(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea fired a pair of projectiles on Tuesday morning believed to be cruise missiles, a South Korean official told ABC News.
An official with the South Korean Ministry of National Defense said the projectiles were detected by South Korean and U.S. intelligence agencies, which are analyzing the launch. Further details were not immediately available.
North Korea has test-fired missiles at least five times this year. North Korean state media boasted the successful launches of hypersonic missiles on Jan. 5 and Jan. 11, followed by a short-range ballistic missile from a train car on Jan. 14 and another short-range ballistic missile from the Sunan airport in the capital, Pyongyang, on Jan. 17.
The latest launch came just five days after North Korea implied it would withdraw from a self-imposed moratorium on testing nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, blaming the U.S. for the failed trust between the two countries.
“The hostile policy and military threat by the U.S. have reached a danger line that cannot be overlooked anymore despite our sincere efforts for maintaining the general tide for relaxation of tension in the Korean peninsula since the DPRK-U.S. summit in Singapore,” North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported last Thursday.
Testing cruise missiles does not violate the resolutions the United Nations Security Council imposed on North Korea to curb its nuclear and missile activities, but Seoul-based analysts presumed that Pyongyang’s latest launch was aimed at South Korea and the U.S.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in South Korea’s capital, said the reclusive regime wants “to prove to the outside world that they are capable of bolstering its defense.”
“North Korea aims to enhance its presence in the international community ahead of their most revered anniversaries of the late leader and founder of the country,” Yang told ABC News on Tuesday.
Cha Du-hyeogn, a visiting research fellow at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies in Seoul, said North Korea is purposely launching missiles that will be detected by South Korean and U.S. radars in order to be noticed.
“The continued missile testing is nothing new in North Korea’s viewpoint because Kim Jong Un forewarned during last year multiple times that the regime will keep developing missiles and nuclear weapons for their defense,” Cha told ABC News on Tuesday. “Pyongyang aims to show its citizens that the leader’s words will eventually come true despite the economic difficulties, and also prove to the international community that they are gearing up the military capabilities, enough to become a threat.”
ABC News’ Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — At least eight people died in a stampede outside a stadium hosting a game at Africa’s top soccer tournament in Cameroon on Monday, officials said.
The deadly crush occurred at the southern entrance of the Olembe Stadium in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, as fans jostled to watch the host country play Comoros in a round-of-16 knockout match in the Africa Cup of Nations. Another 38 people were injured during the incident, including seven seriously, according to a press release from the Cameroonian Ministry of Communication.
The dead were taken to Yaounde Emergency Center, while the injured were admitted to four different hospitals across the city, the ministry said.
The ministry added that Cameroonian President Paul Biya “sends his deepest condolences to the hard-hit families, as well as his wishes of a speedy recovery to the injured, to whom he sends the profound compassion of the entire nation.”
The Confederation of African Football (CAF), which organizes the Africa Cup of Nations, said in a statement Monday that it “is aware of the incident.”
“CAF is currently investigating the situation and trying to get more details on what transpired,” CAF added. “We are in constant communication with Cameroon government and the Local Organizing Committee.”
The International Federation of Football Association (FIFA), soccer’s world governing body, said in a statement Tuesday that it “sends its deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims who lost their lives following the tragic incident.”
“The thoughts and prayers of the global football community are with the victims, the ones who have been injured in this incident, and all the staff of both CAF and the Cameroonian Football Association (FECAFOOT) at this difficult moment,” FIFA said.
It’s the first time in 50 years that Cameroon is hosting the much-anticipated Africa Cup of Nations. The Central African country was supposed to host the monthlong competition in 2019 but was stripped of that right due to serious delays with its preparations. That year’s event was ultimately hosted by Egypt.
(PITTSBURGH) — A once-dormant power plant is humming with activity outside Pittsburgh as thousands of miners work 24 hours a day.
The miners at this site aren’t people, but supercomputers running complex math equations. The first to solve the equation is rewarded with the digital financial token known as bitcoin.
But the large amount of power needed to run these computers has re-ignited a debate in Pennsylvania and around the country about the potential climate consequences of cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is a type of digital money not regulated by any company or government. It can be exchanged online between people anywhere in the world without going through a bank. While coins like quarters or pennies are physically minted — bitcoin is minted as a virtual token by computers, through a process called “mining.”
Some investors see bitcoin as the currency of the future. The value of one bitcoin has skyrocketed from around $10,000 two years ago to more than $33,000 as of this publishing.
Jeff Campbell, who oversees the bitcoin mining operation at the Scrubgrass Power Plant in Kennerdell, Pennsylvania, said each of their computers generates an average of $30 a day mining bitcoin.
“These are computers that are just designed to do one thing. They’re designed to run as fast as possible 24 hours a day,” he told ABC News Live.
The computers in a bitcoin mining operation need a lot of power both to run and to operate fans that stop them from overheating. By one estimate from the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, annual global bitcoin mining uses more electricity than the entire nation of The Netherlands.
Climate activists question whether the growth of cryptocurrency mining operations could generate more carbon emissions and create a new market for fossil fuels at a time when the world is trying to reduce energy use and cut carbon emissions as fast as possible.
Under fire for their emissions and reliance on fuels like coal and natural gas, some bitcoin mining companies in the U.S. are transitioning to more renewable types of power like solar or wind.
Stronghold Digital Mining, which owns the Scrubgrass plant, has found its power source in the form of coal waste, which is abundant at this 221-acre pit just outside of Pittsburgh. Coal waste is a combination of rock, coal, and other materials that were deemed unsuitable for burning and left abandoned since the 1970s when coal mines in the area were closed.
There are 220 million cubic yards of waste coal pits like the one in Russellton across 9,000 acres in Pennsylvania, according to testimony from Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Director Patrick McDonnell. The agency says the pits cause environmental problems like leaching acid into nearby rivers and streams. There are also 40 continual fires in waste coal pits across the state that can release carbon dioxide and other pollutants as they burn, according to a document from a waste coal industry group.
The entrepreneur behind Stronghold, Bill Spence, said that while burning waste coal isn’t the cheapest form of energy, the bitcoin operation keeps the plant viable through its constant demand for power. This helps achieve his goal of reducing the toxic waste piles across the state, Spence said.
“What cryptocurrency and bitcoin has done for us is, it’s enabled us to sustain the work that this power plant does as an environmental plant cleaning up the waste coal, the remnants of the mining industry here in the state of Pennsylvania,” he told ABC.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection says the state has benefited from waste coal power plants because the state has limited funding to clean up the piles and address the environmental problems.
“Waste coal-fired units burn waste coal to generate electricity thereby reducing the size, number and impacts of these piles otherwise abandoned and allowed to mobilize and negatively impact air and water quality in Pennsylvania,” Press Secretary Jamar Thrasher said in an emailed statement.
Pennsylvania provides up to $20 million a year in subsidies to waste coal power plants and Thrasher said the state includes their CO2 emissions in the state’s carbon budget in an effort to help them compete with cheaper forms of energy like natural gas.
Waste coal is burned using a different process than traditional coal but still releases carbon dioxide that contributes to warming the atmosphere. The EPA says the type of waste coal found in Pennsylvania also releases more acid gas and sulfur dioxide than other types of coal.
Stronghold says they have put technology in place to capture pollutants like sulfur dioxide or methane emissions from their plant, but according to publicly available data they still released about 365,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2019 — the equivalent of about 80,000 cars on the road for a year, according to an EPA emissions calculator. The facility also released more than 1,000 metric tons of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and nitrogen oxides, or NOx, that contribute to air pollution
Rob Altenburg, director of the environmental nonprofit Penn Future, said bitcoin is “wasteful by design” and that there are better alternatives for generating that power than burning waste coal.
“They’re not removing pollution. They’re moving pollution. They’re moving pollution from the land and they’re moving it to the air,” Altenburg told ABC News.
And because waste coal contains less coal than what would typically be used to generate energy, more of it needs to be burned to create the same amount of power which could generate more CO2 emissions and air pollution.
“The dirtiest source of power we have in the state should be your last choice for you for generating that electricity,” he said.
Altenburg said that instead of burning waste coal, the state and federal government should provide more funding to move the material to lined landfills where it can no longer contaminate the soil or water.
The federal infrastructure bill has allocated $11 billion toward abandoned mine cleanups, some of which could be used to clean up waste coal in Pennsylvania.
Spence acknowledges that Stronghold’s operation generates carbon dioxide and that their operation isn’t perfect, but they’re trying to improve further by testing technology to capture the carbon they emit. And he said the bitcoin operation is helping fund his efforts to use up the waste coal which otherwise won’t go anywhere on its own.
“I don’t think we should stop what we’re doing in order to get the perfect,” Spence told ABC.
“Let’s evolve into perfect.”
ABC News’ Seiji Yamashita contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — The British prime minister’s political future is in the balance.
“If Boris Johnson is still PM by the end of the week, I’d be very surprised,” an unnamed source told the Telegraph.
Boris Johnson has been increasingly under fire for his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic. A string of news reports have claimed that numerous parties were held at Downing Street in 2020 and 2021, while the rest of the country was under strict lockdown and social contact was extremely limited.
The latest revelation that Downing Street staffers held a birthday party for Johnson last June has led to Dame Cressida Dick, head of London’s Metropolitan police, confirming her force will be investigating whether lockdown rules were broken in Downing Street.
“As a result of the information provided by the Cabinet office and my officers own assessment,” Dick told politicians at the London Assembly, “I can confirm the Met is now investigating a number of events that took place at Downing St and Whitehall in the last two years in relation to breaches of COVID-19 regulations.”
Johnson has been fighting to save his position since these reports first started to emerge. As news of discos in the basement and wine bottles being brought in by the suitcase filled the front pages public anger grew. The resentment toward Johnson and his staff reached fever pitch with the report that staff had been partying the night before Prince Philip’s funeral — a particularly painful juxtaposition with the images of Queen Elizabeth seated alone, abiding by the COVID-19 regulations as she said goodbye to her husband.
Downing Street sent a formal apology to the Queen, with Johnson telling journalists: “I deeply and bitterly regret that that happened. I can only renew my apologies both to Her Majesty and to the country for misjudgments that were made, and for which I take full responsibility.”
Johnson has maintained that he never knowingly breached any COVID-19 regulations, admitting that he attended what he described as “a work event” in the Downing Street garden last May. He told parliament, “When I went into that garden just after 6 on 20 May 2020, to thank groups of staff before going back into my office 25 minutes later to continue working, I believed implicitly that this was a work event.”
He has commissioned a report into these various gatherings to determine whether any rules were indeed broken. The senior civil servant in charge of this report, Sue Gray, was expected to release her findings this week but this report will now be delayed while the police investigate.
Many of his own members of parliament have said they are withholding judgement on his leadership until this report is published.
What could happen next?
There are four possible scenarios:
1. The report finds that Johnson deliberately misled parliament and therefore breached ministerial code. He will then have to resign.
2. The report doesn’t prove Johnson lied to parliament but is so damning his reputation is destroyed and he feels compelled to resign.
3. His fellow members of parliament decide they no longer have confidence in him and trigger a no confidence vote.
4. The report exonerates Johnson, the mutinous air within his party subsides and he continues as prime minister.
What happens if he resigns?
According to its (unwritten) constitution, the UK cannot be without a prime minister, so Johnson could continue to serve while a leadership contest is played out. A less likely scenario is that a member of his cabinet will become prime minister until a new leader is chosen.
How can the Conservatives trigger a no confidence vote?
Fifteen percent of Conservative members of parliament — which amounts to 54 of the 359 currently serving — need to write to the chairman of the 1922 Committee (an influential group of backbench members), saying they no longer have confidence in the prime minister’s leadership.
The current chairman of the 1922 Committee is Sir Graham Brady. We know some letters have been sent but this process is clouded in secrecy with Brady famously telling the BBC during the last leadership contest that not even his wife knew how many letters were coming in.
Once 54 letters have been received, Brady will initiate a no confidence vote.
What is the process for a no confidence vote?
If Johnson wins more than 50% of his members of parliament’s votes, then he stays on as prime minister and there cannot be another no confidence vote until 12 months later.
But if he does not reach that threshold, then he is out and cannot contest it.
How does a leadership contest pan out?
If Johnson has resigned or loses the no confidence vote, then the Conservative Party leadership contest will begin, and there will be a series of votes to determine who will be the next leader and prime minister.
Any Tory member of parliament can stand, providing they have enough support from their colleagues. There are a series of rounds to whittle down candidates; if candidates don’t meet a certain threshold in each round, then they are eliminated. This shortlisting process continues until only two candidates remain.
What is the timeframe for a leadership contest?
These first elimination rounds can take a few weeks. For the last leadership contest in 2019, it was two weeks.
Once the two final candidates have been selected, all Conservative Party members are then called to vote on which one of the two will be their next leader. Whoever wins the majority in this ballot becomes the next Conservative Party leader and prime minister.
The 1922 Committee determines the time frame for each step.
Who are the likely contenders?
Likely contenders include Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Cabinet Minister Michael Gove, Health Secretary Sajid Javid and former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
What happened last time?
In 2019, Theresa May resigned, prompting a Conservative Party leadership contest. Johnson won, securing 66% of the votes, while his rival, Jeremy Hunt, took the remaining 34%. The candidates, besides Hunt, that stood against Johnson, were Michael Gove, Sajid Javid, Rory Stewart, Esther McVey and Andrea Leadsom. Three others — James Cleverly, Sam Gyimah and Kit Malthouse — dipped their toes in but never formally ran.
(NEW YORK) — Canada’s foreign affairs department was hit with a cyberattack last week, according to the Treasury Board of Canada.
The hack of Global Affairs Canada, the government entity responsible for diplomatic and global relations, occurred on Wednesday, according to a statement provided by the Treasury Board to ABC News.
The statement does not identify who carried out the cyberattack.
As a result of the attack, some access the internet and internet-based services are not currently available, but mitigation measures were being taken to restore them.
The Treasury Board said no other government department experienced a cyberattack.
“We are constantly reviewing measures to protect Canadians and our critical infrastructure from electronic threats, hacking, and cyber espionage. We encourage all government and non-government partners to use cyber security best practices,” the statement says.
The attack comes amid tensions over Ukraine and two days after the Canada Centre for Cyber Security warned malware was being used to target Ukrainian organizations.
New cyber vulnerability poses ‘severe risk,’ DHS says.
On Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security warned that the U.S. could be a target of Russian cyberattacks if the government responds to a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(MILWAUKEE) — Six people were found dead at a home in Wisconsin’s largest city in what police are investigating as a homicide.
Officers were conducting a welfare check at a residence in Milwaukee’s Park West neighborhood on Sunday afternoon when they discovered the bodies of four men and one woman, according to the Milwaukee Police Department. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office announced early Monday that the body of a fifth man was also found at the location.
During a press conference Sunday night, Milwaukee Police Assistant Chief Paul Formolo said all of the deaths are being considered homicides, though he did not provide a cause of death. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed via Twitter overnight that the sixth body was also a homicide victim. Autopsies are expected to be conducted Monday, according to Formolo.
Investigators are still working to determine the identities of the deceased and for how long they were dead before officers arrived, Formolo said.
When asked whether a weapon was found in the home, Formolo told reporters that officers are actively searching the residence but did not give further information. He did not confirm if a suspect was among the deceased and could not comment on the relationships between the victims. However, he said there was no indication to suggest that the incident poses a threat to the community.
An investigation into the deaths is ongoing. A motive was unknown, according to Formolo.
Arnitta Holliman, director of the Milwaukee Office of Violence and Prevention, urged members of the community to contact the Milwaukee Police Department or Milwaukee Crime Stoppers if they think they have any relevant information.
“The community is tired, we are tired of seeing people’s lives snuffed out too soon in preventable situations,” Holliman told reporters. “Each and every one of us has to step up, speak up, stand up, do something.”
“Milwaukee is great place and can continue to be one,” she added, “but we cannot continue to see the kind of violence, level of violence, that we’ve been seeing.”
Acting Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson released a statement on Sunday evening describing the deaths as “horrific.”
“It is important not to feel numbed by the ongoing violence in our community,” Johnson said. “A horrible crime has again occurred, and it is not a movie or a fictional account. These victims died in our city, in one of our neighborhoods.”
ABC News’ Jakeira Gilbert contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.6 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 868,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 63.4% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-Pediatric cases sky-high but hospitalizations show decline
-31 states report plateauing or decreasing new case rates
-Palin tests positive for COVID, delaying her libel trial against New York Times
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Jan 24, 4:05 pm
Pediatric cases sky-high but hospitalizations show decline
More than 1.1 million children tested positive for COVID-19 last week — nearly five times the rate of the peak of last winters’ surge, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
A total of 10.6 million children have tested positive since the onset of the pandemic. A fifth of those children — over 2 million kids — tested positive in just the last two weeks, according to the two organizations.
Pediatric cases in the Northeast are seeing a dramatic drop but new cases in the West, South and the Midwest are still surging.
But there is positive news: COVID-19-related hospitalizations among children fell this week for the first time in one month.
More than 28.4 million eligible children remain unvaccinated.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 24, 1:18 pm
New Jersey cases drop by two-thirds in 2 weeks
The omicron surge appears to be letting up in New Jersey, where cases are now down by roughly two-thirds from two weeks ago, Gov. Phil Murphy announced.
While hospitalization numbers have been falling this week, Murphy stressed that they’re still “higher than anything we had seen with the two prior surges.”
“We also remain very concerned about the ICU and ventilator numbers, which are coming down much more slowly,” the governor said.
Jan 24, 12:26 pm
31 states report plateauing or decreasing new case rates
Following weeks of increasing infections, COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are rising. The nation is now reporting nearly 2,000 new COVID-19-related deaths per day — up by 30% in the last two weeks, according to federal data.
But there’s continued evidence that the nation’s most recent surge may be receding in many regions. Thirty-one states as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico are now reporting decreasing or plateauing new case averages, according to federal data.
The only states with an increase in new cases are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Nationwide, the U.S. is reporting an average of 716,000 new cases per day, down by about 10% in the last week.
However, case levels in the U.S. remain incredibly high. In the last seven days, the U.S. reported more than 5 million new cases. Only 1% of U.S. counties aren’t reporting high transmission, according to federal data.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 24, 11:51 am
Palin tests positive for COVID, delaying her libel trial against New York Times
Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has tested positive for COVID-19, a Manhattan federal court judge announced Monday, as her libel trial against the New York Times was about to begin.
“Since she has apparently tested positive three times I’m going to assume she’s positive,” Judge Jed Rakoff said.
The libel case between Palin and the newspaper has now been delayed until Feb. 2.
Palin sued the New York Times after an editorial incorrectly linked her political rhetoric to the mass shooting that gravely injured Rep. Gabby Giffords. Palin is expected to testify.
(NEW YORK) — Shane Lee Brown, a 25-year-old Black man, is suing two Nevada police departments after he says he was misidentified as a now-51-year-old white man who had an active felony warrant out against him.
Brown was arrested on January 8, 2020, during a traffic stop with Henderson, Nevada, police. Brown didn’t have his driver’s license with him but gave his name and Social Security information to police, according to the lawsuit.
When officers performed a records check on the name “Shane Brown,” a felony bench warrant for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person appeared, according to the lawsuit.
Brown was then arrested and jailed and two days later, he was put in custody of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
“Despite being informed of this mistaken identity, none of the unknown LVMPD police or LVMPD corrections officers bothered to review its own records to determine whether Shane Lee Brown was the subject of the warrant,” the lawsuit said.
Henderson police told ABC News that the arrest was lawful and that Shane Lee Brown was arrested for driving with a suspended license and for failing to pay a warrant issued by Henderson Municipal Court.
“The plaintiff in this lawsuit has not presented all the facts and circumstances behind his lawful and proper arrest by Henderson Police, which will be further addressed in the City Attorney’s response to the court,” the police department says, commenting on the lawsuit.
On Jan. 14, a Clark County District Court judge confirmed that he was not Shane Neal Brown at a hearing and was released from custody, the lawsuit states.
He is suing the Las Vegas and Henderson police departments for $50,000 for civil rights violations, false imprisonment, negligence and other wrongful conduct.
According to the lawsuit, Brown told police several times that he was not Shane Neal Brown. Shane Neal Brown is an ex-felon who was wanted for missing a court hearing while on parole following a possession of a firearm charge. He pleaded guilty to the charges. The lawsuit indicates that there were likely prior booking photos of Shane Neal Brown available.
“Had any of the LVMPD police or corrections officers performed any due diligence, such as comparing Shane Lee Brown’s booking photo against the existing mug shot belonging to the world, white ‘Shane Brown’ named in the warrant, they would have easily determined that Shane Lee Brown has been misidentified as the subject of the warrant,” the lawsuit said.
Brown’s attorney, E. Brent Bryson, has accused law enforcement officials of ignoring the conflicting details including mismatched photos, fingerprints, dates of birth, physical descriptions or criminal identification numbers in the process of Brown’s arrest and incarceration.
Bryson did not respond to ABC News requests for comment. LVMPD declined ABC News’ request for comment.
(SEATTLE) — Seattle doctors say hospitals are reaching their breaking points as they deal with a crush of COVID-19 patients amid the latest surge fueled by the omicron variant.
Between Jan. 13 and Jan. 19, there has been an average of 64 new hospitalizations per day with a total of 449 during the week, according to county health department data.
This is a 460% increase from the 80 hospitalizations that were occurring over a one-week period just a month ago.
Additionally, 19.9 per 100,000 residents have been hospitalized over the seven-day period, according to health data.
As of this weekend, UW Medicine — which has four hospitals across its system — reported more than 200 COVID-19 patients for the first time ever.
By comparison, at the end of November, there were about 30 patients infected with the virus across the system, according to Dr. John Lynch, an infectious disease expert at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and UW Medicine medical lead for the COVID-19 response.
“I think we’re closer now to a crisis — like a true crisis in health care — we’re closer than we’ve ever been during this entire pandemic,” Lynch told ABC News.
He said this is due to several factors, including the number of patients getting sick, hospitals reaching capacity, an exhausted health care workforce and the frustration of COVID patients being admitted to hospitals who are unvaccinated.
Before the omicron surge, unvaccinated King County residents were nine times more likely to be hospitalized and die, according to Public Health Seattle. During the omicron surge, unvaccinated people are now 12 times more likely to be hospitalized and 20 times more likely to die.
“We have these incredible vaccines that are so good at protecting us from serious disease and death, and yet people continue to … not get vaccinated and that ends up leading to them in the hospital,” Lynch said. “Health care workers don’t want to see people suffer and it is just so hard to see a big group of folks in the ICU because of something that was completely preventable.”
Lynch said most hospitals across Washington state were already very full when the omicron surge struck compared to other times during the pandemic, making it even more challenging to find enough beds, secure enough resources and prevent understaffing.
“My facility at Harborview, we were already about 100 patients over our normal capacity when the omicron surge hit,” he said. “Then the omicron surge came and so you basically had to absorb all these more patients, all of whom required precautions.”
Lynch urged residents to help ease the burden on hospitals by wearing masks indoors, getting vaccinated and boosted and avoiding large gatherings so they don’t potentially contract the virus and get seriously ill.
“We need your help in health care right now, in hospitals, in clinics, in emergency departments,” he said. “We need to slow down the number of new cases of COVID-19. That means please take every precaution not to get infected, not to end up in the hospital.”
(NEW YORK) — A federal prosecutor on Monday called Michael Avenatti “a lawyer who stole from his client” and promised jurors “you’re going to follow the money” at the opening of Avenatti’s trial in Manhattan federal court.
Avenatti, seated at the defense table in a mask and dark suit, is charged with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for forging the signature of his most well-known client, the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and steering $300,000 she was owed by a book publisher into an account he controlled.
“The defendant betrayed the victim, stole her money and lied to cover it up,” the prosecutor, Andrew Rohrbach, said during his opening statement.
Avenatti has pleaded not guilty and his attorney said there was no theft.
“Mr. Avenatti didn’t steal Storm Daniels money,” defense attorney Andrew Dalak said, instead casting the matter as a “disagreement” or fee dispute.
“This disagreement has no business in federal criminal court,” Dalak said in his opening statement.
Daniels was supposed to be paid $800,000 in four installments for writing her autobiography, including details of her long-denied affair with former President Donald Trump. The prosecution said Avenatti stole two of those payments because he was having personal financial problems and his law firm was having trouble making payroll and paying for office space.
“There was no agreement for the defendant to get any piece of Ms. Daniels’ book money,” Rohrbach said. “She didn’t know her lawyer had stolen her money.”
The defense has suggested it might question the credibility of Daniels, who Dalak called an “obscure adult entertainer” before she received a hush payment from Trump and sued to get released from a nondisclosure agreement. The defense will also be allowed to question Daniels about her beliefs in the paranormal related to her “Spooky Babes” television show in which she explores paranormal activity.
Anticipating the line of questioning, Rohrbach said actresses in adult films and paranormal investigators “can be victims of fraud and identity theft too.”
The government’s first witness is Lucas Janklow, Daniels’ literary agent, who testified he first knew Avenatti by reputation as “a folk hero” who was “very aggressive and very effective at fighting for the 70 million people who didn’t vote” for Trump.
