of voluntary resignation.

If impeached, Cuomo would be the second New York state executive to face impeachment. The first was William Sulzer who is the only New York governor to be impeached and convicted. His removal followed accusations of campaign finance fraud in 1913.

If Cuomo were to be removed from office, it would make way for the state’s first female governor. As laid out in the New York’s constitution, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul would immediately become the acting governor during an impeachment trial. If Cuomo is convicted, she would continue in that role through the end of his term.

The assembly’s judiciary committee is slated to meet Monday morning to discuss their impeachment investigation.

The TIP with Meg Cunningham

Four Republicans vying to oust California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized his response to the coronavirus pandemic in a debate Wednesday night on some of the top issues facing the state.

The candidates who joined Newsom all opposed mask mandates, but their solutions to curbing the spread of the virus and its variants differed.

Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer encouraged viewers to get the vaccine (he and his family got it) but said he does not support mask mandates in schools, which are currently in place ahead of the 2021 school year.

Businessman John Cox took a different approach, saying he doesn’t support mandates or believe that people who have had the coronavirus should get the vaccine, because they have antibodies that protect them against it.

Former Congressman Doug Ose and state Assemblyman Kevin Kiley both pushed back against mandates, saying they have faith that Californians can make the right decisions for themselves and their families. Kiley took the opportunity to call out Newsom’s response directly, saying the governor was “bright lights and cash giveaways,” in an attempt to conceal a broken state government.

Defense Secretary to announce mandatory COVID vaccinations for troops ‘soon’: Sources

August 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is expected to announce his recommendation to President Joe Biden that COVID-19 vaccines be made mandatory for troops, officials told ABC News Wednesday evening.

A senior official said the announcement will come “soon,” while a separate U.S. official said an announcement is expected by the end of this week.

The president last week directed the Department of Defense to look into how and when vaccines could be mandated for service members. Austin’s recommendation in response to that request is expected to be in favor of vaccine requirements, but for Austin to implement such a policy, he’ll need a written waiver from Biden.

Because COVID-19 vaccines are available to the military under the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use authorization (EUA), the shot has so far been strictly voluntary.

According to the Pentagon’s latest statistics, at least 70% of military personnel have received at least one dose, compared to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s reporting that 58% of the total U.S. population has received at least one dose.

Pentagon officials have publicly said they would consider requiring COVID-19 vaccinations, as is done with more than a dozen other vaccines, after the FDA fully approves the vaccines.

“I believe that when it’s formally approved, which we expect pretty soon, we probably will go to that, and then that question will kind of be moot,” Vice Adm. John Nowell told a sailor in a town hall question-and-answer video posted to Facebook last month.

It’s reasonable that the FDA will fully approve the Pfizer vaccine by early September, a senior White House official familiar with the FDA approval process told ABC News Tuesday night.

However, while the two-shot Pfizer vaccine is considered suitable for most troops, the single-dose Johnson & Johnson is preferred in some cases, such as for those who are deploying overseas or aboard ships. A waiver from Biden would mean the DOD wouldn’t have to wait for all of the vaccines under EUA to be fully approved before being able to require them, which would afford the Pentagon more options.

Biden administration to announce actions to decrease climate-warming emissions from cars and trucks

August 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration will announce a set of actions on Thursday intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from cars and trucks, reducing planet-warming emissions from the No. 1 sector contributing to climate change in the U.S.

President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Thursday setting a goal that half of all new vehicles sold by 2030 are zero emissions vehicles, specifically electric vehicles powered by batteries or fuel cells or hybrid-electric vehicles. A senior administration official called it a “paradigm shift” for the country and the industry.

“A decade ago, we were talking about reaching around 50 miles per gallon of gasoline in 15 years. Today, for new autos we’re talking about reaching around 50% of vehicles that don’t require even one gallon of gasoline to go a mile in less than a decade,” the official said on a call with reporters, adding that automakers like Ford and GM are expected to be at the White House to support the executive order and announce their plans to meet Biden’s goal.

Automakers Ford, GM and Stellantis endorsed the move in a statement Wednesday night, saying they aim for 40-50% of all new vehicles sold by 2030 to be electric. They also said that goal can only be met with resources to expand electric charging stations that it part of Biden’s proposed Build Back Better plan.

“With the (United Auto Workers) at our side in transforming the workforce and partnering with us on this journey, we believe we can strengthen continued American leadership in clean transportation technology through electric vehicle innovation and manufacturing,” the companies said in a joint statement. “We look forward to working with the Biden Administration, Congress and state and local governments to enact policies that will enable these ambitious objectives.”

The administration will also announce fuel efficiency standards that will more than reverse the rollback of the clean car standards under former President Donald Trump. A senior administration official said the administration will build on higher fuel efficiency standards set by California the senior official said will ultimately save 200 billion gallons of gasoline and reduce 2 billion metric tons of carbon pollution, according to the senior official. Those rules will still need to go through a formal rule-making process at Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation.

“What we’re hearing across the board is a consensus about the direction where this industry is going. And a coming together around the recognition that this is the moment of truth, not just for climate action for economic action as well,” the official said.

Former President Barack Obama issued similar fuel efficiency standards meant to require new gas-powered vehicles to use less gasoline, which would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from cars and trucks. Under Trump the EPA relaxed those standards, prompted a legal battle between the administration and California over more stringent goals set by the state.

ABC News’ Sam Sweeney contributed to this report.

Millions of Americans were struggling to find affordable housing. Then the pandemic hit.

August 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(ATLANTA) — When the pandemic hit the U.S. in March 2020, Schantayln Sherman, a single mother of a daughter with special needs, faced a series of medical and financial setbacks that left her unable to pay her rent.

As she received rental assistance, Sherman said she tried to look for more affordable housing but that it was the “hardest thing” because stock is low, demand is high, waitlists are long and restrictions in terms of credit scores and income levels are limiting.

“I have been looking to find more affordable housing, and, unfortunately, here in Atlanta, or if I even moved to another city in Georgia, it’s just not there right now. The rent is expensive everywhere,” she told ABC News.

According to affordable housing advocates and experts, Sherman’s experience is part of a national crisis that predates the pandemic: a shortage of affordable housing for low-income communities.

According to a July report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, rent is “out of reach” for most low-wage workers in every U.S. state — a crisis that disproportionately harms people of color. A full-time worker has to earn at least $20.40 per hour to afford renting a modest one-bedroom home or $24.90 per hour for a modest two-bedroom home, according to the report.

Henry Louis Taylor Jr., a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Buffalo, said the housing shortage also is a root cause of poverty.

“If poor people were paying 15 to 20% of their income on housing, poverty, as we know it, would have disappeared,” he said. “You can’t attack these issues without government intervention aimed at reducing the costs of housing and raising its quality.”

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge wrote in the NLIHC report that the findings highlight “the urgent need for our government to expand affordable housing.”

She also outlined how the Biden administration’s budget and “Build Back Better” agenda, which includes funds for rental assistance and investments in building or modernizing affordable housing units that “would serve as a critical down payment toward his plan to put housing assistance in reach for every household in need.”

‘A landlord’s market’

Taylor said that the private sector has always failed to provide a sufficient stock of quality housing options for low-income communities and the government hasn’t done enough to correct that market failure.

Jonathan Cappelli, an affordable housing advocate and director of the Neighborhood Development Collaborative in Colorado, echoed Taylor’s sentiment, describing the environment as “a landlord’s market.”

Cappelli told ABC News that rental assistance funds are meant for tenants and landlords who are experiencing financial hardships during the pandemic, but in states like Colorado the majority of the funds have not been distributed.

And as landlords struggle to recover, many are likely to raise rents that are already surging, Cappelli said.

“Those rents are just going to keep on climbing up, and it will continue to serve just higher and higher incomes and create more and more scarcity for low and moderate income households,” he added.

Hannah Adams, a staff attorney at Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, said much of the current rental housing stock is “incredibly substandard, and really much of it is unlivable” — and landlords have no incentive to improve it.

“When you have people lined up down the street for one available affordable housing unit, there’s really no competition in the market,” she explained.

Adams represents low-income renters experiencing housing instability or health-threatening living conditions in the New Orleans area and beyond, where COVID-19 cases are surging. She said she’s been flooded with calls from tenants during the pandemic over deteriorating living conditions.

The shortage “forces the lowest-income, most vulnerable tenants into really substandard housing conditions, which can exacerbate the health impacts of the pandemic,” she added.

Mass evictions loom

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order on Tuesday barring evictions for 60 days in counties with “substantial and high levels” of community transmission, but that relief is temporary and housing insecurity continues to haunt millions.

More than 15 million people already live in households currently behind on their rent payments, putting them at risk of eviction, according to a report released last week by the nonprofit think tank Aspen Institute.

Sherman is one of them.

Amid the pandemic, her 18-year-old daughter Jasmine, who is nonverbal, in a wheelchair and requires around-the-clock care, lost access to her therapy sessions and had to stay home. And as Sherman struggled to find affordable caregivers, she suffered an injury that required surgery and eventually took unpaid, family and medical job-protected leave from her job as a clinical administrator to care for herself and her daughter.

Although she was initially able to receive rental assistance, Sherman received an eviction notice last week after a payment for the month of July was not received by her property manager.

“I was very shocked and it was really heartbreaking when I received that notice,” she said. “Sometimes things happen to people out of their control. And, you know, I was seeking assistance … it just didn’t come fast enough.”

Sherman told ABC News on Wednesday that her property manager agreed to cancel the eviction filing while payment is processing, but her ongoing housing insecurity is leading to “a lot of anxiety and stress.”

“You don’t know from day to day what’s going to happen,” she said, adding that she has been looking for more affordable housing every day but feels “stuck” because prices are so high.

“I’m trying to move out of Atlanta, to move somewhere where maybe, possibly, you know, the rent can be a little bit more affordable. But every time I look everywhere, the prices are expensive,” she said, adding that her dream of becoming a homeowner for now seems “out of reach.”

“I’m hoping you know, that I will be in a place where I can have my own dream home, but right now it’s just very difficult, and it’s just not looking good right now. So I’m going to have to continue to rent.”

Sounds of gunshots traumatize neighborhoods: ‘ShotSpotter’ CEO

August 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — With gun violence on the rise across the country, the trauma extends beyond those hit with bullets to entire neighborhoods suffering the sounds of gunshots, according to a crime prevention company executive.

“Just because someone doesn’t get hurt or killed by a bullet, just going to bed to the sound of gunfire, waking up to the sound of gunfire, assuming the risk of moving around a neighborhood that has being held captive by a few criminal serial shooters completely rewires the way, especially in young children, how their brain works,” ShotSpotter CEO Ralph Clark told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas.

ShotSpotter is known for their acoustic gunshot technology, which takes “pops, booms and bangs,” from sensors posted around a neighborhood or city and triangulates timestamps, and pushes an alert out to police departments within 45 seconds of the trigger being pulled exactly where the shooting took place, Clark explained.

Ten people were shot over the weekend in the New York City borough of Queens and New York Police Department Commissioner Dermot Shea told ABC News the city saw a 73% increase in shootings in May 2021 when compared to the same time last year.

“The real cost is, is the trauma, and the emotional trauma and the mother that lives on that block and now won’t send our kids outside because she knows every night there’s gunfire,” Shea explained in an interview last week.

Children who see gun violence or are victims of gun violence experience trauma over and over again, Dr. Eraina Schauss, director of the BRAIN Center at the University of Memphis, told ABC News.

“Kids who have been shot, their body is in such shock there’s just such fear,” Schauss explained. “They’re afraid to do anything. Some of the kids are catatonic, meaning they have a hard time speaking they have they have a hard time just doing daily tasks. They’re reliving that moment and their body is still in that trauma.”

Strauss treats children immediately after they have been shot in Memphis, not for physical wounds but for mental health. She explained that children who have witnessed shootings have a difficult time expressing their feelings in some cases and doctors at the BRAIN Center identify manageable ways they are able to cope with seeing their friend or loved one shot.

“There’s that feeling when you feel like there’s no control in your environment, and you can’t control your situation and things feel hopeless. You know that something that we perpetuate that cycle of violence, just because it’s all driven by fear, it’s a fear reaction,” she said.

As for investigating shootings in New York, Shea said ShotSpotter is an immensely helpful tool.

“Even if we don’t find the casings, we’ll have the video on the block. And we’ll see the person who were they with? What color was there? Who were they arguing with? Countless countless times it helps and puts a narrative to a story where without it, you would have literally nothing, it’s very hard to search all of New York City, but when it when when it allows you to start zeroing down, that’s where and then there’s a lot of other benefits in terms of actually recovering ballistics,” he said.

Clark said the technology is useful even if police do not make an arrest on the day the shooting occurred.

“If they’re not dealing with the perpetrator or aiding a victim, they’re much more likely to be able to recover physical forensic evidence in the form of shell casings as well as interview witnesses. Right. And that’s critically important to follow on investigation around who might have been involved in that shooting. So, although you might not put cuffs on the perpetrator at that point in time, oftentimes they link critical clues about who they were,” he explained.

“Twenty percent causing 80 percent,” Clark said, quoting Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who explained that roughly 80% of the consequences come from 20% of the causes. “We know at least in Oakland, there was at least 100 times where officers, through a ShotSpotter alert, were able to get to that location and find a victim and basically apply life saving measures to save a persons.”

Critics say however that ShotSpotter disproportionally targets African-Americans, especially in a city like Chicago.

“High-tech tools can create a false justification for the broken status quo of policing and can end up exacerbating existing racial disparities,” Jonathan Manes, an attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law said. “We needed to know whether this system actually does what it claims to do. It does not.”

Manes studied the ShotSpotter technology and found that 89% turned up no gun-related crime and 86% led to no report of any crime at all.

“This system puts police on high alert and sends them racing into communities; but almost nine times of our ten, the police don’t turn up evidence of gun crime or any crime at all. It creates a powderkeg situation for residents who just happen to be in the vicinity of a false alert.”

The CEO said the technology is 97% effective and in 2020, the company published 240,000 gunshot alerts to police departments around the country who purchase their technology.

Often times, Clark said it is not the first time a gun has been used in a shooting.

“Does anyone really believe that that’s the first time that that gun has been fired,” he asked. “That homicide, that gun that was used in that homicide has been fired before that homicide and is likely to continue to be fired after that homicide if, in fact, there isn’t some kind of organized intervention.”

ShotSpotter is not a one-size-fits-all approach to curbing gun violence, Clark explained, saying that the technology is another tool in their tool belt.

“What we believe is that when a police department takes a comprehensive gun violence reduction strategy, utilizing a number of tools, just not ShotSpotter, but other tools as well, we can show progress,” he said.

For Clark the issue is personal, as he grew up in Oakland, a city which has experienced 72 homicides this year alone, according to the local police department.

“I would say as a company, our original founding is really about being purposeful and having impact and making a difference,” Clark said.

‘Unprecedented’ fraud penetrated rollout of COVID-19 small business loans, watchdog warns

August 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — At the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, when offices and restaurants began shuttering, the federal government scrambled to keep small businesses afloat — ultimately spending over a trillion dollars to help protect the American Dream for millions of workers and business owners.

But even before the first checks went out, alarm bells went off.

The person ringing those bells the loudest was Hannibal “Mike” Ware, the inspector general of the Small Business Administration. The veteran internal watchdog says he participated in a series of meetings with Trump administration officials and SBA program analysts that were laced with “testy exchanges” about how to expeditiously dispense funds without leaving them vulnerable to fraudulent claims.

His warnings went unheeded, Ware said, and the fallout has taken him “from a black-haired guy to a gray-haired guy.”

“My frustration level was extremely high,” Ware told ABC News in a recent interview. And now, a year and half later, he said “the magnitude of the fraud we are seeing is unheard of — unprecedented.”

As small businesses emerge from the pandemic, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL), two key relief programs passed as part of the congressional CARES Act, are winding down. But for all the jobs they’ve rescued, their legacies may be tarnished by unprecedented amounts of fraud — a reality that experts fear may impair efforts to pass future emergency relief programs.

“In terms of the monetary value, the amount of fraud in these COVID relief programs is going to be larger than any government program that came before it,” Ware said.

All government programs suffer some amount of fraud, experts say. And emergency programs are even more susceptible, due to the inherent tension between the pressure to approve loans quickly and the need to screen applications and maintain other fraud-prevention measures that may prolong the process.

In an October 2020 report, Ware’s office found that “to expedite the process, SBA ‘lowered the guardrails’ or relaxed internal controls, which significantly increased the risk of program fraud.”

A senior SBA official in the Biden administration agreed with Ware’s analysis, noting that “it should not be an expectation that we need to sacrifice speed for certainty — you can do both.”

“The story of 2020 for both PPP and EIDL is the fact that the previous administration’s leadership did not have sufficient controls in place for determining individual identity or business identity,” the official said. “Different choices could have absolutely been made to limit fraud vulnerabilities.”

“With limited staff, few technological tools to conduct prepayment verification, and crushing need, SBA and other agencies abandoned many traditional controls and simply approved applicants with little or no verification of self-reported information,” according to Linda Miller, the former deputy executive director of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a government task force established as part of the CARES Act.

“Best practice calls for due diligence at the front end to avoid making the fraudulent or improper payment in the first place,” Miller wrote in June, after leaving PRAC. “But in the rush to quickly distribute pandemic relief, we failed to do that and so now we are chasing [funds that were fraudulently granted] … but the recovered funds will be a fraction of what was stolen.”

Ware said this is precisely what his office sought to avoid. Before PPP and EIDL were even finalized, the SBA inspector general’s office submitted three reports to the SBA “detailing the importance of up-front controls,” according to Ware. During the testy exchanges in the spring of 2020, he said he warned the SBA to “pump the brakes” on the process.

“Fraudsters are going to do what fraudsters are going to do,” Ware said. “But the upfront controls mitigate exposure to fraud, and doing so would have saved taxpayers a whole lot of heartache on the back end. Unfortunately, the heartache was not avoided because of the way these programs were implemented up front.”

Jovita Carranza, the former SBA administrator who resigned when President Trump left office, could not be reached by ABC News for comment. Last October, in a letter responding to Ware’s report, Carranza wrote that the inspector general “failed to acknowledge the enhanced and effective system controls and validations that SBA is using” to weed out fraudulent applications and “grossly overstates the risk of fraud, waste and abuse.”

Carranza’s successor as SBA administrator — Biden nominee Isabella Casillas Guzman — has said that “reducing the risks of fraud and waste and abuse” in the distribution of relief loans and grants is a top priority. She said a series of steps implemented in December — including up-front verifications and tax information from applicants — has already produced “a sharp decline” in fraud, and that she is working closely with Ware to further improve safeguards and vigorously track down and recover prior fraudulent dispersals.

Ware agreed that controls put in place late last year helped curb fraud, but said the efforts were too little, too late.

“By then, well, you already know how much money was gone,” he said. “A lot of money was out.”

Among the relief programs, the previous administration’s EIDL rollout has attracted particular scrutiny. James W. Connor, a former federal prosecutor who is now with the law firm Arnold & Porter, called the program a “fraud magnet,” citing a provision that allowed recipients to receive up to $10,000 up front “with essentially no strings attached.”

“That money is gone,” Connor said.

But that hasn’t kept Ware from trying to recover it. His investigative efforts have resulted in 307 indictments, 205 arrests, and 69 convictions tied to PPP and EIDL fraud, resulting in the recovery of more than $600 million so far.

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