(SAN DIEGO) — Indoor mask mandates returned Monday for the San Diego Unified School District schools and offices as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations tick up in the county.
Mandatory masking in indoor public spaces will be required for all students, teachers and staff at least through the end of summer school.
“As a district, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been intentional in implementing strategies to keep our community safe and reduce absences due to illness — all in service of our students, staff and community,” the district said in a letter sent to staff, parents and students Friday.
“If your student is participating in summer school or other summer enrichment program, please send them to school or their program with a mask. If they do not have one, masks will be provided. Students and staff will be required to wear their masks while indoors only,” the letter said.
The district added in the letter it will continue to monitor data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the county over the next two weeks and let the community know if there are any changes.
SDUSD dropped its mask mandate in April following a decrease in COVID-19 cases, hospitalization and deaths. However, in May, the district said the mandate would return as long as the county was classified by the CDC as having high transmission levels of COVID, which is determined by case counts and hospital admissions.
Over the last seven days, San Diego has recorded 383.01 new cases per 100,000, a nearly 5% jump from the previous week, according to CDC data. Additionally, the county has seen a hospital admission rate of 11.8 per 100,000 over the last seven days, which is a 31% spike compared to the previous seven days.
The district has not stated whether the indoor mask mandate will continue into the fall semester. District officials did not immediately return ABC News’ request for comment.
Schools in San Diego are not the only locations seeing the return of masks. Naval Base Coronado and Naval Base San Diego both announced on social media that mask mandates will go into effect Monday.
“Effective TODAY, mask wearing is required indoors on all Naval Base Coronado Installations and training sites until further notice,” the base wrote in a Facebook post. “Please do your part to reduce the spread by wearing a mask, maintaining social distancing, increased hygiene practices and vaccinations.”
(NEW ORLEANS) — The legal battle over Louisiana’s statewide abortion ban rages on with a court hearing slated for Monday.
Since the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, declaring there’s no federal constitutional right to end a pregnancy, Louisiana’s abortion “trigger laws” arguably went into automatic effect, meaning the procedure immediately became illegal in the state. However, a lawsuit led by the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Boies Schiller law firm on behalf of Hope Medical Group for Women — a Louisiana abortion provider — has challenged the state’s three abortion trigger laws.
A New Orleans judge issued a temporary order blocking enforcement of the state ban on June 27. Less than two weeks later, on July 8, another New Orleans judge decided not to extend the temporary order allowing for abortions and transferred the case to Baton Rouge, saying it had been filed in the wrong jurisdiction and that state law required it to be heard in the capital.
However, three days later, Judge Donald Johnson of Louisiana’s 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge Parish issued a temporary order blocking the trigger laws pending a preliminary injunction hearing, which was scheduled to begin Monday morning. Louisiana’s three abortion clinics — in Shreveport, Baton Rouge and New Orleans — were allowed to resume operations until the court decides on whether to issue a preliminary injunction.
Following the historic ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, Louisiana was one of just three states to have immediate trigger laws restricting abortions, including a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. These laws include “trigger language” designed to make them effective when federal abortion rights were reversed.
The first of Louisiana’s trigger laws was passed in 2006, stating that abortion under all circumstances except due to certain medical circumstances would become criminal offenses. However, there were no clear guidelines on how the ban would be enforced or exactly when it would become effective.
In June, in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, a second trigger law was signed, adding a statement directly relating to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
A third trigger law was enacted just days later, stating that it will ban abortion after 15 weeks of gestation, as opposed to the first and second bans on abortion at any point. The three bans also all differ on their penalty provisions. There are no exceptions for victims of rape and incest.
In the lawsuit, plaintiffs don’t deny that Louisiana can now outlaw abortion, but they claim that the state ban is unconstitutionally vague due to multiple, conflicting trigger mechanisms. They also contend that state law is unclear on whether it bans an abortion prior to a fertilized egg implanting in the uterus. Attorneys for the plaintiffs want the judge to keep blocking enforcement as their suit is litigated.
Meanwhile, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry’s office will argue that the state ban is constitutional and should no longer be blocked. Last month, Landry lauded the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and warned that anyone wanting to fight abortion laws in his state is “in for a rough fight.”
ABC News’ Ely Brown, Kyla Guilfoil, Mary Kekatos and Briana Stewart contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A jury will soon determine if confessed Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz will be sentenced to death.
Opening arguments begin Monday in the penalty phase of Cruz’s trial. The trial is expected to take several months. At the conclusion, the jury’s decision must be unanimous to sentence him to death.
On Feb. 14, 2018, Cruz, then 19, gunned down 14 students and three staff members at his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in South Florida. He was taken into custody that day.
Cruz pleaded guilty in October 2021 to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder.
Cruz said in court last year, “I am very sorry for what I did and I have to live with it every day. … It brings me nightmares and I can’t live with myself sometimes.”
Cruz, the deadliest mass shooter to go before a jury, said in court he believes the victims’ families should be the ones to decide whether he gets the death penalty.
Cameron Kasky, a Parkland student in 2018 and now a gun-reform activist, called the death penalty “barbaric” in a tweet Sunday.
The death penalty “will not bring any of the victims back” and will “create a false sense of Justice, which will only come when the gun manufacturers and the politicians who support them are held accountable,” Kasky wrote.
The “shooter does not deserve to live, but the U.S. government and our ‘justice’ system is incapable of responsibly wielding the power to determine value in life,” he wrote. “It’s the politicians who support the gun lobby that should be held accountable.”
Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son Joaquin died in Parkland, told Miami ABC affiliate WPLG, “I think he should die and I think that is not enough. … Not even the death penalty is enough.”
Fred Guttenberg, who has been fighting for gun reform since his 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in Parkland, tweeted Monday, “One week ago today I was at the @WhiteHouse to celebrate @POTUS signing gun safety legislation. Today, I am at the Courthouse for the start of the penalty phase of the criminal trial of the person who murdered my daughter with an AR 15. This is the reality of gun violence.”
“Jaime, I miss you beyond words,” he added in another tweet.
Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex was killed, tweeted Monday morning, “I love you Alex.”
(LONDON) — Ghana on Sunday declared its first ever outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg virus disease.
Blood samples taken from two patients in the southern Ashanti region were sent for testing to the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research in Ghana’s capital, Accra, with preliminary results suggesting earlier this month that their illness was due to Marburg. With the support of the World Health Organization, the samples were then sent for further testing to the Institut Pasteur in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, which ultimately corroborated the results from Accra, the Ghana Health Service said in a press release Sunday.
Marburg is a rare but severe viral haemorrhagic fever, almost as deadly as the more well-known Ebola virus disease. Case fatality rates for Marburg have varied from 24% to 88% in previous outbreaks, while Ebola case fatality rates have varied from 25% to 90%. Unlike with Ebola, there are currently no approved treatments or vaccines for Marburg, according to the WHO.
“Health authorities have responded swiftly, getting a head start preparing for a possible outbreak. This is good because without immediate and decisive action, Marburg can easily get out of hand,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, said in a statement Sunday. “WHO is on the ground supporting health authorities and now that the outbreak is declared, we are marshalling more resources for the response.”
Ghana’s first case was a 26-year-old man who was hospitalized on June 26 and died the next day, officials said. The second case was a 51-year-old man who sought treatment at the same hospital on June 28 and died later that day. Both patients, who were unrelated, experienced similar symptoms, including diarrhea, fever, nausea and vomiting, the WHO said in a press release Sunday.
So far, 98 contacts have been identified in Ashanti as well as the northwestern Savannah region. They are currently under quarantine and are being monitored by health authorities. No new cases have been detected, according to the Ghana Health Service.
The Marburg virus is transmitted to humans from fruit bats and spreads person-to-person through direct contact with the bodily fluids of the infected individuals, surfaces and materials. Illness begins abruptly, with high fever, severe headache and malaise. Many patients develop severe haemorrhagic signs within seven days, according to the WHO.
To reduce the risk of transmission, the Ghana Health Service advised people to avoid exposure to mines or caves inhabited by fruit bat colonies, to cook all animal products thoroughly before consumption and to avoid direct contact with anyone showing symptoms.
It is only the second time the highly infectious, zoonotic disease has been detected in West Africa. Guinea confirmed a single case in an outbreak that was declared over in September 2021, five weeks after the initial case was detected. The largest, most fatal Marburg outbreak on record infected and killed more than 200 people in Angola between 2004 and 2005, according to the WHO. The global health arm of the United Nations noted that it has reached out to Ghana’s high-risk neighbors, who it said are now “on alert.”
West African nations know all too well what a deadly virus like Ebola can do to a region. The biggest and deadliest Ebola outbreak on record infected more than 28,000 people and killed over 11,000 across multiple countries — mainly Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — between 2013 and 2016, according to the WHO.
Although no treatment or vaccine exists for Marburg, supportive care — rehydration with oral or intravenous fluids — and treatment of specific symptoms both improve a patient’s chance of survival. A range of potential treatments, including blood products, immune therapies and drug therapies, as well as candidate vaccines with phase 1 data are under evaluation, the WHO said.
(LONDON) — The U.K. is preparing for record-breaking temperatures this week, with unprecedented health warnings being issued as a national emergency has been declared.
Temperatures are expected to rise to 98 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday, but the highest and potentially record-breaking temperatures will be seen on Tuesday. For the first time, the Met Office has issued a “Red warning” in response to the extraordinary heat.
The heat wave in Britain, which has been linked to climate change, follows a weekend of wildfires and soaring deadly temperatures in France, Portugal and Spain.
Thousands have been forced to flee wildfires in southern France and Spain, and more than 1,000 deaths have been linked to the heat wave in Portugal and Spain since earlier in July by the countries’ respective health ministries. France could experience its hottest day on record on Monday, according to local media.
The previous hottest day on record in the U.K. stands at 38.7 C (101.6 F.) But that is expected to be surpassed on Tuesday, with temperatures reaching 40°C (104 F) in parts of the U.K.
“Nights are also likely to be exceptionally warm, especially in urban areas,” the Met Office’s Chief Meteorologist Paul Gundersen said in a statement. “This is likely to lead to widespread impacts on people and infrastructure. Therefore, it is important people plan for the heat and consider changing their routines. This level of heat can have adverse health effects.”
Government scientists have warned that the frequency, intensity and duration of similar heat waves will increase in the coming century as the world continues to experience the effects of climate change.
“We hoped we wouldn’t get to this situation but for the first time ever we are forecasting greater than 40°C in the U.K.,” Dr. Nikos Christidis, a climate attribution scientist at the Met Office, said. “Climate change has already influenced the likelihood of temperature extremes in the U.K. The chances of seeing 40°C days in the UK could be as much as 10 times more likely in the current climate than under a natural climate unaffected by human influence.”
Despite the heat, schools are expected to remain open. However, there are concerns that U.K. infrastructure is ill-equipped to deal with such weather events. While offices are generally equipped with air-conditioning, only a small number of homes have air-conditioning units.
One Met Office meteorologist, Steven Keates, warned that the heat was not something to celebrate.
“This is not just another heatwave,” Keates told The Telegraph. “This is dangerous heat, because we’re not used to it. It’s simple –our infrastructure is not geared up for weather like this.”
“Do as little as possible,” he added. “Because heat is fatiguing and we are in slightly uncharted territory.”
(INDIANAPOLIS) — At least three people were killed and two others were injured in a shooting at an Indianapolis-area shopping mall on Sunday evening, police said.
Multiple people called 911 at around 6:05 p.m. local time to report an active shooter at the Greenwood Park Mall in Greenwood, Indiana, some 14 miles south of Indianapolis. An unidentified gunman had walked into the mall’s food court and opened fire, according to Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison.
Olivia Harding said she was at the Old Navy in the mall with her mom when they heard four gunshots and initially thought the nearby carousel was breaking down. But then they heard six more shots.
“I told my mom instantly to get down,” Harding recalled in an interview with ABC News on Sunday night.
A person who was lawfully armed — identified as a 22-year-old man from Bartholomew County — shot and killed the gunman, according to Ison.
“The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop that shooter almost as soon as he began,” Ison told reporters during a press conference on Sunday night.
Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers also confirmed that the suspect was “shot by an armed individual,” whom he called a “good Samaritan.”
“This person saved lives tonight,” Myers said in a statement late Sunday. “On behalf of the City of Greenwood, I am grateful for his quick action and heroism in this situation.”
The victims include four females and one male. Among the injured is a 12-year-old girl whose parents brought her to the hospital with minor injuries after the shooting. The second injured victim was hospitalized and in stable condition as of Sunday evening, according to the police chief.
The suspect, who appears to have used a long-gun rifle with several magazines of ammunition, has not yet been identified, nor has a motive been determined, Ison said.
While the deadly shooting remains under investigation, Ison said there is currently no ongoing threat and SWAT teams have cleared the mall.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said Indiana State Police are assisting local authorities in the incident.
“Lives were lost today, and I’m thinking about all the victims of this horrible incident, now and in the days and weeks to come,” Holcomb said in a statement via Twitter late Sunday.
ABC News’ Ebony Peeples and Darren Reynolds contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Jury selection is set to begin Monday in the trial of former President Donald Trump’s ally Steve Bannon over his defiance of a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Bannon, who previously served as Trump’s White House chief strategist but departed in August of 2017, was first subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee for records and testimony in September of last year. The committee told Bannon at the time it had “reason to believe that you have information relevant to understanding activities that led to and informed the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Last week, the committee revealed that it had obtained records showing Bannon twice spoke with Trump over the phone on the day before Capitol attack, with one call taking place before Bannon made comments on his podcast predicting “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”
At the time of the Capitol riot, Bannon was already facing federal charges related to an alleged conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering over his involvement in a crowdfunding effort to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, to which he had pleaded not guilty. Trump pardoned Bannon on his final night in office, but declined to pardon two other men Bannon was initially charged with, both of whom recently pleaded guilty. A judge declared a mistrial in the case of another defendant after one juror refused to join in deliberations. The Justice Department has said it will seek to retry that case.
The Justice Department indicted Bannon last November on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, roughly 20 days after the full House of Representatives voted to hold him in contempt over his defiance of the Jan. 6 subpoena.
Bannon’s attorneys have repeatedly claimed that Trump had invoked executive privilege over Bannon’s testimony, which prevented him from cooperating — despite Trump’s status as a former president and the fact that Bannon was not a White House adviser at the time of their alleged communications about Jan. 6.
But the Justice Department revealed last week that in a recent interview with federal investigators, former President Trump’s current lawyer, Justin Clark, said that at no point did Trump actually invoke executive privilege over Bannon’s testimony.
Clark also told investigators that he had made clear to Bannon’s attorney Robert Costello, prior to Bannon’s indictment, that Trump was not instructing Bannon to refuse cooperation with the committee altogether.
As his trial date was nearing, Bannon signaled to the committee last week that he was prepared to testify before the committee in a “public hearing,” and provided a letter from Trump in which Trump claimed to have previously invoked executive privilege and said he would now waive it. However, members of the committee have said they won’t consider Bannon’s offer to testify until he first complies with their subpoena’s demand for documents.
Prosecutors questioned the timing of Bannon’s last-minute offer and suggested in a filing that his efforts in conjunction with Trump to offer to finally testify before the committee were no more than a stunt to try and make him more a sympathetic figure to the jury.
“[Bannon’s] continued failure to comply with the subpoena’s document demand while claiming he now will testify suggests his actions are little more than an attempt to change the optics of his contempt on the eve of trial, not an actual effort at compliance,” investigators said in the filing. “[Bannon’s] timing suggests that the only thing that has really changed since he refused to comply with the subpoena in October 2021 is that he is finally about to face the consequences of his decision to default.”
Ahead of the trial, Bannon unloaded on the committee during an episode of his “War Room” podcast last week, vowing to go “medieval on these people.”
“Pray for our enemies, OK? Because we’re going medieval on these people. We’re going to savage our enemies,” Bannon said. “So pray for them. Who needs prayers? Not MAGA, not War Room, and certainly not Stephen K Bannon.”
It’s unclear whether Bannon’s actions leading up to Jan. 6 will factor into his trial, as prosecutors focus on proving their relatively narrow case involving his defiance of the committee’s subpoena.
In a pretrial hearing last week, the judge overseeing Bannon’s case, Carl Nichols, entered a series of rulings that will significantly limit the lines of defense Bannon’s attorneys will be able to present to the jury.
Nichols said Bannon won’t be able to claim he defied the subpoena because Trump asserted executive privilege over his testimony, nor can Bannon claim he relied on the advice of his lawyer, or that he was “tricked” into believing he could ignore the subpoena due to internal DOJ opinions from previous administrations about executive branch officials’ immunity from complying with congressional subpoenas.
Nichols also rejected Bannon’s defense that prosecutors would need to show that he knew his conduct was unlawful, saying that prosecutors only need to prove that Bannon acted “deliberately” and “intentionally” to defy the Jan. 6 panel.
Bannon’s attorney, David Schoen, questioned the judge’s rulings, asking the judge at one point, “What’s the point in going to trial here if there are no defenses?”
In a separate hearing on Thursday, Nichols left open the possibility that Bannon’s recent offer to testify before the committee could be presented at trial, noting that it could be relevant to a line of defense regarding whether Bannon believed the deadline for his compliance with the subpoena was flexible. But Nichols also publicly questioned the strength of putting forward such a defense.
Bannon’s attorneys are likely to fight vigorously to ensure that nobody seated on the jury has leanings that would make them critical or even aware of Bannon’s political activities.
Bannon’s attorneys have argued that widespread negative media coverage of Bannon, including the mention of him at last week’s Jan. 6 committee hearing, will effectively taint any jury pool — though assistant U.S. attorney Molly Gaston expressed confidence last week that they could seat a full jury that would potentially have no idea who Bannon is.
If convicted, Bannon would face a maximum sentence of up to two years in prison plus fines — though such sentences are rare and Bannon would likely appeal any conviction.
Prior to Bannon, the last time a criminal contempt case was brought by the Justice Department was in 1983 during the Reagan administration, against an EPA official who was eventually found not guilty by a jury at trial.
Last month, the Justice Department indicted former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro on two counts of contempt of Congress, over his similar defiance of a subpoena from the Jan.6. committee. Navarro has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go to trial in November.
The same day Navarro was taken into custody, the DOJ informed the Jan. 6 committee it was declining to prosecute former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former top Trump adviser Dan Scavino, both of whom had provided some cooperation with the committee but were held in contempt by the full House over their refusal to testify.
(UVALDE, Texas) — The loved ones of those killed in a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, are reacting with anger and disappointment Sunday after a committee of state lawmakers investigating the massacre released a 77-page report that said law enforcement officers who responded to the rampage “failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.”
The public release of the report came as the joint committee of the Texas Legislature met Sunday afternoon with the families of the victims and just days after security video footage from inside Robb Elementary School showing the delayed police response to the attack was leaked and obtained by two Texas news outlets.
The committee’s report laid out in detail the lapses in preparation, training and judgment in connection with the police response to one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
“It’s a joke. Texas failed the students. Law enforcement failed the students. Our government failed the students. What else do you want me to say? The truth is out there. Everybody saw the truth,” Vincent Salazar, whose 11-year-old granddaughter, Layla Salazar, was killed in the attack, told ABC News.
Salazar said he wasn’t going to attend the meeting with the committee at Uvalde Junior College and was only there to pick up a copy of the report to take home and read through it thoroughly.
He said he believes the killer should have never made it into the school, let alone been allowed nearly 77 minutes to kill as numerous state, federal and local law enforcement officers waited in the hallway outside the classrooms where the shooter was holed up.
“If I were these officers, I would leave town,” Salazar said. “They don’t deserve to be here.”
Sergio Garcia, whose 10-year-old son, Uziyah Sergio Garcia, was also killed in the mass shooting, agreed.
“I get paid at my job to do my job. If I didn’t do my job, I wouldn’t be working,” Garcia said told reporters Sunday. “Now, they took an oath, had a badge, they had unlimited resources and they need to pay for what they did not do.”
Garcia said he was “mad at everybody” who appeared to do nothing to save the 19 children and two teachers from being killed.
“In certain schools, they have police, sheriffs in the front. Why don’t they protect our kids like they protect money in a vault at a bank?” Garcia said. “Our kids are more valuable than that money. This is not the first time a school has been shot up and kids have lost their lives. This need to be the last time this happens. It shouldn’t happen anymore. Nobody should ever go through this.”
The report paints the most complete portrait to date of the massacre, which was described a series of “shortcomings and failures of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and of various agencies and officers of law enforcement.”
But committee members said they do not know whether a faster or more competent response could have saved lives in the face of a heavily armed gunman who appeared bent on killing everybody in his sight with a high-powered assault rifle.
In addition to making its report public, the committee released video that captured the police response inside the schools.
The official release of the video comes after footage from inside the school as the attack was unfolding was leaked and obtained by Austin ABC affiliate KVUE and the Austin American-Statesman newspaper.
KVUE released a statement, saying, it and the Austin-Statesman elected to publish that footage “to provide transparency to the community, showing what happened as officials waited to enter that classroom.”
KVUE and the American-Statesman both published an edited portion of the never-before-seen footage on Tuesday, ahead of Sunday’s planned release of the video by state lawmakers. The outlets also published the unedited 77-minute version footage online.
Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, who expressed anger over the video being leaked and aired before the families first had a chance to review it.
Following Sunday’s meeting, committee members are expected to hold a news conference and make the video public along with its report on the shooting.
Rep. Dustin Burrows, the committee chairman, said the committee had planned to give the families the opportunity to see the video in private before it was released to the public and expressed disappointment that the two media outlets preempted those plans.
The leak of the video infuriated some of the victim’s family members. Some saw it as the latest source of frustration with the investigation that has included inaccurate information from investigators and elected leaders, including an initial statement from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that the school’s police immediately engaged the gunman before he got into the school. Abbott later said he was “misled” about the circumstances of the shooting.
“They weren’t supposed to do it without our consent,” Javier Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter, Jackie, was killed in the attack, told ABC News after the video was leaked.
Several of the families were meeting with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, when the video was aired on television and online. Despite the family members and some elected leaders, including Abbott, repeatedly calling for the video’s release, the local district attorney denied the requests.
“We’ve been asking the DA for this video for a while and she refused to let us see it,” Nikki Cross, the aunt of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, who was killed in the rampage, told ABC News. “So once again, the world got to see it before us. Just like the day of the shooting when Gov. Abbott announced to you all that our children are dead and we have no idea. It’s like reliving that day all over again.”
Christina Mitchell Busbee — the 38th Judicial District Attorney, whose jurisdiction includes Uvalde County — defended her now overridden decision not to release the video in an interview over the weekend with the Uvalde Leader-News, saying the move threatens to jeopardize the investigation, which she said is ongoing and could lead to possible criminal charges if anyone is found to have aided the suspect in planning the attack.
“My goal is to secure justice for the victims, their families, and the citizens of the 38th Judicial District,” Busbee told the newspaper. “This goal cannot be accomplished unless there is a thorough investigation buttressed by fairness, integrity and impartiality free from political and media pressures.”
Burrows said the committee’s release of the video and report are intended to provide transparency to the families of those killed despite guidance from the local district attorney that the footage remain under wraps.
The video published by the news outlets and now released by the committee, including police body-camera video and footage from a surveillance camera mounted in a hallway of the school, shows dozens of law enforcement officers waiting in the hallway outside the adjoined classrooms where the gunman was committing the mass shooting. The officers — including some with protective shields, wearing tactical armor and armed with high-powered rifles — didn’t breach the classroom for more than 70 minutes, even as additional volleys of gunfire could be heard on the video from the classrooms 45 minutes after police arrived on the scene, the footage released by the news organizations shows.
The video began by showing the 18-year-old suspect, wearing tactical gear and wielding a high-powered AR-15 style weapon, entering the school unabated at 11:33 a.m. on May 24 and walking down the hallway to the classrooms. A barrage of gunfire could be heard on the footage soon after the gunman entered the school.
Three minutes after the killer entered the school, three police officers, wearing bullet-proof vests and guns drawn, are seen running down the hallway toward the classrooms where the gunman was holed up, while at least four other officers entered the school and took cover, the video shows. Moments later, the three officers who charged down the hallway are seen in the video retreating after coming under fire.
Police eventually breached the classroom and killed the gunman 77 minutes after he entered the school, authorities said.
Gian Marco Benedetto/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(LONDON) — As Western Europe experiences a record-breaking heat wave, thousands of firefighters are having trouble containing forest fires in France, Spain and Portugal that have destroyed thousands of acres of land.
The fires have forced thousands of people to evacuate to safety, as extreme heat grips the region. There have also been more than 1,000 heat-related deaths in Spain and Portugal so far in July, according to the respective countries’ ministries of health.
In southern France, more than 14,000 people were forced to flee as fires spread to more than 27,180 acres of land. The country’s Interior Ministry also issued red alerts for heat waves for 15 French departments and orange alerts for 51 departments on Sunday.
Monday could be the hottest day on record in the country, according to France’s BFM TV. Belis, France, reached a high of 40.8 degrees Celsius — 105.44 Fahrenheit — on Sunday.
The number of people who died of heat-related deaths is unknown, but France’s Ministry of Health told ABC News that information on the number of casualties will be released at the end of the month.
Meanwhile, more than 360 people in Spain have died from heat-related deaths between July 10 and 17, with 84 people dying in the last 24 hours, the country’s Ministry of Health reported.
Firefighters there are fighting 30 active fires, mostly in Castilla y Leon, Galicia and Andalusia, Interior Ministry and Catalan Authorities said.
Temperatures on Sunday were forecast to reach 42 C (107.6 F) in three provinces in the country, prompting the state meteorological agency to issue “extreme risk” alerts.
In Mijas, Spain, in the municipality of Malaga, 3,000 people have fled due to fires. More than 22,000 acres of land are at risk of being burned in the Mijas province as firefighters struggle to contain the flames.
Wildfires are happening earlier in the season, ending later and becoming more frequent because of climate change, the European Union said in a report last year.
“Climate change is aggravating the situation, making countries more prone to wildfires and increasing the intensity of such events,” the report said.
In Portugal, wildfires are quickly spreading throughout the country’s central and northern regions. According to Portugal’s Ministry of Health, between July 7 and 13, 238 people had heat-related deaths, and there were more than 421 heat-related fatalities between July 14 and 17.
The sweltering heat is also expected to take hold of other parts of Europe in the coming days. Areas of England are expected to hit 40 C (104 F) on Monday and Tuesday.
The U.K. government issued a national emergency and warned people not to leave their homes unless necessary, according to The Associated Press.
“This year, for the first time, we’ve issued a severe weather emergency response in summer,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan said.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday castigated Sen. Joe Manchin after the West Virginia Democrat said he wouldn’t support legislation focused on climate change and tax changes, citing his concerns over high inflation.
Manchin is “intentionally sabotaging the president’s agenda, what the American people want, what a majority of us in the Democratic caucus want. Nothing new about this,” Sanders, I-Vt., told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “And the problem was that we continue to talk to Manchin like he was serious. He was not.”
“When Manchin sabotages climate change, this is the future generations what’s going on right now,” Sanders said. “In the West, all over the world, we’re looking at significantly increased — more and more heat waves. You’d have to look at more flooding. This is an existential threat to humanity.”
The rebuke comes after Manchin told fellow Democrats that he wouldn’t vote — at least not right away — for a party-line proposal to address climate change that some lawmakers had been hopeful to pass with their fragile congressional majority.
Instead, Manchin said, he would back a bill that focused solely on health care measures like prescription drug prices.
Since retaking Congress in 2020, Democrats have been trying to pass major legislation on a slate of social issues to make good on President Joe Biden’s campaign promises and give themselves a boost before the November midterms. But Manchin — and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema — have repeatedly broken with the rest of the caucus because of political objections, largely derailing those efforts in the 50-50 Senate.
On “This Week,” Sanders vented that the latest development echoed negotiations last year when Manchin also walked away from a broader social spending bill.
“Same nonsense that Manchin has been talking about for a year,” Sanders told Raddatz when asked about Manchin’s worries over inflation, which hit an annual pace of 9.1 percent last month, a 40-year high. “In my humble opinion, Manchin represents the very wealthiest people in this country, not working families of West Virginia or America.”
In a statement last week, Manchin said he was thinking of everyday costs in opposing the climate and tax proposal.
“Items like chicken, eggs and lunchmeat have increased to new highs, while energy costs rose more than 40% in June with those that can least afford it suffering the most. It is past time we put our country first and end this inflation crisis,” he said.
During his appearance Sunday, Sanders also lamented Biden’s recent trip to Saudi Arabia, saying the president shouldn’t have gone because of Riyadh’s human rights record, including the murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and U.S. permanent resident.
U.S. intelligence has assessed that Khashoggi’s killing was approved by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, which Saudi Arabia vehemently denies.
“Should Biden have gone?” Raddatz asked.
“You have a leader of a country who was involved in the murder of a Washington Post journalist. I don’t think that type of government should be rewarded with a visit by the president of the United States,” Sanders said. (The White House says Biden immediately raised Khashoggi’s killing when he met with bin Salman last week.)
“If this country believes in anything, we believe in human rights, we believe in democracy,” Sanders said. “And I just don’t believe that we should be maintaining a warm relationship with a dictatorship like that.”
Raddatz pressed Sanders on whether Biden’s discussions with bin Salman made sense in light of high gas prices, but Sanders argued that action around what he called corporate greed could make a bigger difference at the pump.
“At the heart of the discussions was oil, and President Biden said the Saudis would take action in the coming weeks. Could that make a difference, and doesn’t that explain why he went? What would you have done?” Raddatz asked.
“One of the things we’ve got to look at is the fact that while Americans are paying $4.50, $4.80 for a gallon of gas, the oil company profits in the last quarter have been extraordinarily high,” he said. “And I happen to believe that we’ve got to tell the oil companies to stop ripping off the American people. And if they don’t, we should impose a windfall profits tax on them.”
