(WASHINGTON) — Travelers could soon have more rights if their flight is canceled or delayed, as the Department of Transportation looks to “strengthen” protections for consumers seeking refunds.
The agency proposed a rule Wednesday that, if enacted, would define the terms of a “significant” change and cancellation for the first time.
Currently, passengers are entitled to refunds if an airline has “made a significant schedule change and/or significantly delays a flight and the consumer chooses not to travel” — though the DOT has not yet defined what “significant” means.
Under the rule, the department would outline significant changes as:
Changes that affect the departure and/or arrival times by three hours or more for a domestic flight or six hours or more for an international flight
Changes to the departure or arrival airport
Changes that increase the number of connections in the itinerary; and
Changes to the type of aircraft flown if it causes a significant downgrade in the air travel experience or amenities available onboard the flight.
The move comes amid increased complaints against airlines — the majority of which concern refunds and flight service, according to data from the agency.
“I think the DOT has heard that passengers are fed up with some of the sleight of hand that airlines are pulling and some of the actions that are not consumer-friendly,” Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, said in an interview with ABC News.
In addition, the rule would “codify the department’s longstanding interpretation that a failure to provide refunds when a carrier cancels or significantly changes a flight to, from or within the United States is an unfair practice,” the DOT said.
“The problem, I think, up until now has been that you as an individual traveler don’t necessarily know what is a significant delay on Delta, versus American, versus Southwest, versus Spirit is — It could be significantly different on each airline,” Scott Keyes, founder of Scott’s Cheap Flights, told ABC News. “And those airlines don’t even necessarily mention explicitly what they consider to be a significant delay.”
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. airlines have issued $21 billion in cash refunds, according to Airlines for America (A4A), the group that lobbies on behalf of all major U.S. airlines. Cash refunds accounted for 8% of passenger revenues in 2021 and 22.3% of passenger revenues in 2020, versus 4.3% in 2019, A4A said.
The public will have 90 days to comment on the proposed rule. Once that period ends, the DOT will review and analyze the comments, and then decide whether to proceed with a final rule as proposed or with modifications, issue a new or modified proposal, or withdraw the proposal altogether.
(ROCKVILLE, M.D.) — An Amtrak train departing from Washington, D.C., collided with a semi-truck in Maryland Wednesday evening, officials said.
The incident occurred around 5:20 p.m. in Rockville, Maryland, when the vehicle “obstructed the track” and “came into contact with the train,” Amtrak said in a statement.
None of the 142 passengers and crew aboard Amtrak Capitol Limited train 29 were injured, Amtrak said. The train was en route to Chicago.
Amtrak said it’s working with local law enforcement to investigate the incident.
The railroad service has had other high-profile, sometimes fatal, incidents, in the last year.
In June, an Amtrak train crashed into a dump truck in Mendon, Missouri, killing four people and injuring 150.
Also, in June, another train, this time in Brentwood, California, slammed into a car, killing three people and seriously injuring two others, including a child.
An Amtrak train derailed in northern Montana, killing three people and injuring dozens of people in September 2021. Multiple passengers filed federal lawsuits against Amtrak and the operator of the railroad tracks for negligence.
ABC News’ Amanda Maile, Bill Hutchinson, Mark Osborne, Melissa Gaffney, Teddy Grant, Emily Shapiro and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images, FILE
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Wednesday called on the Biden administration to invoke the Defense Production Act to help increase supply and access to monkeypox vaccines, which lag far behind demand as the virus continues to spread nationwide.
“Right now there are enough vaccines in the United States to cover one-third of the community generally currently most at risk,” Gillibrand said during a press conference. The senator’s own state of New York is the hardest hit in the country and has declared a disaster emergency.
Gillibrand’s calls for DPA action come after The Washington Post recently reported that the U.S. won’t be receiving any more doses of the monkeypox vaccine Jynneos until October.
When pressed on specifics of what the DPA could do to increase supply quickly, Gillibrand pointed to prioritizing government orders of monkeypox vaccines ahead of other orders.
“We know exactly which manufacturers already manufacture those vaccines, and so we can enter a contract with them immediately,” she said.
If the White House does invoke the DPA, Gillibrand hopes it will be weeks instead of months for the U.S. to ramp up supply.
“Once you start manufacturing a dose, you have doses coming off the line immediately. So I would think it’s weeks, not months,” she said.
It remains to be seen if the White House will act. Gillibrand said she hasn’t heard back on a letter she sent to the White House earlier Wednesday.
“I haven’t verbally spoken to anybody, but I did send a letter asking for them to use it right away,” she said.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has also pressed the White House for more vaccines for New York, saying during a press conference Wednesday morning that she has asked for New York to leapfrog other states for orders because they have the highest number of cases and are running short.
The Department of Health and Human Services has yet to declare a public health emergency that would free up federal resources to address the outbreak.
President Joe Biden named FEMA’s Robert Fenton as White House national monkeypox response coordinator on Tuesday to address the ongoing outbreak.
(WASHINGTON) — While ABC News and others haven’t made projections in her still too-close-to-call contest, former TV reporter Kari Lake, Donald Trump’s pick in Arizona’s GOP gubernatorial primary, went ahead and claimed victory in Phoenix on Wednesday as other state candidates backed by the former president also celebrated wins down the ballot.
Lake — echoing Trump — described herself as triumphing over unsubstantiated wrongdoing that was sometimes based only on what she said she was told by others.
“We outvoted the fraud,” she insisted. “The MAGA movement voted like their lives depended on it.”
Asked whether she should be declaring victory before the race has been officially called — in an election she’s already suggested needs to be investigated — a smiling Lake said her team was projecting a wide lead to come, so she was confident in calling the race for herself.
“And, frankly, I’m gonna be having dinner with my husband tonight, and I don’t want anybody to call me and ask me for a comment,” said Lake, a longtime local news anchor in Phoenix who left her job in 2021 to run for office. “So we’re doing this a little bit early because I actually want to take one night off. I haven’t had a night off for a long time.”
But while eager to claim and celebrate her victory, despite votes still coming in, Lake also continued to allege irregularities in the primary process — citing the shortage of paper ballots in Pinal County, which officials there said was due to an “unprecedented demand for in-person ballots” in certain precincts.
“I am not satisfied with how the election was run. We had major issues,” Lake said, not providing evidence to the press but maintaining that’s what the people of Arizona were telling her. “We have a lot of evidence of irregularities and problems, and we’re going to address those.”
Lake also said that in the lead-up to the general election in November, she would continue talking about the widely disproven claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
“Because I won doesn’t mean I’m going to now pivot and try to become a Democrat. Absolutely not,” she said — though, notably, she has acknowledged on the campaign trail that she did support Democratic causes in the past before converting to Trump’s GOP. “We will continue to talk about the election because we want to make sure we shore up those election laws.”
In what might be a messy preview of the general election against Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs if Lake is, in fact, ultimately found to have won the Republican nomination — when asked what her reaction would be if the Associated Press called the race for her opponent Karrin Taylor Robson and Taylor Robson declared victory, Lake made clear she intended to try and grab the win based on her belief about the outcome.
“Well, let’s remember they called the election for Joe Biden, so we know that AP is part of the problem. We’re going with the votes, and we’re going with what the people who really understand what’s happening this election now,” she said.
Taylor Robson, endorsed by Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence, told ABC News at a rally on the eve of the primary that Lake already priming her supporters with the false idea that any loss was due to fraud was “wrong” and “should disqualify her from being the governor of this great state.”
At a watch party Tuesday night, Lake took to the stage at a Doubletree in Scottsdale three times as votes trickled in — at one point wielding a sledgehammer she said was intended for electronic voting machines and the Democratic nominee for governor — to tell hundreds of supporters that she won.
“There is no path to victory for my opponent, and we won this race. Period,” she said at her first appearance, when vote totals had Taylor Robson in the lead. “I don’t want any of you not to believe that.”
“And I want to thank President Donald J. Trump,” she added to the energized crowd decked out in Lake gear and “not my president” shirts. “He’s the one that got this whole thing going.”
Taylor Robson, for her part, had projected confidence in brief remarks on Tuesday from the Astoria Biltmore luxury resort, as the first batches of results put her ahead in the race. Widely seen as the establishment candidate — and echoing general GOP concerns about election integrity — Taylor Robson also outspent Lake.
It was a subdued atmosphere for much of the night but turned energetic when Taylor Robson approached the stage and spoke — with loud boos at the mention of Lake’s accusations of voter fraud
“Don’t let her get you down. Remember, talk is cheap,” Taylor Robson said. “She has no veto process over the votes being carried out in the process being carried out now, nor over the will of Arizona voters.”
Arizona sees MAGA primary sweep
Down the ballot, Trump’s other endorsees rose to victory in Arizona in Tuesday’s primaries, signaling the state Republican Party might be moving on from its maverick tradition to its “ultra-MAGA” era.
Not long ago, the late John McCain and the retired Jeff Flake were the state’s two Republican senators. But with those seats flipping blue under Trump and Joe Biden’s subsequent presidential win — the first by a Democrat in Arizona in almost three decades — Trump’s candidates winning in congressional and statewide races serves as a measure of how the party has shifted ahead of a true bellwether for the country in the November midterms.
Brian Seitchik, a GOP strategist in Arizona, said the primary proved to be a “complete and total victory for Trump” with his base.
“The president’s always had a love affair with Arizona, and that was simply reaffirmed again last night,” Seitchik told ABC News Wednesday. “This is still very much Trump country.”
In the Senate race, Blake Masters, a 35-year-old venture capitalist who pushed false claims about the 2020 election during his primary campaign and got Trump’s endorsement in the crowded race in June, will face Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy captain, in November. At a rally with Trump in July, Masters attacked Kelly for his Democratic record and said he would try to impeach Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
For Arizona’s secretary of state, Trump backed Mark Finchem, a far-right state lawmaker who has previously identified as an Oath Keeper, a militia group with other members who have faced charges for alleged involvement in the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6. Finchem was in Washington on Jan. 6, though he has repeatedly said he did not enter the Capitol, and was among 30 GOP lawmakers in Arizona who signed a resolution calling on Congress to accept an “alternate” slate of electoral votes.
Finchem beat out Gov. Doug Ducey’s pick, advertising executive Beau Lane, who has acknowledged Biden’s victory and defended Arizona’s early voting system, a popular method in the state that the state Republican Party, post-2020, contends is unconstitutional.
If elected secretary of state in November, Finchem would have broad powers over the management of the state’s elections. He has said he would not have certified Biden’s win and wants to ban early voting and restrict mail-in ballot options.
Abe Hamadeh, a former prosecutor in Maricopa County and an Army intelligence officer, won the state attorney general nomination by pitching himself as an “Arizona first conservative,” earning Trump’s coveted endorsement in June after supporting the GOP-backed audit of the vote in Maricopa, which the current Republican attorney general said this week had allegations of dead voters his office could not substantiate.
Like most of Trump’s picks, Hamadeh has called election integrity and border security his top campaign issues.
“MAGA had its best night since Nov. 8, 2016,” Arizona Republican strategist Barrett Marson, who supported Taylor Robson, told ABC News.
“There’s no doubt the Trump endorsement was worth a significant boost to those campaigns,” Marson said. “If Donald Trump anointed you in Arizona, there was a really good chance you’re moving onto November.”
Trump even waded into the state legislature, somewhat rare for a former president, targeting House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who testified at a House Jan. 6 hearing on the pressure he faced to interfere with the 2020 election. Bowers lost his state Senate race to Trump-endorsed David Farnsworth, a former member of the Arizona State Senate who has alleged that the 2020 election was stolen and “headed by the Devil himself.”
While the candidates are celebrating their wins, some Arizona Republicans say they are concerned Trump’s influence will make it harder for the GOP nominees to beat Democrats in November.
“As far as Kari Lake goes, I loved Trump’s policies, but I’m afraid that there’s a lot of people that are going to vote against her just because Trump is supporting her,” Arizonan Anastasia Keller, who was undecided until she entered the voting booth Tuesday, told ABC News. “I want somebody that can beat the Democrats, as divided as people are over Trump.”
As Marson, the pro-Taylor Robson strategist, put it: “It’ll be up to them [the Trump candidates] to moderate, or to at least start to appeal to the broader audience. I just don’t get telling your voters that there’s fraud in the election that you want and then expect them to continue to come out and vote for you.”
“Because Lake, Finchem, Master and Hamadeh are attacking so far to the right with election denialism, they’re opening up the races to be more competitive,” Marson said, arguing Taylor Robson and other candidates would have had more appeal to moderates and independents who lean Republican in a general election.
Pinal County presents issues
In a significant move on a primary day, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel joined Republican Party of Arizona Chairwoman Kelli Ward in calling for Pinal County Elections Director David Frisk to resign after the county ran out of paper ballots hours before polls closed. The issue arose weeks after thousands of mail-in ballots were sent out with incorrect local races printed on them in the state’s third largest county, which Republican candidates blasted on social media ahead of the election.
“This is a comprehensive failure that disenfranchises Arizonans and exemplifies why Republican-led efforts for transparency at the ballot box are so important. Pinal County Elections Director David Frisk should resign immediately,” McDaniel and Ward’s joint statement read. (ABC News has reached out to Frisk’s office for comment.)
Pinal county election officials said the ballot shortage was due to an “unprecedented demand for in-person ballots” in certain precincts. Additional ballots were distributed to roughly 20 affected polling places, officials said, and as long as voters were in line at 7 p.m. local time Tuesday, they were allowed to cast a ballot.
Still, Seitchik, the consultant in Republican races, said, “It shakes confidence in the system.”
“I don’t think it’s going to have any impact on the statewide races. It doesn’t seem like any of these races are so close that you can point to that, but it does matter — and it fuels the frustration and the suspicion as we head into the general election,” he said.
Meanwhile Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor, is currently serving as Arizona’s secretary of state, which raises questions of whether she would recuse herself from any potential litigation brought by Republicans in Pinal County.
“In the event of an investigation or litigation into Pinal County’s election, we will assess our office’s involvement on a case-by-case basis,” said Sophia Solis, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office.
Georgia presented a similar situation in 2018.
Brian Kemp also ran for governor while he was secretary of state at the time and said ahead of his contest with Democrat Stacey Abrams that he would not recuse himself as Georgia’s chief elections officer if the race went to a recount.
Ultimately, Kemp declared victory and resigned from his post in November after a lawsuit was filed in the race.
“We’ve won, and now I’ve got to move on, but the process is true and has been for many, many years in Georgia,” Kemp said at the time. “That’s another reason we’re going to have a new SOS that certifies elections to make that clear to Georgians that I understand that, so that they have confidence in the process.”
ABC News’ Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Senate approved a resolution Wednesday evening to support Finland and Sweden in joining NATO — a crucial step in the quest of the two countries to join the 30-member alliance.
The Senate voted 95-1, with Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley voting no and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voting “present.”
The vote comes several weeks after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved admitting Finland and Sweden into NATO. Lawmakers were working to approve the matter before their August break.
Finland and Sweden announced their decision to formally join NATO within days of each other in May, ending long-held positions of neutrality in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They simultaneously submitted their applications on May 18.
All 30 NATO members must ratify the accession of the two countries. Seven countries remain.
During Wednesday’s vote, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took a veiled swipe at Paul and Hawley in a floor speech, saying, “Their accession will make NATO stronger and America more secure. If any senator is looking for a defensible excuse to vote no, I wish them good luck.”
Hawley aligned himself with former President Donald Trump, saying the U.S. could devote more funds and firepower to NATO “or do what we need to do to deter Asia and China. We cannot do both.”
Paul has always worked to keep the U.S. out of foreign conflicts. He offered an amendment that most rejected seeking to ensure that Congress’ role in authorizing military force would not be usurped by the NATO pact’s common defense commitment, known as Article 5.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., applauded the Senate’s vote, saying on Twitter that it is “all the more urgent given [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s barbaric, immoral and unjustified war in Ukraine.”
President Joe Biden thanked a number of senators, including Schumer and McConnell, for moving the ratification process along quickly.
“This historic vote sends an important signal of the sustained, bipartisan U.S. commitment to NATO, and to ensuring our Alliance is prepared to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow,” the president said in a statement.
(WASHINGTON) — A bill designed to help keep young children safe by strengthening safety requirements for products with button batteries has passed both the U.S. House and Senate, and is now headed to the desk of President Joe Biden.
The legislation, known as Reese’s Law, is named for Reese Hamsmith, an 18-month-old Lubbock, Texas, girl who died after swallowing a button battery, the small, round batteries found in many home devices and toys.
After her death, Reese’s mom Trista Hamsmith made it her mission to ensure no other parent had to suffer the pain and loss her family did.
“Reese’s life was taken way too soon, but her legacy will live on through this law so that no other family will have to suffer like ours,” Hamsmith said in a statement after the bill was passed by the Senate. “We are thankful for the passage of this legislation to help protect all children and families from the hidden dangers of button batteries.”
Reese was 16 months old in October 2020 when she developed cold-like symptoms, including a stuffy nose, Hamsmith told “Good Morning America” last year.
Hamsmith said and her husband took their daughter to see a pediatrician, who she said suspected Reese had croup, an infection of the upper airways, and prescribed steroids.
Shortly after, the family discovered a button battery was missing from a remote control in their home. After looking online and discovering that symptoms of button battery ingestion — including coughing, wheezing and chest discomfort — matched those of Reese, Hamsmith said she and her husband rushed Reese to the emergency room.
An X-ray confirmed that a battery was lodged near the top of Reese’s esophagus.
After spending six weeks hospitalized and undergoing various surgeries and attempts to try to save her life, Reese died on Dec. 17, 2020, according to Hamsmith.
Hamsmith calls button batteries a “hidden danger” because they are used in many items, including remotes, hearing aids, thermometers, tealight candles, battery-powered jewelry, greeting cards, key fobs, kids’ toys and even toothbrushes.
After Reese died, Hamsmith created a nonprofit organization, Reese’s Purpose, to educate parents about button battery safety and to try to create change around how button batteries are protected in packaging and in the items in which they are found.
“It literally takes one second [for button battery ingestion to happen],” she told “GMA” last year. “You can set your kid down, turn around and pick up a piece of laundry, and it’s happened.”
Under Reese’s Law, the Consumer Product Safety Commission would be required to create safety standards, such as requiring companies to use product warning labels, childproof packaging and adhere to performance standards to ensure that children under the age of 6 cannot access button batteries, according to the office of Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat and a lead sponsor of the legislation.
“Kids like Reese Hamsmith have tragically died or been severely injured after swallowing this small but deadly hazard found in common household items,” Blumenthal and Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican and lead sponsor of the bill, said in a joint statement. “We are relieved this common-sense legislation has passed Congress and is on its way to President Biden’s desk to become law so families can have greater peace of mind about the safety of products in their home.”
More than 3,500 people swallow button batteries each year in the U.S., according to the National Capital Poison Center.
Dr. Kris Jatana, a professor in the department of otolaryngology at Wexner Medical Center at The Ohio State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospital, said his research shows the actual number of button battery ingestions each year is actually much larger because the incidents are vastly underreported.
In the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, there was a 93% increase in emergency department visits for battery-related complaints in school-age children, according to research by Jatana, who helped create the GIRC App, a global database by the Global Injury Research Collaborative for medical professionals to track the severity of injuries, including from button batteries.
“I do think there is a lack of awareness among parents that these are severe hazards,” he told “GMA” last year. “We can’t fix the injuries that these batteries cause, so that’s what’s led us to [ask], ‘How can we prevent these injuries in the first place?'”
Here are three tips from Jatana and Hamsmith to both prevent and treat button battery ingestion injuries.
1. Keep an inventory of button batteries in your home: Because the symptoms of button battery ingestion can mimic the symptoms of other illnesses in kids, as was the case with Reese, both Hamsmith and Jatana say the most important thing for parents and caregivers is to always be aware of and know about the presence of all the button batteries in their home.
Hamsmith’s advice to caregivers is to keep products that contain button batteries not just out of reach but also out of sight of children, especially those ages 6 and under, who are most at risk for swallowing a foreign object.
Jatana said to not only know where the button batteries are in your home, but to also to regularly check all electronic devices to make sure the battery compartment is secured.
2. Know the symptoms: Symptoms of swallowing a button battery may include fever, not wanting to eat or drink, irritability, wheezing, difficulty breathing, coughing, throat pain, choking, gagging, problems swallowing and vomiting, according to a button battery resource website created by Jatana and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Children may also put a button battery in their nose or ear, which can present dangers. Symptoms to look for include irritability, pain or swelling around the ears or nose, fever and fluid drainage or bleeding from the ears or nose, according to Jatana.
Children who ingest button batteries may also present no symptoms at all, which is why parents and caregivers should know the whereabouts of button batteries in their home at all times, Jatana added.
3. Act quickly: Serious esophageal injury can occur within two hours of a child ingesting a button battery, before symptoms even start, according to Jatana.
“The clock is ticking from the moment the battery is lodged in the esophagus,” he said.
If a child ingests a button battery, immediately call for help, either through 911 or the National Battery Ingestion Hotline at 800-498-8666, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Parents and caregivers may also use honey to treat the child while waiting for medical help. Experts from the National Capital Poison Center recommend giving 10 milliliters of honey every 10 minutes to children 12 months and older.
Jatana stressed not to delay going to the emergency room and said seeking professional medical help should be the top priority.
(REYKJAVIK, Iceland) — An Icelandic volcano has come back to life after a series of nearby earthquakes rumbled it awake, the Icelandic Met Office reported Wednesday.
On Wednesday morning a 4.6 earthquake was recorded on the eastern side of the Fagradalsfjall volcano, prompting further concerns of volcanic action. An hour later, it began erupting.
According to IMO, a volcanic fissure eruption about 100 to 200 meters long left new magma over a field of lava established by eruptions in the area last year.
The IMO has urged people not to go near the volcano, which is about 20 miles south of the country’s capital, Reykjavik, and its nearby Keflavík Airport. According to its statement, the volcanic gas in the area can be hazardous.
However, the IMO said that it does not believe the eruption will cancel any flights or move into the city.
The IMO has recorded over 3,000 earthquakes in the last week. The most intense was a 5.4 earthquake recorded on July 31 northeast of Grindavík.
Last year, a six-month eruption from Fagradalsfjall broke an 80- year dormancy of volcanic eruptions in the area.
Tourists flocked to the site from March to September 2021 to see the lava bubble and belch. Now, almost a year later, the same volcano is active.
IMO said it saw the signs that brought last year’s eruption revive.
“There are indications that the deformation and seismicity is declining and this was precursory to the eruption which started on 19th March 2021,” the IMO said in a statement on Tuesday. “Considering all of the above, the likelihood of an eruption at Fagradalsfjall within the coming days is considered to be substantial.”
A day later, the office has confirmed the reawakening of the visual phenomenon.
(BALTIMORE) — Survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic Church leaders rallied in front of Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh’s office, calling for the release of preliminary findings of an investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
Teresa Lancaster said she was interviewed four years ago upon the launch of the investigation. She told investigators she was abused at Archbishop Keough High School, but she has yet to be given any answers.
“It’s hard not to see any action,” she said, according to the Baltimore Sun. “I would like to hear something, please.”
Jean Wehner, who says she was also abused while a student at Archbishop Keough High School, said that without any updates over the past four years, survivors who spoke with investigators are finding themselves “in an old familiar place where the silence turns to fear.”
“The fear is that we told the secret and that the disclosure will bring harm to us and our loved ones, or that we are not believed, or that we’ve been duped,” she told the Baltimore Sun.
The school, which merged with Seton High School and was renamed Seton Keough in 1988, closed its doors in June 2017.
Lancaster and Wehner were both featured in “The Keepers,” a popular Netflix docuseries released in 2017 that explored the 1969 murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik and its suspected link to her knowledge of sexual abuse of minors within the church.
Frosh, who is not running for re-election, is set to leave office in January 2023 and survivors are urging him to share the findings before his term comes to a close.
A spokesperson for Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh’s office told ABC News in a statement on Wednesday that while the AG’s office cannot comment on ongoing investigations, they can confirm that they have conducted hundreds of interviews and reviewed thousands of documents.
“We have made significant progress in the investigation and expect to make an announcement in the coming months,” the spokesperson said.
The investigation into the abuse of children in Baltimore became public in 2018 after Archbishop William E. Lori informed priests and deacons that the archdiocese has been cooperating with the AG’s office in an “investigation of records related to the sexual abuse of children,” according to a statement released by Lori in September of that year.
Lori added, “Based on my conversations with people throughout the Archdiocese…it is clear that we are a Church in crisis and that crisis is one of trust. It is my hope and prayer that this independent review and other acts of transparency by the Archdiocese will bring about greater trust in the Church among those who are understandably skeptical about the Church’s handling of allegations of abuse.”
The Maryland investigation became public after a two-year probe in Pennsylvania ended with a bombshell grand jury report released in August 2018, accusing hundreds of Roman Catholic priests of assaulting children.
So far, no indictments have been announced in Maryland.
Members of “Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests” (SNAP), who joined Lancaster and Wehner at the rally on Tuesday, called on the AG to hold abusers accountable, while Maryland SNAP director David Lorenz questioned why the Maryland investigation has taken so long.
“We have perpetrators walking the streets of Maryland, preying on children in Maryland, and the [Office of the Attorney General] is sitting on this information. Why is that?” said Lorenz, according to ABC affiliate station in Baltimore, WMAR.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is still testing positive for COVID-19 four days into his rebound infection, White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor reported Wednesday.
Biden “continues to feel well,” O’Connor said, noting the exam was conducted after the president completed a light workout.
“He is still experiencing an occasional cough, but less frequently than yesterday. He remains fever-free and in good spirits,” O’Connor wrote. Biden’s temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation also remain normal.
O’Connor said Wednesday that Biden will continue to follow strict isolation measures, but it’s not clear if he will go beyond the recommendations laid out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — as the White House vowed to do the first time he tested positive.
Biden initially tested positive for the virus on July 21, and emerged from isolation after completing a five-day course of Paxlovid and testing negative. But on July 30 he tested positive again in what O’Connor called “rebound positivity” — referring to a relapse of COVID-19 some patients experience after taking the antiviral treatment.
The White House said after Biden’s initial diagnosis that he would end isolation only after testing negative on an antigen test. The CDC recommends that an individual stop isolating after five days if they are fever-free and symptoms are improving. It doesn’t suggest testing within 90 days of a positive case unless new symptoms develop.
For Biden’s rebound case, the White House has said the president would again isolate for five full days, but it hasn’t said if he would end isolation only after testing negative.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told ABC News’ Ben Gittleson on Wednesday she couldn’t say if that would be the case.
“I would have to check to see exactly what the CDC guidance is, but we are gonna follow CDC guidance,” she said.
When asked if the White House wants the CDC to urge Americans to test to end isolation, too — and if they want the public to use the president’s behavior as a model — Jean-Pierre said they’ll “leave it to the experts.”
“That is for the experts and they follow the science which changes on this,” she said. “You know, this is COVID, as we know, once-in-a-generation pandemic, so we leave it to them to make that decision.”
(SCRANTON, Kan.) — Officials in Scranton, Kansas, suspect heat played a role in the death of a 2-year-old, who died after being found unresponsive in a car Sunday afternoon.
It would mark the 14th hot car death this year, based on data from Kids and Cars Safety, a national nonprofit that tracks hot car deaths and aims to prevent vehicle-related risks to children and pets.
Osage County Sheriff Chris Wells said the child apparently “got into the car” by themself and had not been left in there by an adult, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported.
Details on the child’s name and gender have not yet been released.
Every year, approximately 38 children die from being left in a hot car, according to Kids and Cars Safety, with 87% of them age 3 and under.
As the U.S. copes with more heat waves this summer and temperatures in the Midwest, South and West continue to soar into the triple digits, there is a concern for parents about hot car deaths. One parent, Peter Hansen, opened up about the issue on social media.
“I have severe anxiety about leaving our kids in a hot car on accident,” Hansen, a father of three in Chicago, wrote in a LinkedIn post. “It’s 100 degrees in Chicago today and the heat is intense across the country. Working from home has me multitasking more than usual, which can distract me from the kids some days, especially if driving on a work call. This is simply a post to make sure your kids are not left in your car in this heat.”
The 40-year-old told “Good Morning America” an episode with two of his three kids one morning gave him a scare and prompted him to reflect on the dangers of hot cars and how easily things can go wrong.
“We got doughnuts and came back in the house,” Hansen recalled. “It’s still 7 in the morning — it wasn’t 100 degrees yet — but five minutes later, I was in the house and my 4-year-old walked through the door five minutes later, she’s like, ‘Daddy, you forgot me.’ And it was like, I swear I saw her get out of the car … but I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ It really terrified me that I thought both of them got out of the car together like they normally do.”
Why do hot car deaths happen?
Amber Rollins, a director at Kids and Cars Safety, said the issue is often misunderstood and even dismissed by many parents and caregivers.
“I think the No. 1 misconception is that this will never happen to me and that it only happens to bad parents and nothing could be further from the truth,” Rollins told “GMA.” “I’ve worked with families that this has happened to for 16 years and they are engineers, school teachers, principals, nurses, doctors, you name it. It’s the type of people that I aspire to be as a parent, the kind that read every safety book about the most expensive car seat and strapped him in so tight and covered every outlet. That’s the kind of person this is happening to.”
According to Rollins, hot car deaths have also been trending upwards for the last three decades, with an exception during the last two years of the pandemic when more families stayed at home.
“In the ’90s, we realized children were being killed by overpowered airbags and children are still safer riding in the back seat. We moved them to the back seat because that’s where they’re the safest. However, now they’re out of sight of the driver,” Rollins explained. “So they’re in the back seat, they’re rear-facing now until age 3 or even longer, depending on the size of the child. And that car seat looks the same for the driver whether there’s a baby in there or not.”
“This is not like parents didn’t just all of a sudden overnight become neglectful and irresponsible,” she added. “This is an unintended consequence of moving them to the back seat.”
How to prevent hot car deaths
Multiple solutions have been proposed to avert a hot car death before they occur. Among the high-tech options include carbon dioxide detection, lidar or light detection and ranging technology, car alarm systems, car camera systems and car seats with weight sensors, each with its own pros and cons.
A new idea, called “Cabin Awareness,” from Toyota would use radar technology, powered in part by a car’s battery, to notify drivers who have left a Toyota vehicle that a child or a pet remained inside the car.
Brian Kursar, chief technology officer for Toyota Connected North America and Toyota Motor North America, has led the “Cabin Awareness” project since its inception in 2018 and said the project is moving now toward a testing phase with May Mobility, a Michigan-based company that develops autonomous technology, including vehicles.
“The ‘Cabin Awareness’ concept uses millimeter-wave radar to detect micro-movements and so micro-movements really are the things that a camera can’t see. So it’s also able to understand breathing, heartbeat, and ultimately provides us a solution to something that we’ve not been able to really touch, which is the ability to understand life in a vehicle,” Kursar explained to “GMA,” adding that radar could “see through things like cloth” and go beyond a camera’s line of sight.
Toyota’s “Cabin Awareness” could link up to a driver’s cell phone, a smart device – such as smart lights, a smart speaker, or smart TV – inside their home, or possibly other Toyota vehicles in an environment such as a parking lot and ultimately, contact emergency services when other alerts go unanswered.
“Based on our algorithms, we’re able to understand where in the vehicle that movement is coming from. And then we’re able to now take a number of options to escalate, to let the customer know that there is life potentially at risk in a vehicle,” Kursar said.
“We see this as an opportunity not just to contact the customer. You can give the system a list of contacts such as grandma, right, such as your neighbor, right, and these are additional folks that can start helping to resolve this problem with the vehicle,” Kursar added. “Maybe we can now do a vehicle-to-vehicle ping to say, if you’re within proximity of a child or an adult at risk in a car, now you have this almost community outreach where people in their cars, they turn on their cars, and it says, [someone in] a green Sienna within your proximity, may be at risk for heat exhaustion.”
For now, “Cabin Awareness” is not available in Toyota vehicles just yet and the timeline for a potential rollout will depend on testing results.
In the meantime, Kids and Cars Safety’s Rollins recommends several solutions that parents can keep in mind and adopt this summer.
Adopt the “look before you lock” habit.
“We want to use that habit system to prevent it from happening,” Rollins said. “No matter what, even if the child is not with you, open the back door and check the back seat. Every single time you leave the car.”
“It takes two seconds,” she continued. “And it’s a great way to make sure you’re never forgetting anything, including your children or inanimate objects that aren’t as important but make that a 100% habit.”
In addition to being left in a car, a child or pet can gain access to a car when they’re unlocked, so Rollins also emphasized the importance of utilizing car door locks. “You want to keep your car locked 100% of the time, even if you don’t have children. Little ones can get into neighbors’ cars. It happens all the time. You want to keep keys and remote openers out of reach of children 100% of the time and childproof your home.”
“You want to check the inside trunk and floorboards of all vehicles in the area immediately, even if they’re locked,” Rollins added. “A lot of times, kiddos will get in and they try to get out and they push the lock button. And so people don’t think they’re in there if it’s locked, but they definitely can be.”
Use a visual reminder.
Rollins suggests keeping a physical object, like a diaper bag, in the front seat or playing a kid’s song to remember that you’re traveling with your child. “If you’re not a diaper bag person 100% of the time, create a reminder object in your car. So throw a stuffed animal in the car seat. And then anytime you put the child in the car seat, that stuffed animal comes up to the front seat with you as your visual cue that the baby is with you,” Rollins said.
Enlist the help of others.
“If you take your child to daycare or anyone, a family member that watches them, whoever it is, you want to make a policy with them. They would call you immediately if your child didn’t show up as scheduled and I mean immediately,” said Rollins. “That one phone call could have been the difference between life or death for hundreds of children.”
Make kids aware of the hazards of a hot car.
“Talk to your kids about how dangerous it is to get into a car without a grown-up and talk to them about never allowing a grown-up to leave them in the car,” Rollins said.
Use stick-on door alarms.
Inexpensive door alarms can be more accessible for parents than full-fledged home security systems in the short term and peel-and-stick options are sold online and in stores.
