(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced Wednesday that Innovative Solutions, Inc., is recalling approximately 97,887 pounds of raw ground chicken patty products sold at Trader Joe’s locations.
The chicken patty products, which were produced on various dates from Aug. 16 to Sept. 29, may be contaminated with extraneous materials, specifically pieces of bone, according to the press release.
The products subject to recall include Trader Joe’s Chile Lime Chicken Burgers and Spinach Feta Chicken Sliders, which were shipped nationwide.
There have been no confirmed reports of injury or illness, but the FSIS urges consumers to throw away or return the products.
(WASHINGTON) — A group of House Democrats have announced that on Friday they will formally introduce a measure to censure Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., for tweeting an edited Japanese cartoon showing him stabbing President Joe Biden and killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Gosar on Monday tweeted the message, “any anime fans out there?” with what appeared to be an edited clip of the Japanese cartoon series “Attack on Titan,” in which the main characters fight off giants trying to exterminate humanity.
The edited clip of the show’s opening credits depict Gosar and other GOP lawmakers flying through the air and stabbing giants with the faces of Biden and Ocasio-Cortez, in between images of Border Patrol officers with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Gosar was immediately condemned by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats, some of whom called for his expulsion from Congress and charged him with glorifying violence against the prominent Democrats.
Pelosi tweeted on Tuesday, “Threats of violence against Members of Congress and the President of the United States must not be tolerated. @GOPLeader should join in condemning this horrific video and call on the Ethics Committee and law enforcement to investigate.”
“For a Member of Congress to post a manipulated video on his social media accounts depicting himself killing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden is a clear cut case for censure,” Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., and other Democrats co-sponsoring her resolution wrote in a statement on Wednesday.
“For that Member to post such a video on his official Instagram account and use his official congressional resources in the House of Representatives to further violence against elected officials goes beyond the pale.”
Ocasio-Cortez also denounced House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for not publicly criticizing Gosar’s actions. Aides to the California Republican did not respond to a message from ABC News seeking comment on the video.
Gosar eventually took down the tweet and video Tuesday night, after Twitter placed a public interest notice on the post. He said the video produced by his office was meant to “symbolize the battle for the soul of America” and was “in no way intended to be a targeted attack against” the Democrats.
“The cartoon depicts the symbolic nature of a battle between lawful and unlawful policies and in no way intended to be a targeted attack against Representative Cortez or Mr. Biden,” Gosar said in a statement.
“It is a symbolic cartoon. It is not real life. Congressman Gosar cannot fly. The hero of the cartoon goes after the monster, the policy monster of open borders. I will always fight to defend the rule of law, securing our borders, and the America First agenda,” the statement said.
If the censure resolution is taken up by the full House and approved by a majority of lawmakers present and voting, Gosar could be forced to stand in the center of the House chamber as the resolution condemning his actions are read aloud.
It’s not yet clear if the House will take action against Gosar, who has courted controversy for spreading conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and appearing at a white nationalist event last winter — though he distanced himself from the main organizer and his comments.
Twenty-three members of Congress have been censured for misconduct, according to a 2016 Congressional Research Service Report.
Former Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., was the last member of Congress to be censured — in December 2010 — accused of nearly a dozen ethics violations.
(ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.) — The two largest hospital systems in Albuquerque, New Mexico, have activated crisis standards of care due to an “unprecedented level” of activity during the pandemic, hospital officials announced Thursday.
University of New Mexico Health System and Presbyterian Healthcare Services leaders said in a joint press briefing that they have transitioned to crisis standards of care at their Albuquerque metro hospitals. The move comes as the hospitals are being stretched to the limit in terms of space and staffing due to increasing COVID-19 hospitalizations and a high volume of patients with acute conditions, officials said.
“Currently at UNM today, we’re operating at about 140% of our normal operating capacity, and I’ve had moments where we’ve approached 150%. This really is an unsustainable and unprecedented level of activity that we’ve been able to create,” Dr. Michael Richards, senior vice president for clinical affairs at UNM Health System, told reporters.
The decision means that nonessential medical procedures could be delayed by up to 90 days, and that patients may need to get treated at a different regional hospital, or possibly out of state, hospital officials said.
“We are not triaging and denying care,” said Dr. Jason Mitchell, the chief medical and clinical transformation officer for Presbyterian Healthcare Services. “The decision may be, we don’t have beds in our hospitals — who else can take this patient?”
The announcement comes less than a month after the state’s Department of Health announced a new public health order allowing health care facilities to transition to crisis standards of care amid a delta surge and a shortage of hospital staff. The state is averaging more than 1,450 daily cases and nearly 530 hospitalizations, up from fewer than 700 daily cases and 400 hospitalizations in early October, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The order creates a “more standardized and equitable procedure” for determining patient priority when resources are limited. Crisis standards of care were last implemented in the state nearly a year ago, in December 2020.
Last week, San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington, New Mexico, became the first hospital under the latest order to declare crisis standards of care. State health officials said Wednesday they were in touch with “multiple” hospital systems in New Mexico that were also considering the same.
“Our hospital teams are really stretched thin, and we are seeing way more patients than they thought possible,” Dr. David Scrase, acting cabinet secretary of the state’s Department of Health, said during a press briefing Wednesday. “What it means is if one of the people watching this press conference has a heart attack right now, there’s a good chance that we won’t have an intensive care unit bed for that person here in New Mexico.”
Intensive care unit capacity has dipped into the single digits for the first time during the pandemic, Scrase said, as nearly every county in the state is experiencing high levels of transmission.
“Not very good news with hospitalizations,” he said, urging people to get vaccinated and booster shots and to follow safe COVID-19 practices. “This is a really serious time.”
(WASHINGTON) — An appeals court has put a temporary pause on the handover of records from the Trump White House to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
A three-judge panel in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday granted a request from former President Donald Trump’s legal team for a temporary injunction to block the exchange of records from the National Archives to the committee, which was set to take place Friday, and scheduled a Nov. 30 hearing to hear arguments from all parties in the case.
Trump sued the committee and the National Archives last month, asserting executive privilege over a broad swath of documents the national archivist had identified as relevant to the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the subsequent attack on the U.S. Capitol.
A district court judge this week twice denied Trump’s request to block or delay the release of the documents, ruling that President Joe Biden’s decision to not assert privilege over the materials outweighed Trump’s efforts to do so as a private citizen.
“[Trump’s] position that he may override the express will of the executive branch appears to be premised on the notion that his executive power ‘exists in perpetuity,'” district judge Tanya Chutkan said in her ruling. “But Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.”
It’s unclear how the temporary delay might affect the work of the Jan. 6 committee. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, has previously said he hopes the committee’s investigation could conclude by early next year.
According to the national archivist, the first tranche of documents that were set to be handed over on Friday included daily presidential diaries, call logs, White House appointments that occurred around Jan. 6, and three handwritten notes from the files of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, among other documents.
(HOUSTON) — Nine victims have been identified in the deadly stage surge at the Astroworld Festival concert.
23-year-old Arturo Sanchez, an attendee, said his heart literally stopped as he was trampled by the crowd, and he believed he was going to die himself.
Bruised and battered, Sanchez told ABC News from his hospital bed on Sunday about the panic and chaos that erupted during the opening song of rapper Travis Scott’s performance.
He said that as soon as Scott began to sing, the crowd surged forward, knocking him off balance and causing him to fall to the ground near the front of the stage.
“I was on the floor screaming for help and trying to reach for people’s hands so they could see me and no one could see me,” Sanchez said. “I just kind of accepted the fact that I was going to die, and I did for a little bit. My heart stopped, apparently.”
Sanchez said doctors told him he suffered a heart attack and had briefly flatlined.
He said he remembered a large man falling on him and sitting on his chest as he struggled to breathe and then passed out.
Sanchez said a registered nurse attending the concert performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him and helped get him to an ambulance.
“She saved my life, honestly,” Sanchez said.
Latest victims identified
Bharti Shahani, 22, died Wednesday night after being hospitalized from injuries caused by the crowd surge, bringing the concert’s death toll to nine. Shahani, a student at Texas A&M University, was taken to Houston Methodist Hospital, where her family said she had been on a ventilator and had heart failure.
“Bharti is love. You know what is love? Bharti is love,” her mother Karishma Shahani said tearfully at a press conference. “What happened to my blessing? I want my baby back. I won’t be able to live without her.”
The eighth victim to be identified, Axel Acosta, died at Memorial Hermann Hospital, father Oscar Acosta confirmed to ABC station KTRK-TV in Houston. He said his son traveled from Washington to see Scott perform.
Acosta, 21, was among the concertgoers killed when throngs in the estimated crowd of 50,000 packed into NRG Park — which is next to NRG Stadium, home of the Houston Texans NFL football team — suddenly surged toward the stage, authorities said. Another 25 people were injured, one just 10 years old, officials said.
Acosta identified his son after the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences released a post-mortem photo and asked the public for help in identifying him.
Five other people killed were identified by either their families or the schools they attended.
‘An innocent young soul’
Danish Baig, 27, of Dallas was killed while trying to save his fiancee, Olivia Swingle, who had fallen and was reportedly about to be trampled by concert-goers pushing forward, his brother Basil Baig told ABC News.
“He was an innocent young soul who would always put others before him,” Basil Baig said in a statement. “He was a hardworking man who loved his family and took care of us. He was there in a heartbeat for anything. He always had a solution to everything.”
Basil Baig said in a Facebook post that he also was at the concert, promoted and organized by Live Nation, and described it as being “poorly” managed and supervised. He alleged that Scott provoked the crowd to move toward the stage.
“Travis Scott and his team and everyone associated in the event should and will be held responsible,” Basil Baig said in his statement to ABC News.
In videos Scott posted on Instagram Saturday, he said he tried to spot people in the crowd having physical problems and paused during the show to try to get help to fans that appeared in need.
“I could just never imagine the severity of the situation,” Scott said in one of the videos.
In a separate statement, Live Nation said, “We will continue working to provide as much information and assistance as possible to the local authorities as they investigate the situation.”
The youngest victim
The youngest victim who died was 14-year-old John Hilgert, a freshman at Memorial High School in Houston, according to a letter the school’s principal sent to parents.
“Our hearts go out to the student’s family and to his friends and our staff at Memorial,” principal Lisa Weir wrote in the letter. “This is a terrible loss, and the entire MHS family is grieving today.”
One victim had passion for dance
Also killed was 16-year-old Brianna Rodriguez, a junior at Heights High School in Houston, her aunt, Iris Rodriguez, told ABC News.
Iris Rodriguez said her niece had a passion for dance.
“Now she’s dancing her way to heaven’s pearly gates,” the Rodriguez family wrote on a GoFundMe page that included a series of photos of Brianna.
College senior dies
Franco Patiño, 21, a senior at the University of Dayton in Ohio, was identified by the school as one of the concertgoers killed.
In a letter addressed to members of the university’s campus community, the school’s president, Eric Spina, said Patiño was from Naperville, Illinois, and was majoring in mechanical engineering technology with a minor in human movement biomechanics.
Patiño was also a member of Alpha Psi Lambda, a Hispanic-interest fraternity, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Spina wrote. Patiño had been working in an engineering coop program in Mason, Ohio, according to Spina.
‘Huge hole in our lives’
The family of Jacob “Jake” E. Jurinek said in a statement Sunday that he was among those killed. Jurinek was a junior at Southern Illinois University and was majoring in art and media, his family said.
“We are all devastated and are left with a huge hole in our lives,” said Jurinek’s father, Ron Jurinek.
Rodolfo Pena, 23, from Laredo, Texas, and Madison Dubiski, 23, from Cypress, Texas were also killed.
Bedlam ensues
The concert bedlam unfolded around 9:30 p.m. local time Friday when the “the crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage,” Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña told reporters during a news conference Friday night.
“That caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries,” Peña said.
At least 13 people injured remain hospitalized, including five under the age of 18, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told reporters during a briefing.
As of Sunday night, at least one lawsuit has been filed against Scott.
What triggered the surge is under investigation by the Houston Police Department. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he has ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to make state resources available to support the investigation.
Scott has history of issues at concerts
Problems have previously occurred at other Travis Scott concerts. In 2015, the rapper was arrested on charges of inciting a crowd to jump barriers at a Lollapalooza concert in Chicago. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine, according to officials.
In 2017, Scott was arrested again after he invited more people to come closer to the stage, prompting fans at the Walmart Music Pavilion in Rogers, Arkansas, to breach barricades and overrun security. In that case, he also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct and paid a fine.
Prior to the fatal surge at Scott’s concert on Friday night, some 300 people had been treated throughout the day at the music festival by on-site medical personnel, authorities said. There were “many instances” where they had to administer Narcan, which is used to treat a narcotic overdose, said Peña, who did not have an exact number.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said that during the pandemonium, a private security guard working at the festival was possibly injected in the neck with drugs as he was attempting to grab or restrain someone.
“When he was examined, he went unconscious,” Finner said during a Saturday afternoon briefing. “(Medical staff) administered Narcan. He was revived, and the medical staff did notice a prick that was similar to a prick that you would get if someone was trying to inject.”
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso, Jenna Harrison, Kendall Coughlin, Darren Reynolds and Marcus Moore contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Under the glare of dueling national spotlights, judges presiding over the Kyle Rittenhouse homicide trial in Wisconsin and the case against three white Georgia men in the death of Ahmaud Arbery have both displayed their ire as they’ve struggled to maintain fairness in the courtroom.
A display of frustration boiled over from the bench in the Rittenhouse case Wednesday when a visibly angered Judge Bruce Schroeder lambasted the lead prosecutor, accusing him of low-blow antics he said bordered on a “grave constitutional violation.”
Brian Buckmire, a New York public defender and ABC News contributor, said both judges have taken actions to maintain fairness in the proceedings and shield the juries from hearing anything unrelated to the evidence they’ve allowed in the two high-profile cases, despite some of the attorneys seeming to posture for the cameras in the courtroom.
“Judges are very protective of the jury, sometimes even considering it their jury,” said Buckmire, who is also an anchor for the Law & Crime Network. “You always want the jury to be pristine, to only make decisions based on the evidence and not because a judge scolded a lawyer or vice versa.”
The latest exhibit of exasperation coming from the bench occurred during the testimony of 18-year-old Rittenhouse, who claimed he shot three men, two fatally, in self-defense during a 2020 protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Shortly after prosecutor Thomas Binger began his cross-examination of Rittenhouse, Schroeder had the jury marched out of the courtroom before he ripped the state’s attorney for asking the teenager about his silence about the shootings prior to taking the witness stand.
Schroeder warned Binger that he was edging toward a “grave constitutional violation” by ignoring Rittenhouse’s right to remain silent in front of the jury.
“You’re right on the borderline, and you may be over it,” Schroeder said, at times shouting at Binger. “But it better stop. This is not permitted.”
After Binger resumed the questioning, he prompted another verbal lashing from Schroeder by beginning to broach evidence the judge had ruled inadmissible. Schroeder had the jury exit the courtroom again before he lit into Binger, and defense attorney Mark Richards accused the prosecutor of trying to provoke a mistrial.
Binger claimed he thought Schroeder had left the “door open” for him to question Rittenhouse about the inadmissible evidence and during a subsequent hearing told the judge he was “acting in good faith.”
“Good faith! I don’t believe you,” Schroeder told Binger.
In the Arbery case, Judge Timothy Walmsley had the jury exit the Brunswick, Georgia, courtroom on Tuesday so the panel wouldn’t hear his choice words for one of the defense attorneys.
Jason Sheffield, a lawyer for defendant Travis McMichael, garnered Walmsley’s wrath by provoking multiple objections from prosecutor Linda Dunikoski and by apparently trying to argue with the judge.
Walmsley stopped Sheffield’s questioning after he asked Glynn County Detective Parker Marcy several times about why he went to a house under construction in the Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick, a site where security video footage had recorded Arbery entering several times and where he was reportedly seen by a neighbor leaving on the day he was killed.
“By going there, you were looking to determine or trying to understand that somebody may have entered that dwelling with the intent to take something?” Sheffield asked, soliciting an objection from Dunikoski that the defense was trying to testify for the witness during the cross-examination.
Walmsley sustained the objection, and when Sheffield appeared to try to argue with him, he sent the jury out of the courtroom.
“I don’t care whether you like my rulings or not, or like me or not, but in this court, it’s axiomatic that counsel show at least respect for what the court is doing,” Walmsley said. “And what you just did shows a lack of respect for what the court is trying to do here, which is to create an environment which is fair to all parties.”
Walmsley went on, saying, “I would suggest that you take a moment to think about that. I’m going to step off the bench because I found that … I’ll just call it rude.”
By then, Walmsley seemed frustrated by other behavior by Sheffield, noting the attorney’s use of a large flipchart in which he pointed to the word “break-in” during his cross-examination of Marcy. Walmsley told Sheffield his “jumping up and moving the board” was distracting to the jury.
“I would suggest that you taper some of that very quickly, because it will not be tolerated in this court,” Walmsley said.
A more subdued Sheffield returned from the recess and finished his questioning of Marcy.
The courtroom fireworks in the Rittenhouse case came about a week after a juror unwittingly tested Schroeder’s patience.
Schroeder booted a juror on the third day of the trial after the panelist acknowledged that he told a tasteless joke to a deputy about Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man who was shot and paralyzed by a Kenosha police officer. The shooting prompted protests in Kenosha that devolved into looting, rioting and eventually the shootings that Rittenhouse committed.
Schroeder then launched into a lengthy explanation to the attorneys in the case that the trial is being televised nationwide, and he noted that he heard one TV news commentator saying that “‘this is the most divisive case in the country today.'”
“So, anything that undermines public confidence in what happens here is very important,” Schroeder said sternly. “It’s important for this town, it’s important for this country to have people have confidence in the result of this trial.”
(DALLAS) — The impact of Texas’s near-total ban on abortions is being felt in states as far away as California and Maryland, according to new research.
In the weeks since SB8, which outlaws most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, went into effect, Texas residents have undergone abortions in more than one dozen states and Washington, D.C., according to research from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization.
In addition to traveling to states that border Texas to seek abortion care, residents have traveled to states that are hundreds or thousands of miles away. One abortion provider in Tennessee has had twice as many patients from Texas since September, when SB8 went into effect, than in all of 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
“What we’re talking about is a total disruption of the abortion care network,” said Elizabeth Nash, interim associate director of state issues at the Guttmacher institute. “And if the Texas ban stays in effect and other states are able to follow suit, then we will continue to see a real disruption among abortion clinics across the country.”
The Texas law bans abortion once the rhythmic contracting of fetal cardiac tissue can be detected. That’s usually around six weeks, before some people may even know they’re pregnant.
Most of the abortions performed nationwide are after six weeks of pregnancy.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments earlier this month about SB8, which is enforced by private citizens who are allowed to bring lawsuits against anyone who “aids or abets” an unlawful abortion.
The justices are expected to rule soon on whether abortion rights advocates and the federal government have the ability to sue Texas over the law given the way it’s designed.
In the meantime, abortion rights advocates say they worry that the far distances people are having to travel to seek abortion care means the most vulnerable people, such as those without the financial resources to travel, are being left behind.
Jessica Pinckney, executive director of Access Reproductive Justice in California, said the organization’s Healthline, which helps people with funding and logistics for abortion care, has only seen a small uptick in callers from Texas since SB8 went into effect.
The organization’s clinic partners in California, however, are reporting caring for two to three patients from Texas per day, according to Pinckney.
“This likely indicates that the people who are leaving Texas to access abortion care have the financial means to do so and, potentially, are not calling on Access for financial support,” Pinckney said, adding that her organization is preparing for even more of an influx of people from Texas as abortion care in closer states becomes harder to obtain, whether because of increased restrictions in those states or an increased demand for abortions.
An earlier Guttmacher Institute analysis found that when a person from Texas has to travel out of state for an abortion, it increases the trip by an average of nearly 3.5 hours each way.
The cost of some abortions can range anywhere from zero dollars to $1,500 based on where a person lives and what types of health insurance and financial support programs they may have access to, according to Planned Parenthood.
As the pregnancy progresses, it gets more expensive. Abortion in the second trimester can cost as much as $3,500 — and that is before factoring in costs like travel, child care and time off of work — according to Brigitte Winter, board vice president of the Baltimore Abortion Fund (BAF), a nonprofit organization that provides financial support to people seeking abortion care in Maryland.
“Over the last two years, BAF has seen the barriers to access for the people calling our confidential helpline get significantly steeper — even before the passage of SB8 in Texas — as more people struggle financially due to the ongoing public health crisis, and more abortion patients travel to Maryland from states with restrictive abortion regulations,” Winter said. “Many of our callers will have to call multiple abortion funds, coordinate needs like travel and child care, and do their own fundraising, telling their personal stories over and over again, in order to fully cover the cost of their abortion procedures, sometimes up until the day of their appointments.”
“When callers aren’t able to fully fund their abortion care, they have to reschedule, making their procedures exponentially more expensive and less accessible the longer they have to fundraise,” she said.
Winter said BAF has received only a handful of calls from Texas residents since SB8 went into effect, though she said that does not show the full picture of people likely accessing care.
“Traveling all the way from Texas to Maryland for an abortion procedure is expensive and logistically challenging, especially factoring in costs like air travel, lost wages, hotel accommodations, meals and child care,” she said. “Because we only hear from patients who have a financial need, it is very unlikely that we have spoken to every person coming to a Maryland abortion clinic from Texas since the passage of SB8.”
Nash, of the Guttmacher Institute, said the fallout in other states from SB8 has shown how one state’s abortion law can “have an impact across the entire country.”
She said clinics in states where abortion access is available are reporting being so inundated with out-of-state patients that local residents have to drive somewhere further away for care.
The impact of the Texas law is also being felt as U.S. Supreme Court Justices are scheduled to revisit Roe v. Wade in a separate case from Mississippi set for December.
“This feels like a very precarious time for abortion rights,” Nash said. “In states across the country, there is already very limited access to abortion. To add more patients is a real stressor on this network.”
(NEW YORK) — Pamela Millwood isn’t against getting vaccinated. But at the federal prison where she works in Jesup, Georgia, many of her coworkers are skeptical or downright opposed to getting a shot.
The result, she predicts, will be an exodus of some 30% to 40% of staff this holiday season, when prison employees will fall under a sweeping mandate that requires the nation’s 2 million civilian workers to become fully immunized against COVID-19.
That type of mass resignation hasn’t happened at other employers with mandatory vaccinations, such as Tysons Foods, United Airlines and New York City firefighters and teachers. The U.S. military, too, already has required COVID vaccines.
In each instance, personnel eventually complied, even after some raucous protests, with 90% or more of those workers now vaccinated.
But Millwood said she’s not so sure that will be the case at the Jesup prison, where working conditions are particularly stressful and employees are living in a state with some of the lowest COVID vaccination levels despite high transmission levels.
“We’ve got some very strong-minded staff who are going to stand their ground on it,” said Millwood, who also serves as the local union president in Jesup, some 60 miles south of Savannah. “And we’re going to lose some staff over this.”
After initially dismissing a vaccine mandate as the wrong approach, President Joe Biden this summer switched gears. Vaccination rates had stalled out earlier than anticipated, and COVID cases again began ticking upward. Children too young for the vaccine began crowding pediatric ICUs, and hospitals warned of potentially having to ration care as beds overflowed with mostly unvaccinated patients.
In September, Biden announced a new plan: Anyone working for or doing business with the federal government would have to get vaccinated, without the option of testing for the virus. Health care workers at facilities that accept federal money through programs like Medicaid and Medicare also would be required to get their shots. Additionally, private businesses with 100 or more employees would have to impose mandates of their own, although those workers would be given the option of weekly testing.
As the separate mandates face multiple lawsuits, Biden has argued that office spaces and assembly lines aren’t safe without widespread vaccinations, and that it’s up to employers to protect workers against COVID-19 the same as they would asbestos exposure or any other occupational hazard.
“I waited until July to talk about mandating because I tried everything else possible,” Biden said last month at a CNN Town Hall. “The mandates are working.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, unvaccinated people are six times more likely to test positive and 11 times more likely to die. When vaccinated people test positive, they also tend to recover and clear the virus more quickly, making them less contagious and protecting those around them.
Research also has found that “natural immunity” isn’t enough. One study of 7,000 people hospitalized for COVID-19 across nine states found that unvaccinated people who had been previously infected still were five times more likely to be re-infected than those who were vaccinated.
Still, as the holiday season approaches and employers complain of a worker shortage, Biden’s mandates are now at the forefront of a nationwide debate on whether the government is going too far.
Under Biden’s plan, the estimated 2 million civilians who work for the federal government — the vast majority of whom reside outside the Washington, D.C., area — were supposed to have gotten their last shot by now in anticipation of a Nov. 22 deadline. The CDC considers a person “fully immunized” two weeks after their last dose.
How much of the federal workforce will meet that deadline remains to be seen. The White House won’t release estimates yet because it insists workers still have time to report their vaccinations, even though guidance to the federal agencies has said disciplinary action could begin as early as this week.
Of particular concern are workers essential to national security and law enforcement, including the more than 50,000 Transportation Security Administration employees at airports tasked with screening an estimated 4 million air travelers over Thanksgiving.
As of last month, some 40% TSA workers remained unvaccinated. The White House and TSA haven’t updated those figures, but did say Thanksgiving travel shouldn’t be greatly affected because potential terminations won’t be immediate.
If workers refuse a vaccination, they would be subject to an initial counseling session, followed by a warning, after which they’d be subject to termination.
But it’s unclear how long that could take. Federal guidelines posted online suggest counseling efforts are limited to five days, to be followed by a 14-day suspension during which workers would be required to initiate getting a shot.
White House officials said agencies are being given discretion on how to implement the mandate, and they’re insisting Biden’s Nov. 22 deadline isn’t a “cliff.”
“The purpose, I think, most importantly, is to get people vaccinated and protected, not to punish them,” Jeff Zients, the White House coordinator on COVID-19, said at a recent press briefing.
At the same time, the administration appears to be slow-walking the mandate while simultaneously arguing that getting vaccinated is urgent.
When asked why the deadline for federal workers can’t be moved to Jan. 4 to align with the private sector, as suggested by union officials, a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget said: “The vast majority of the federal workforce wants to know they’re safe in the workplace because their coworkers are vaccinated.”
In Jesup, Millwood said protests and employee attrition are inevitable. Two coworkers already have left, stretching thinner an already strained staff, she said.
Millwood acknowledged that her husband agreed to get vaccinated only when faced with the mandate. She said she’s still not sure about her coworkers.
“There are a lot of people,” Millwood said, “who are absolutely either going to wait to the last minute, or are just [saying], ‘You’re going to have to fire me.’ And that’s just the way it is.”
ABC News’s Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 758,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 68.5% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-Cases on the rise in 20 states
-Over 900,000 kids 5-11 will have 1st shot by end of day, White House estimates
-Pfizer asks FDA to amend booster authorization to include all adults
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Nov 11, 2:26 pm
US COVID hospitalizations increase for 3rd consecutive day
Thursday marked the third consecutive day where COVID hospitalizations rose nationwide.
Fourteen states reported a 10% increase in hospital admissions over the last week. The states are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Total hospitalizations are down nearly 55% since mid-August.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Nov 10, 9:21 pm
COVID-19 deaths expected to continue to fall in weeks to come
COVID-19 forecast models used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are currently predicting that weekly death totals will likely continue to fall in the weeks to come, though thousands of Americans are still expected to lose their lives.
The ensemble model expects just under 15,000 more virus-related deaths to occur in the U.S. over the next two weeks, with a total of around 781,500 deaths by Dec. 4.
The model estimates that 13 states and territories of the U.S. have a greater than 50% chance of having more deaths in the next two weeks compared to the past two weeks.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Nov 10, 9:15 pm
Federal judge strikes down Texas ban on school mask mandates
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order prohibiting local mask mandates, including in schools, violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Since the order was issued in late July, state Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed lawsuits against more than a dozen school districts for issuing mask mandates, according to the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel. In August, advocacy group Disability Rights Texas filed the lawsuit against the state on behalf of several students with disabilities who faced an increased risk from COVID-19, alleging it denied them equal access to in-person learning.
“The evidence presented by Plaintiffs establishes that Plaintiffs are being denied the benefits of in-person learning on an equal basis as their peers without disabilities,” Yeakel wrote in his ruling.
Yeakel also said the executive order “interferes with local school districts’ ability to satisfy their obligations under the ADA” by placing all authority with the governor.
Yeakel enjoined the state from enforcing the mask mandate ban and ordered that the plaintiffs recover their court costs from the state.
Paxton has said the state is “protecting the rights and freedoms” of residents by banning mask mandates.
Nov 10, 6:43 pm
States sue over vaccine mandate for health care workers
Ten states are suing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services over the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate targeting health care workers.
About 17 million health care workers who are employed at places that get funding through CMS are required to get vaccinated by Jan. 4, 2022. They do not have the option to test.
“The mandate is a blatant attempt to federalize public health issues involving vaccination that belong within the States’ police power,” stated the suit, which was filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is running for Senate.
The attorneys general of Nebraska, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming, Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota and New Hampshire have joined the lawsuit, which is one of many filed against different parts of the Biden administration’s vaccine requirements but the first to target the health care worker mandate.
Twenty-six states are suing over the mandate that applies to businesses, while another handful are suing over the federal worker mandate. Last week, a federal court temporarily blocked the business vaccine rule.
(NEW YORK) — A political newcomer who beat New Jersey’s veteran state senate president in a surprise election upset met with a local Islamic group Wednesday after apologizing for a previous anti-Muslim tweet.
Edward Durr, a commercial truck driver, beat Stephen Sweeney in the state senate race for New Jersey’s 3rd Legislative District.
Soon after his victory, Durr came under fire for past social media posts, including a 2019 tweet where he called the prophet Mohammed a “pedophile” and Islam a “cult of hate.”
ABC News station WPVI-TV also uncovered statements from Durr comparing vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. Durr has since deleted some of his social media pages.
“I’m a passionate guy and I sometimes say things in the heat of the moment. If I said things in the past that hurt anybody’s feelings, I sincerely apologize,” Durr said last Friday, according to WPVI. “I support everybody’s right to worship in any manner they choose and to worship the God of their choice. I support all people and I support everybody’s rights.”
After his election victory, the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy and civil rights organization, condemned his tweet but invited Durr to meet with the organization’s local chapter.
Durr accepted the group’s offer and met with CAIR-NJ members. WPVI-TV reported that Durr’s meeting with local Islamic leaders at Al-Minhaal Academy in Sewell lasted nearly two hours.
“I think we had a very productive conversation and I think it’s going to be one of hopefully many,” CAIR-NJ Executive Director Selaedin Maksut said in a joint appearance with Durr on Wednesday.
“I stand against Islamophobia and all forms of hate and I do commit to that,” Durr said at the media appearance.
“Our New Jersey chapter had a productive meeting with State Senator #EdDurr. He expressed commitment to opposing #Islamophobia. We welcome this outcome and hope to have more productive dialogues in the future,” the national CAIR tweeted later.
Jacci Vigilante, Gloucester County GOP chair, defended Durr last Friday, saying, “Ed is a passionate guy. He was a little bit of a keyboard warrior at the time. Certainly he’s made an apology. He didn’t intend to offend anyone’s religion and certainly believes that everyone has the right to practice their religion of their choice.”
Sweeney, Durr’s opponent, was the longest-serving state senate president in New Jersey history. He did not concede the race until Wednesday.
“I of course accept the results. I want to congratulate Mr. Durr and wish him the best of luck,” Sweeney said during a speech at the statehouse complex, according to local news reports. “It was a red wave,” he added.
