(BERLIN) — At least one person was killed and 12 others were injured when a car plowed into a crowd of pedestrians in a popular shopping district in Berlin on Wednesday morning, police said.
“It is not yet known whether it was an accident or intentional action,” the Berlin Police said in a statement via Twitter.
The incident took place along the busy shopping street Tauentzienstrasse in the west of Germany’s capital. The alleged driver of the vehicle was detained at the scene, according to police.
A police spokesperson told ABC News it was unclear whether the incident was terror-related. Further details were not immediately available.
The scene was near the Breitscheidplatz, a public square in Berlin where 13 people were killed after an extremist deliberately drove into a Christmas market in 2016.
(NEW YORK) — Old Navy’s 2022 Flag Tee collection is here, just in time for the Fourth of July.
The retailer recently revealed its latest version of the popular T-shirts, and this year’s lineup includes the brand’s first Spanish language design.
The new inclusive designs were co-created with the company’s Project WE artists, Manuela Guillén, Monica Ahanonu and Edward Granger. Each tee represents the artists’ unique vision of the country.
Guillén, a first-generation American artist born to Cuban and Salvadoran immigrant parents, designed the Spanish language tee. Her design includes the words “para todos,” which translates to “for everyone” in English. This phrase reflects her belief that the flag symbolizes inclusion for all who wish to call the U.S. home.
“America is for everyone, no matter what,” Guillén said in a statement. “This place is for all of us. That’s from my heart.”
This year’s Flag Tee collection also features nods to five U.S. territories in addition to the 50 states, as well as the new phrase “United States of All.”
The unique lineup includes pieces for women, men, children and pets.
(BERLIN) — A car plowed into a crowd of people in a popular shopping district in Berlin on Wednesday morning, police said.
“A man is said to have driven into a group of people,” the Berlin Police said in a statement via Twitter. “It is not yet known whether it was an accident or intentional action.”
The incident took place along the busy shopping street Tauentzienstrasse in the west of Germany’s capital. The alleged driver of the vehicle was detained at the scene, according to police.
Further details on the incident were not immediately available.
The scene was near the Breitscheidplatz, a public square in Berlin where 13 people were killed after an extremist deliberately drove into a Christmas market in 2016.
(NEW YORK) — Good extra virgin olive oil has long been hailed for its associated health benefits — and now, some social media feeds are overflowing with users encouraging others to hop on the trend of taking a sip first thing in the morning. But nutrition specialists ABC News spoke to say the true benefit is likely achieved by adding EVOO as a complement to your meals.
“Olive oil has plant compounds in it that are very beneficial for human health. I would recommend people add it to their food rather than just taking a shot of it,” Liz Weinandy, lead dietitian at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, told ABC’s Good Morning America.
“Many foods like tomatoes, carrots and dark leafy greens have fat soluble nutrients in them, meaning they are absorbed better with some fat,” Weinandy added. “Olive oil can be that carrier to getting these nutrients into our body.”
Nutrition expert and registered dietitian Maya Feller told GMA that she was initially “floored” by “the benefits of actually taking olive oil” when she attended a Mediterranean Diet roundtable at Yale with a focus on olive oil shortly before the onset of the pandemic.
As for what’s happening on TikTok and Instagram, with people swigging a spoonful of high-quality olive oil, Feller said she personally supports the concept with some significant caveats, like looking at your overall diet and speaking to a professional.
“It’s interesting because it probably is like one of one of the few social media things where I’m like, ‘yeah, totally, it’s great,'” the Brooklyn-based nutritionist said. “I always give the caveat that it has to be individualized. If you’re going to incorporate anything into your pattern of eating or what you’re doing on a regular basis, you need to talk to a dietician or a qualified health professional.”
Additionally, Feller said she would not consider using a “cheap oil” without traceability for this trend.
“I wouldn’t take it [unless] it’s really high quality extra virgin olive oil and well sourced,” she said.
“There is research to show the microorganisms in our gut can break down the beneficial compounds in olive oil and improve our gut health,” Weinandy said. “This is important because we know there are a lot of functions the gut microbiome plays on our overall health.”
Some of the health associations with olive oil as part of a complete diet that Feller has reviewed, including from an Italian study on the Metabolic and Vascular Effect of the Mediterranean Diet, show that the healthy plant nutrients called phytochemicals could potentially play a part in helping to fight cancer and heart disease.
“What I really love about olive oil are its mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids,” she said. “Those are the type of fatty acids that are associated with a decrease in inflammation.”
“There are several studies showing those who consume more olive oil have a lower risk of some cancers like colon cancer, better cognition and a healthier heart. Olive oil alone won’t give us a clean bill of health but along with an overall healthy diet that includes many nutrients from whole foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes and lean proteins, it is a winning ticket,” Weinandy explained. “This is one reason the Mediterranean diet has so many health benefits, because it includes olive oil as the main source of fat.”
A person’s lifestyle and amount of consumption of alcohol or tobacco also influence cancer risks.
Weinandy added that, “with that in mind, I would remind people olive oil is still fat and the calories can add up fast. Too many calories can still cause weight gain so balancing that out is key.”
“When people talk about gut health and the gut microbiome, it seems like there are some components in olive oil that actually are beneficial when we’re thinking about [gastrointestinal] health, and that they help to actually enhance and stimulate the diversity of the bacteria that’s in the gut and especially the good bugs that are in the gut,” Feller said.
Another caveat Feller said to take into account with this or any trend, is that “our patterns of eating are built over time and not a standalone moment.”
“Consuming a majority of added sugars, salts, and synthetic fats, a capsule of olive oil in the morning and evening, may not be used to mean elicit the response that people want,” she clarified. “It has to be thought about in the whole person, whole body context.”
Gut health expert Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, a gastroenterologist and author of Fiber Fueled, told GMA that while there are some health benefits associated with olive oil “consumed in moderation as a part of an overall healthy dietary pattern” he thinks this particular trend misses the mark on the true hero of gut health — fiber.
“Fiber is the fuel that empowers our gut microbes for better health,” he said. “I don’t understand why we would build our morning around food that is devoid of fiber when we could be opting for avocado toast.”
“We should bear in mind that olive oil, like any other oil, is the most calorie dense food on the planet. For example, one pound of kale has about 100 calories. One pound of olive oil has around 4,000. Gram for gram, the kale is packing far more nutritional value. And this is most noticeably true in the fiber content,” he added. “The fiber content of oil is highly predictable — it’s zero. You won’t find any fiber in oil.”
“As dietitians,” Weinandy said, “we encourage people to eat olive oil, we mean to include this as a healthy fat in our diet. Use it to sautee foods, as salad dressing, in place of butter on vegetables or with bread. The idea is to eat it in moderation and to use it in place of less healthy fats like butter or coconut oil.”
So while the TikTok trend may be on the mark as far as some benefits of olive oil, she reminded those curious about it that “ingesting a large amount at one time, like a shot glass full every morning, is really not necessary.”
“Large amounts of fat — any type of fat — can cause some gastrointestinal discomfort in some people,” Weinandy said. “Besides, who wants to drink a glass of olive oil every morning from an enjoyment perspective? Even if you like the taste of plain olive oil, it isn’t as enjoyable as eating it on foods.”
(DETROIT) — Saniyah “Niyah” Pugh, 11, was sleeping over at her grandmother’s Detroit home this weekend when gunfire erupted outside. Bullets penetrated the house, striking and killing Saniyah, who was in a bedroom.
“I heard two pop sounds … then I heard my daughter scream, ‘Niyah got shot!'” Saniyah’s grandmother, Lawanda Melton, told ABC News.
“I put a towel over her back to cover her bullet hole. And she was just bleeding so badly out her mouth and nose, but she was still trying to breathe,” she said.
When police arrived, “Niyah’s hand went limp and she was gone,” Melton said.
“My children and my grandson had to step over Saniyah’s deceased body,” she said.
No one else was hurt in the shooting, which took place around 10:15 p.m. Saturday at Melton’s home, Detroit police said. Two people are in custody: one adult and one minor, police said.
Saniyah loved cheerleading, gymnastics and TikTok.
“Saniyah was a very, very beautiful, talented little girl,” Melton said.
Melton is now planning her granddaughter’s funeral to help Saniyah’s distraught mother. The grieving grandmother said the unrelenting gun violence must stop.
“This is my home. This is somewhere that all my kids and myself should always feel safe,” Melton said. “There’s no safety in these schools for these children, there’s no safety in their own homes.”
Detroit Police Chief James White spoke out on the case Monday, saying the 11-year-old was “making TikTok videos and laughing one minute and being shot in the back … the next.”
The police chief blamed “irresponsible gun ownership” and “irresponsible use of a weapon.”
“It is of epidemic proportions right now in our country and in our city,” he told reporters.
Melton said, “I feel very broken. I feel very empty. I feel like I was supposed to be able to save her.”
“If I could take that bullet a million times over, I would, just for my daughter to still have her daughter, her only child,” she said.
(TARRANT COUNTY, Texas) — An Arizona man sued American Airlines this week after, he claims, the carrier wrongfully identified him as a suspect in an airport burglary — leading to his arrest and what he called a harrowing 17-day stint in jail.
Michael Lowe filed his lawsuit on Monday in Tarrant County, Texas, after he says he was arrested last July for a crime he didn’t commit.
According to the lawsuit, a duty-free shop at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Tarrant County was burglarized in May 2020. Surveillance footage of the incident showed the culprit was a passenger of American flight 2248, and investigators obtained a search warrant ordering the airline to produce “any and all recorded travel data for all individuals” on that flight, the suit stated.
Instead, Lowe said, American only produced identification for one passenger — him.
“That was a hasty decision on behalf of American Airlines to offer up one suspect and one suspect only, and without that we wouldn’t be talking. This wouldn’t have happened,” Lowe’s attorney, Scott Palmer, told ABC News in a phone interview.
Palmer said his client looks nothing like the man suspected of committing the airport burglary.
“I am faulting American Airlines for outing one of their own passengers,” he said.
Lowe was arrested more than a year after the incident while he was in New Mexico — where he was held in jail for more than two weeks.
“The terror Mr. Lowe experienced while imprisoned in Quay County for the next 17 days was existential,” his lawsuit stated. He was made to sleep on the concrete floor and the jail did not have proper COVID-19 protocols, according to the complaint.
He was subsequently released with no explanation, his suit said.
“He shouldn’t have been in jail. He didn’t commit a crime,” Palmer said.
Lowe was subjected to a strip search while he was detained and was told very little information about why he was behind bars, according to his lawsuit.
“It could’ve been you or me,” Palmer said. “I’ve never seen a fact pattern like this.”
The suit further alleges that the Dallas-Fort Worth airport police detective who was handling the case initially expressed “disappointment” that Lowe was released and had missed a court appearance in Texas the same morning — because, according to the suit, the detective still mistakenly thought he was the suspect.
The detective eventually compared Lowe’s mug shot to the suspect surveillance photo from the burglary and realized it was not him, according to the suit.
Palmer told ABC News that, to his knowledge, the actual suspect has still not been caught.
Dallas-Fort Worth airport police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
American Airlines said it was “reviewing the lawsuit.”
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is in active discussions with former White House counsel Pat Cipollone regarding a potential public appearance in one of their upcoming hearings, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Cipollone and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin previously met with committee investigators for an informal interview in April.
Cipollone was one of the few aides who was with then-President Donald Trump in the West Wing on Jan. 6. ABC News previously reported that in the days following the attack on the Capitol, he advised Trump that Trump could potentially face civil liability in connection with his role encouraging supporters to march on the Capitol.
According to sources, there are a number of circumstances that could serve to complicate any eventual appearance by Cipollone — including the issue of who questions him and for how long; whether there are any ongoing issues of privilege; and whether Trump would approve of his appearance.
Michael Purpura, the former deputy White House counsel who was part of the legal team defending Trump during his first Senate impeachment trial, is representing Cipollone in his discussions with committee investigators, sources said.
Cipollone has also made clear that his testimony would be restricted to the effort undertaken by former top Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark to use the powers of the DOJ to further Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, sources familiar with the deliberations said.
Representatives for Cipollone did not respond to ABC’s request for comment. A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment.
The committee hopes to secure Cipollone’s public testimony on a panel with former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and his then-deputy Richard Donoghue, along with one of DOJ’s former top attorneys, Steve Engel, sources said. Both Rosen and Donoghue have received formal invitations from the committee to appear.
Both Cipollone and Philbin were part of a Jan. 3 Oval Office meeting where Trump insisted on replacing Rosen with Clark, a Trump loyalist who had vowed to use the Department of Justice to investigate the election.
The officials in that meeting also debated a proposal by Clark to send a letter to state officials in Georgia urging officials in the state to investigate unfounded claims of fraud with an eye toward overturning President Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
According to Donoghue, Cipollone and Philbin made it clear to Trump that they would resign if Clark were installed, with Cipollone describing the Georgia letter as a “murder-suicide pact” that would “damage anyone and anything that it touches,” according to a Senate committee report released last year that detailed instances where Trump and his allies sought to use the DOJ to overturn the election.
ABC News previously obtained and published emails dated Dec. 28, 2020, showing Clark circulating that draft letter, which he wanted Rosen and Donoghue to sign off on.
(NEW LISBON, Wisc.) — A man who allegedly killed a retired Wisconsin judge in a “targeted act” has died from what authorities described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Douglas Uhde, 56, was pronounced dead on Thursday when he was taken off life support and his organs were harvested for donation, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
Uhde was declared brain dead on Saturday, one day after police found him gravely wounded in the home of slain retired Judge John Roemer, 68, in New Lisbon, Wisconsin, officials said.
The suspected killer was discovered in the basement of Roemer’s home suffering from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
Uhde allegedly shot and killed Roemer on Friday morning after he showed up at the judge’s home, according Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul.
Uhde had a hit list that included U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
Police responded to Roemer’s home around 6:30 a.m. Friday after a 911 caller, who fled the home after shots were fired, reported that an armed man was in the judge’s home and had fired two shots, Kaul said.
The Juneau County Special Tactics and Response Team responded and attempted to negotiate with the alleged shooter before entering the home. Inside, they found Roemer dead and zip-tied to a chair, and the mortally wounded suspect in the basement, officials said.
“This does appear to be a targeted act,” Kaul told reporters during a news conference Friday. “The individual who is the suspect appears to have had other targets as well. It appears to be related to the judicial system.”
Wisconsin court records show that Roemer was involved in Uhde’s sentencing for a 2002 criminal conviction. In 2005, he sentenced Uhde to six years in state prison and nine years extended supervision for armed burglary, a felony, with concurrent sentences for three lesser counts. Uhde had pleaded no contest to the charges.
Uhde’s alleged hit list had more than a dozen names and was found inside his car outside Roemer’s home. In addition to McConnell and Whitmer, the hit list included Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, the source told ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — The Food and Drug Administration’s independent panel of advisers has voted in favor of the FDA authorizing Novavax, a protein-based vaccine, which could soon be the fourth vaccine for COVID-19 authorized in the U.S.
Although the U.S. already has three other COVID vaccines, some experts are excited about the Novavax vaccine because it is the first COVID-19 vaccine of its kind to be considered for authorization.
Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine is a more traditional protein-based vaccine, given as two shots. Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccine platforms use more modern advances in genetic technology.
The FDA can now issue its authorization for Novavax and then the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will review the vaccine before giving its recommendation. Novavax is not expected to roll out as quickly as the other vaccines have and instead will take weeks after authorization to get out to the public.
The company asked for authorization for adults over 18 and has yet to ask for authorization for boosters.
During the review on Tuesday, the FDA’s advisers pushed Novavax representatives on multiple points.
Members asked whether there was data to back up the hope that this vaccine will win over people who have been vaccine-hesitant until now.
Novavax didn’t have specific data on acceptance among unvaccinated people, but said it was focused on getting through to them.
FDA leadership signaled that it was open to any vaccine that made a dent in the nation’s vaccine rates.
“I will use this as a moment on the bully pulpit to say that we do have a problem with vaccine uptake that is very serious in the United States,” Dr. Peter Marks, leader of the FDA’s vaccine division, told the panel.
“And anything we can do to get people more comfortable to be able to accept these potentially life-saving medical products is something that we feel we are compelled to do,” he said.
Multiple advisory committee members also harped on the fact Novavax only had data on how its vaccine held up to earlier strains of the virus, but not the omicron variant.
“It is disappointing, and we’ve discussed this already, that we don’t have more updated information because we’re looking at the efficacy against strains that don’t exist any longer,” Dr. Eric Rubin, a member of the committee and professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said during the meeting.
“Nevertheless … if there really is a population of patients who are willing to take this and not only existing vaccines, I think it’s pretty compelling,” he said.
Filip Dubovsky, chief medical officer of Novavax, said the company was confident the vaccine was still protective against omicron.
“Overall, it’s factual that we don’t have efficacy data against omicron. But, what we do have is a technology that we think generates a broad immune response, demonstrated against a broad array of variants,” he said Tuesday.
And there were also concerns over myocarditis cases seen after the Novavax series.
Out of 40,000 vaccine participants to date, there were five cases of myocarditis occurring within 20 days of getting the shots — a very small number but still a concern.
Myocarditis, which is the inflammation of the heart muscle, has also happened to people who got the other authorized vaccines, particularly mRNA vaccines Moderna and Pfizer. Like those cases, these cases were largely among young men.
Many members pointed out that there’s no reason to think myocarditis is more common from Novavax than any other vaccine already out there, but the committee still ultimately concluded that more research was needed on a broader group of Americans to better understand how big the risk is.
“I think we need more data from post-authorization use in larger numbers of individuals to really get at what the rate of myocarditis associated with this vaccine is and what exactly the risk is,” an FDA representative told the panel.
(NEW YORK) — TiJae Baker, 23, took a train from New York City to Washington, D.C., on May 1 and has yet to return to home.
Her mother, Toquanna Baker, is desperate to find her daughter. She told ABC News that the details of TiJae Baker’s disappearance have led her to believe she may have been dragged into a human trafficking scheme.
“After this rally, I’m going right back out there, because I’m going to find my daughter,” Toquanna Baker said at a rally Monday, according to New York ABC station WABC.
TiJae is an up-and-coming artist in Brooklyn and a student in her final year of college. She went to D.C. to apparently make posters for a woman she met online, her mother said.
Toquanna Baker said her daughter got off at Washington Union Station and was supposed to return the next day. When she did not, Toquanna Baker filed a police report with the New York Police Department a few days later.
After a few weeks of silence, TiJae Baker called home June 1 and begged to be rescued by her mother. Toquanna Baker immediately traveled to the D.C. area, but has yet to find her daughter. She hasn’t spoken to her since.
Toquanna Baker said she fears for her daughter, saying the disappearance is not getting much attention because TiJae is a Black woman.
“I haven’t slept at all,” Toquanna Baker told WABC.
Toquanna Baker said she provided the identity of the girl TiJae Baker went to visit to police.
She is 5-foot-7 and 130 pounds. She was last seen wearing a black sweater, gray shorts and a white top, according to the NYPD.
The NYPD asks that anyone with information on her disappearance or whereabouts call 800-577-TIPS.
