(PHOENIX) — Five Phoenix police officers were shot during an early morning barricade situation at a house, the department said.
Phoenix police said they were called to a home where a woman was reported shot.
When an officer approached to help, the suspect immediately opened fire, striking the officer multiple times, police said. That officer was able to get away to safety, police said.
Then a man came out of the house holding a baby, police said. The man put the baby on the ground and walked to police where he was detained.
When officers went to bring the baby to safety, the suspect again opened fire from inside the house, hitting four more officers, police said.
The suspect then barricaded himself in the home, police said. Once the scene was secured police said they found the suspect dead inside.
The woman who was the first reported to be shot was found critically hurt inside the home, police said.
Besides the five officers shot, at least three other officers were injured by bullet shrapnel, police said.
The conditions of the five officers shot were not immediately clear. Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams told reporters, “One of them is seriously hurt but is on the road to recovery.”
(PHILADELPHIA) — Six people were stabbed in a Philadelphia home early Friday in what police are calling a “very violent scene.”
Police received a 911 call just after 4 a.m. reporting a stabbing and responding officers found the victims, Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small told reporters.
Three were hospitalized in critical condition and three were in stable condition, according to Philadelphia police.
Small said there were two bloody knives and one of the knives “is actually broken, which goes to show how violently these individuals were being stabbed.”
The “very violent scene” was “all on the second floor in the three bedrooms of this private residence,” Small said. “There’s blood on the floor, there’s blood on the walls, on the doors. The door to the master bedroom is completely knocked off its hinges.”
Police found the suspect “covered with blood” on a street and “he immediately surrendered,” Small said.
Police said the victims in critical condition were a 30-year-old woman stabbed multiple times in the back; a 32-year-old woman stabbed multiple times in the arms and chest; and a 49-year-old woman stabbed multiple times in the neck, head and back.
In stable condition were a 26-year-old man stabbed in the chest and back; a 57-year-old man stabbed in the forehead; and a 55-year-old woman stabbed in arm, police said.
So far there is no motive, Small said.
The suspect was positively identified by some of the family members, including some of the victims, and was taken to a hospital to be treated for cuts to his hands, Small said.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Bernie Sanders gave a speech on the Senate floor Thursday expressing grave concern over the “drumbeats” of war building in Washington, D.C., amid escalating tensions along the Ukrainian border.
Sanders, I-Vt., the de-facto leader of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, which had kept relatively quiet on the issue to this point, pleaded with government officials to not follow a similar path of past military conflicts.
“I’m extremely concerned when I hear the familiar drumbeats in Washington, the bellicose rhetoric that gets amplified before every war, demanding that we must ‘show strength,’ ‘get tough’ and not engage in ‘appeasement’,” said Sanders, who has, in the past, led the charge to defund the war in Iraq and to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
The senator focused on the “unintended consequences” that have resulted from previous American military involvements and the way wars have been portrayed in the lead up to those conflicts.
“They [wars] rarely turn out the way the planners and experts tell us they will. Just ask the officials who provided rosy scenarios for the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, only to be proven horribly wrong,” Sanders said.
Sanders reaffirmed his support for the pursuit of a diplomatic solution with Russia, the latest attempts of which have been led by French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy separately this week.
While condemning Putin over his responsibility for the current crisis, Sanders also called on officials to “consider the perspectives of our adversaries.” Putin has demanded the U.S. and Europeans commit to keeping Ukraine out of NATO, something the West has rejected outright.
“One of the precipitating factors of this crisis, at least from Russia’s perspective, is the prospect of an enhanced security relationship between Ukraine and the United States and Western Europe,” Sanders said.
In addition to his war critique, Sanders objected to potential sanctions against Russia and the possible impact on civilians. That includes a package the Senate has been discussing that could cause economic devastation in Russia and reverberate across Europe.
The legislation appears to be on hold following disagreement on a variety of issues, including the strength of the sanctions, leading some to suggest President Joe Biden should proceed on his own.
On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., indicated it would be better for Biden to take action as opposed to waiting for the passage of a sanctions package he believes wouldn’t deter Putin. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., struck a similar tone.
“We’re just a hair’s breadth away from an agreement on strong, message-sending sanctions legislation, but I really believe the Biden administration should act now — in fact yesterday,” said Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Concerns about a Russian invasion into Ukraine continue to build as the Russian military began a series of exercises in Belarus on Thursday that are expected to continue until Feb. 20.
“[We] must work hard to achieve a realistic and mutually agreeable resolution…that is not weakness,” Sanders said. “That is not appeasement. Bringing people together to resolve conflicts nonviolently is strength, and it is the right thing to do.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday setting in motion a plan to make $7 billion in Afghan funds held in the United States available to compensate victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, and to provide humanitarian relief and other support to the Afghan people dealing with crushing hunger, according to senior Biden administration officials.
The funds were deposited by Afghanistan’s central bank in the United States before the Taliban took over last year and have since been made unavailable to the Taliban. Much of the money comes from U.S. and other international donations over the past 20 years, according to the official.
The U.S. has struggled to determine how to provide aid to the Afghan people without money going to the Taliban.
Biden’s order would freeze the funds and set aside more than $3.5 billion for American victims of terrorism who are pursuing litigation against the Taliban, according to the officials. The money would be available to them pending the outcomes of their litigation, the officials said.
The administration would also ask a court to allow for the rest of the funds to be placed into a trust fund to be used “for the benefit of the Afghan people and for Afghanistan’s future,” a senior administration official said.
A senior administration official said the U.S. government would “take a couple of months” to figure out exactly how the fund would work and how the money would be used. Another official told ABC News the money would go toward humanitarian relief and “other needs.”
“We have not made specific decisions about how the funds will be used,” the senior official said.
That plan would have to clear several procedural and legal steps, including gaining legal approval, receiving a license from the Treasury Department and going through a due diligence process by the Federal Reserve, an official said.
(NEW YORK) — Raising membership fees can generally be chalked up as “the price of doing business.” But as inflation, demand and supply chain issues continue to dictate an increase in prices, consumers are left to consider the value of using services like grocery deliveries and big-box retailers.
Retail analyst and financial expert Hitha Herzog shared her insights with “GMA” on increases in membership fees as well as how individual lifestyle is a key driving factor for cost-benefit analysis.
“It always leads back to the consumer, because the consumer will have to eat the cost somehow,” Herzog explained. “It’s in the form of membership prices.”
Amazon recently announced a price hike for its membership to Prime services, which includes discounts for Whole Foods and grocery deliveries, due to “the continued expansion of Prime member benefits as well as the rise in wages and transportation costs.”
“We’re going to start seeing more and more of these memberships to retailers, especially larger online retailers — go up in price as well — if you’re going to increase the number of goods sold on the site and what you offer to your customers, you’re going to have to cover those overhead costs.”
Guggenheim analyst John Heinbockel predicted in a new research note earlier this week that popular big box retailer Costco is close to increasing its annual membership fees.
“We believe we are now 8 to 9 months away from a likely membership fee increase, a historical catalyst for the shares. As is well known, Costco has increased its annual membership fee every five and a half years by $5 to 10. On this timetable, the next hike would come in August-September 2022.”
Herzog explained that bulk stores like Costco increase their membership price cyclicly “about every five and a half years.”
Costco has bifurcated membership options, Gold Star and Executive, the first costs $60 a year and the latter $120 a year, currently.
“I think the crux of this is that this is something typical of these bulk stores. The fact that they’re only doing it every five and a half years — as opposed to other stores or services that are increasing the price of products because of inflation,” Herzog said. “So I think this price increase is already baked into their business model we already knew that this was coming.”
According to Heinbockel’s analysis, he predicts the Gold Star fee would go to $65 while the Executive membership would move to $130. The warehouse retailer’s increased fee could potentially help keep overall product cost down for members amid labor shortages, supply chain issues and inflation.
Costco did not immediately respond to “Good Morning America’s” request for comment.
How should consumers weigh the value of pricier memberships?
“I think it really you have to examine your life, a little bit,” Herzog said. “What I mean by that is you have to assess, what is going to cost you less? So if you are seeing an increase in product [prices], which we’re definitely seeing across the board with everything from staple items in your refrigerator to the price of gasoline — Is it worth it to you to spend more on gasoline to drive to a store to try to get a cheaper product? Or is it worth it for you to spend a little more on a membership to potentially get free delivery, so you can spend a little more on the product?”
She continued, “Overall, consumers are going to have to pay for the price increase due to inflation and due to supply chain issues still existing.”
“As much as we hear government officials saying, ‘it won’t impact the consumer … manufacturers are going to eat the cost,’ it’s never the case,” she said. “At some point, the consumer is going to have to pay.”
(INGLEWOOD, Calif.) — Seeing a need to promote Black-owned businesses, longtime Inglewood, California, resident Keokia Childress helped start a community-organized food festival to showcase what their neighborhood had to offer.
But what began with only a handful of food trucks in 2017, the Taste of Inglewood will have a super-sized spotlight and more than 100 Black-owned food and retail vendors this year as tens of thousands of NFL fans descend on the neighborhood for Super Bowl weekend.
Childress said she created the event after noticing a movement of Black-owned food trucks popping up throughout the neighborhood.
“I said to myself, ‘I wish there was something we could do to help promote these businesses because they do not get the recognition they deserve.'” Childress told ABC News.
After networking with some of her friends and community members, she gathered a few food trucks and curated an event to bring more publicity to their businesses.
“We were able to find a niche in creating an environment where urban food vendors, as well as retail vendors, could get the same publicity that a bigger business would,” Childress said.
After the first event’s success, Taste of Inglewood continued to grow, only to have COVID-19 halt its plans in 2020.
Childress, who lost her husband Jan. 2021 of over 20 years due to COVID-19, said as she and her daughters continued to grieve, she decided now was the time for her to get back into the community, get the dust off her shoulders and bring Taste of Inglewood back in time for Super Bowl weekend.
The three-day festival, which takes place less than five minutes from SoFi Stadium, where the Los Angeles Rams will be taking on the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI, will also include Latin, R&B, and hip-hop artists as part of a concert series.
Some of the businesses participating in the festival include All Flavor No Grease, A Hint of Moss, Sweet Red Peach, and Not Ya Mama’s Kitchen.
Vendors like Not Ya Mama’s Kitchen said they are filled with pride to see their neighborhood in the spotlight.
“When we sit back and think of the Super Bowl coming to Inglewood, the only words that come to mind are wealth and long overdue,” Angie Dillard-Miller, owner of Not Ya Mama’s Kitchen, told ABC News. “Inglewood has shaped us into hardworking and dedicated members of this community and for others to see what’s been here all along is truly astounding.”
“The taste of Inglewood is such a great opportunity not only for our family-owned business, but for the many other Black-owned businesses that are being showcased out here as well,” Dillard-Miller said.
The festival will also be incorporating a special moment where Issa Rae, the creator of the hit series “Insecure,” will be receiving the key to Inglewood for her hard work and positive recognition that she brings to the city.
The festival kicks off Thursday, Feb. 10 at 2 p.m. local time and will end Saturday, Feb. 12 at 10 p.m.
NYCHA program manager Jordan Bonomo speaks with Ginger Zee of ABC News about the heat pumps being used as part of the pilot program taking place at the Fort Independence Houses in the Bronx borough of New York. – ABC News
(NEW YORK) — As cities across the country work to meet clean energy goals in the coming years, a critical focus is being placed on public and affordable housing.
There are more than 1.2 million public housing units across the country, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Many of these buildings have aging heating and cooling equipment that is largely inefficient, resulting in expensive utility bills.
Low-income households spend three times more income on energy bills than those living above the poverty line, according to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. Not only are these systems expensive, they also rely on fossil fuels, making them significant sources of greenhouse gases — any gas that absorbs heat and radiates it back at the Earth, causing global warming.
In America’s largest city, New York, more than 80% of low-income housing relies on old boilers fueled by natural gas, propane or oil. The New York City Housing Authority oversees more than 170,000 units and is the largest landlord in the city. The agency is looking to the future, and is required by law to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. To tackle that goal, NYCHA is beginning to address a long-standing problem with energy in its buildings.
The boiler at the Fort Independence Houses in the Bronx, home to more than 700 residents, broke at the end of 2021. The building was built in 1971 and people have had a difficult time staying warm this winter.
“I have my socks on. I have a T-shirt. I have sweatpants,” said resident Lauren White. “I have another sweatshirt and I have a hood, and sometimes I put the scarf around my neck so that I could be warm.”
NYCHA brought in a temporary mobile boiler to provide heat for residents in the complex while the building’s boiler, which is 18 years old, is being repaired. NYCHA told ABC News that repairing the equipment and finding the parts takes time.
Unfortunately, this energy problem is not unique. Heating outages have been reported in low-income housing from Brooklyn to Queens this winter. Tragically, 17 people, including eight children, died last month in a fire started by a space heater in a privately owned building in the Bronx.
NYCHA, the city’s public housing agency, is currently testing a pilot program at the Fort Independence Houses using electric heat pumps inside seven units. Jordan Bonomo, the program manager overseeing the electrification of NYCHA’s properties, said that heat pumps are like air conditioners that can work in both directions.
“In the winter, [the heat pump] goes into heating mode and takes heat from outside even though it’s cold,” said Bonomo. “I know it feels cold, but there’s actually heat here and it transfers inside.”
NYCHA said the heat pumps are six times as efficient as the old boiler system.
Heat pumps can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 54% compared to natural gas alternatives, according to a study from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the University of California. This is because heat pumps don’t need to use fossil fuels to generate heat, they just transport heat.
If the new heat pump technology is successful, it will deploy the new technology to more than 50,000 apartments over the next 10 years, according to NYCHA. But even that effort will only impact 30% of NYCHA properties.
John Rogers, an energy expert from the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News that heat pumps were not previously an option in very cold climates, but that technology is now changing.
“I think what we need is to be looking to the building owners and building managers and the government — the city, the state and federal level — to be driving us in the direction of truly clean energy, of which energy efficiency is a huge piece,” said Rogers.
(LONDON) — Queen Elizabeth is being monitored for COVID-19 after her son, Prince Charles, tested positive for the virus on Thursday, according to Buckingham Palace.
A royal source told ABC News the 95-year-old queen and Prince Charles, 73, met recently. The queen is not displaying any symptoms of COVID-19 at this time, according to the source.
Prince Charles, who is now self-isolating, attended an event Tuesday at Windsor Castle, where the queen recently returned after spending time at Sandringham, her Norfolk estate.
This is the second time Prince Charles has tested positive for COVID-19, with his first diagnosis coming in March 2020, before he was vaccinated.
Buckingham Palace has not said if Queen Elizabeth has been tested for COVID-19.
“With the queen, they’re balancing the situation,” said ABC News royal contributor Victoria Murphy. “She is head of state and there is a sense that the public does need and want to know, but at the same time, she’s a very elderly lady who is entitled to a certain amount of medical privacy.”
Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, was last seen publicly on Saturday at an event in Sandringham to mark her 70 years on the throne.
The queen met with representatives from local community groups in the ballroom at Sandringham House to celebrate the start of the Platinum Jubilee.
It was the queen’s first public, in-person event since October, when she was hospitalized for one night for what the palace described as “preliminary investigations.”
After being advised by her doctors to rest, Queen Elizabeth took on a more modified schedule. In November, she missed the annual Remembrance Sunday Service for the first time in her reign due to a sprained back.
The queen had already modified her schedule throughout the coronavirus pandemic, holding virtual audiences and participating in video calls instead of public events.
When her husband, Prince Philip, died at age 99 last April, the queen sat alone during the funeral service in St. George’s Chapel, following pandemic restrictions.
Both Queen Elizabeth and her late husband received their first COVID-19 vaccination shots in January 2021, Buckingham Palace confirmed at the time.
Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, confirmed in December that they had both received their booster shoots of the vaccine, according to the BBC.
(NEW YORK) — The specter of a military confrontation on the Ukrainian border is stoking fears in Europe of an interruption in natural gas from Russia — and pumping fresh life into the debate over whether President Joe Biden’s climate agenda is brushing up against difficult geopolitical realities.
Critics of the Biden administration say its efforts to curb domestic oil and gas production have complicated its ability to negotiate with Russia, which provides more than a third of Europe’s natural gas.
To others, the standoff demonstrates the need for a swift transition to clean energy, “so that we’re not held hostage by Russia moving forward,” says Erin Sikorsky, director of the Center for Climate and Security and a former intelligence official.
Either way, experts say, the conflict in Eastern Europe is shining a spotlight on the challenges ahead as governments adapt to an evolving energy landscape.
“It is clear that climate change is a huge focus for the Biden White House,” said Ben Cahill, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But energy security realities are intervening, and they can’t be ignored.”
As Russian troops amass along Russia’s border with Ukraine, American officials are warning of a possible invasion in the coming days or weeks. In the event of an escalation, Western leaders fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin could halt gas supplies to Europe, potentially threatening Europe’s energy security.
The Biden administration has prepared contingency plans to backfill Europe’s energy needs in such an event. But oil interests and Republican lawmakers argue that a reduction in domestic fossil fuel extraction in recent years has hamstrung the United States’ ability to ensure Europe’s energy security.
Frank Macchiarola of the American Petroleum Institute told ABC News that “ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine serve as a reminder of the critical role of U.S. oil and natural gas in meeting our nation’s energy needs and ensuring our allies have access to a stable supply of affordable, reliable energy.”
On Capitol Hill, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, echoed that sentiment to Politico, characterizing the Biden administration’s scramble to shore up natural gas for Europe as “a crisis strategy that didn’t have to be.”
But many experts disagree with that critique. Because investments in domestic oil production today generally won’t impact the market for many years, Biden is limited in what he can do now to boost oil reserves. In the meantime, Cahill said, Biden should continue to advance his clean energy ambitions — but recognize the need for future U.S. oil production.
“The Biden administration should pursue its climate agenda, including tougher regulations on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry,” Cahill said. “But we’ll need fossil fuel investment for years to come, even as the energy transition picks up speed.”
Sikorsky warns critics not to conflate “the short-term crisis and the long-term strategy.”
“The administration has to do what it has to do to make sure energy supplies in Europe remain strong in the face of Russian aggression,” Sikorsky said. “But it has do that with an eye toward a more rapid transition to renewable energy.”
Because Russia’s economy relies so heavily on natural gas exports to Europe, Biden and European allies still have substantial energy-related leverage in negotiations with Moscow. The Russian government generated almost 30% of state revenue in 2020 from fossil fuel companies, including $40 billion in gas sales to Europe, according to one U.S. government report.
“The long-term threat to Russia’s market position is actually far greater” than the threat to Europe’s energy needs, said Matthew Schmidt, director of the International Affairs program at the University of New Haven. “Russia is a dinosaur. Their economy is weak. It’s a carbon-based economy, and if Putin were to use gas a weapon, he’s going to kill the market.”
Additionally, experts say renewable energy breakthroughs are closer than most leaders realize — a development that could render oil and gas obsolete in the coming decades.
Schmidt said he would encourage the Biden administration to forego any further investment in fossil foils and instead “go in on clean energy now, because that’s the long-term trend.”
This week, Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz pledged to halt production of Europe’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the event of an invasion. The U.S. and its allies could also directly sanction the Russian oil and gas industry as part of an effort to “reverse the direction of energy leverage,” according to a Brookings Institute policy paper.
But sanctions targeting Russia’s oil industry carry substantial risks for Europe’s energy needs. Enacting them would present the same outcome as Putin preemptively cutting off natural gas.
Cahill said that Biden’s quest for additional energy resources “does raise questions about whether we’ve under-invested in fossil fuels in the past five to seven years … which in turn raises questions about our ability to impose sanctions.”
For some industry experts, Europe’s dependence on Russian oil serves as a cautionary tale for the U.S. — and an impetus for the U.S. to expand investments in clean energy.
“Europe’s dependence on fossil fuels has made it vulnerable, the result of investment choices made over the course of decades,” said Trevor Higgins, vice president for climate policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.
“We should not repeat the same mistakes,” said Higgins. “A clean energy economy will be more secure and resilient than continued dependence on fossil fuels.”
