(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.
(NEW YORK) — A $60,000 reward is being offered in the search for the suspect identified in the fatal ambush shooting of a Texas constable deputy during a traffic stop on Sunday.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner named 51-year-old Oscar Rosales as the suspect who allegedly gunned down Cpl. Charles Galloway of the Harris County Precinct 5 office.
“We have video evidence of him shooting our constable,” said Finner, who released a photo of Rosales and pleaded for the public to share any information they had about the suspect.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said Rosales has been charged with capital murder in Galloways’ death. Ogg described Rosales as “a bold and incredibly dangerous fugitive.”
“Mr. Rosales, you can run but you cannot hide,” said Ogg, adding that the search for the suspect is now nationwide.
Galloway, 47, was shot multiple times while still seated in his patrol car and reportedly had no time to defend himself when the motorist he stopped got out of his car and opened fire without warning, authorities said.
“We will not stop until this individual is apprehended,” Precinct 5 Constable Ted Heap said during Monday’s news conference. “This is a murderer. This is a ruthless, savage execution and somebody like this needs to be removed from the streets quickly.”
The shooting started at about 12:45 a.m. Sunday when Galloway, a training officer, pulled over a newer-model white Toyota Avalon in a residential neighborhood of southwest Houston, according to Finner.
Finner said the suspect immediately got out of the car and began firing at Galloway multiple times with an assault-type rifle, before driving off. He said Galloway did not have an opportunity to defend himself.
Ogg said Rosales’ wife, Reina Marquez, and her brother, Henri Mauricio Pereira-Marquez, have both been arrested on charges of tampering with evidence.
Finner said Reina Marquez and her brother are alleged to have tampered with the Toyota Avalon, which has since been recovered by police.
He said the reward being offered for information leading to the capture and prosecution of Rosales came from donations from Crime Stoppers of Houston, the Fallen Heroes Fund 100 Club and Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, who put up $50,000.
The deadly episode came during a string of law enforcement officer deaths in-the-line duty nationwide. On Friday night, a 22-year-old rookie New York City police officer was fatally shot and his partner was critically wounded when they responded to a domestic incident in Harlem.
On Dec. 29, Bradley, Illinois, Police Sgt. Marlene Rittmanic, 49, was fatally shot and her partner was wounded when they responded to a barking dog complaint at a hotel. Two people arrested in the case, including one who allegedly shot Rittmanic with her own gun, were arrested and are facing the death penalty if convicted.
Galloway’s death comes about three months after Harris County Constable Precinct 4 deputy Kareem Atkins, 30, was shot to death in an ambush outside a Houston sports bar that left Atkins’ partner wounded. A 19-year-old suspect was arrested in December and charged with capital murder.
“These are not assaults, these are not attacks, these are brutal, brutal murders. We have to put an end to this,” Heap said. “We cannot have people like this on our streets. I don’t want to raise my family, my grandchildren in a county where this type of crime is running rampant.”
Heap nor Finner would comment on why Galloway, who was assigned to the toll road enforcement division, initiated the traffic stop.
Finner said his departments investigative and homicide units are leading the investigation.
Heap said Galloway is survived by a daughter and a sister. He said Galloway was a 12 1/2-year veteran of Precinct 5 and had voluntarily switched to a night shift position to become a training officer.
“There are a lot of very broken up officers who he (Galloway) meant a lot in their lives because he was the one sitting in the front seat with them,” Heap said. “He was the one who was teaching them what to do and how to get home safely to their families.”
(NEW YORK) — Opening statements got underway Monday in the federal trial of three former Minnesota police officers charged in the death of George Floyd with a prosecutor telling the jury the defendants “made the conscious choice over and over again” not to protect the 46-year-old Black man.
Fired Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng, 28, Thomas Lane, 38, and Tou Thao, 35, are fighting charges stemming from their alleged roles in the deadly confrontation with Floyd who their one-time senior officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted of murdering.
The trial, expected to last two to four weeks, is being held at the Warren E. Burger Federal Building in St. Paul.
The trial got underway just after 10 a.m. with U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson swearing in the jury before calling on a federal prosecutor to give the first opening statement.
“In your custody, in your care,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Samantha Trepel told the jury, reading from the Minneapolis Police Department’s policy on how officers should treat people once taken to custody. The prosecutor added that it’s “not just a moral responsibility, it’s what the law requires under the U.S. Constitution.”
Trepel said the defendants were all trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, yet took no action to help save Floyd’s life as he claimed at least 25 times that he could not breathe, was rendered unconscious and lost a pulse.
“Here on May 25, 2020, for second after second, minute after minute, these three CPR-trained defendants stood or knelt next to Officer Chauvin as he slowly killed George Floyd right in front of them,” Trepel said.
She added that the officers each made the “conscious choice over and over again” not to act to protect a man they had in handcuffs and pinned to the pavement.
Trepel noted that in one of the videos of the episode, Tao, who was trying to keep a crowd at bay, was standing next to Chauvin but failed to stop the excessive force, rather telling witnesses, “This is why you don’t do drugs, kids.”
The prosecutor said Keung was kneeling on Floyd’s back the whole time and did nothing to stop Chauvin’s excessive use of force, even two minutes after he could not find Floyd’s pulse and after an ambulance crew arrived and could not detect a heartbeat.
Trepel said that despite being rookie cops, Lane and Keung had been extensively trained for 1 1/2 years, both being taught at the police academy many times to turn a subject onto their side when they are having trouble breathing.
“We will ask you to hold these men accountable for choosing to do nothing and watch a man die,” Trepel told the jury
Attorneys for each of the defendants are expected to follow with their own opening statements to the jury.
Following Trepel’s statement, Kueng’s attorney, Thomas Plunkett, made a motion for a mistrial, arguing that some of what Trepel’s told the jury was more argumentative than a preview of the evidence the prosecutors intend to present over the course of the trial.
Magnuson denied the motion.
Thao’s attorney, Robert Paule, acknowledged in his opening statement that Floyd’s death was a tragedy, but added, “a tragedy is not a crime.”
Paule told the jury that he expects the prosecution to lean heavily on the video evidence in the case, including footage taken by witness Darnella Fraizer, the then 17-year-old, who began recording when the officers already had Floyd handcuffed and prone on the ground. Paule told the jury that the video doesn’t tell the whole story and noted that Floyd was struggling and resisting the officers prior to Fraizer and other witnesses filming the encounter.
Paule told the jury that after hearing the evidence, the only verdict justified will be not guilty on all counts.
Keung’s attorney, Tom Plunkett, said Keung and Lane had only completed five shifts on the job by the time they became involved in Floyd’s fatal arrest and deferred to Chauvin, their field training officer with 19 years of law enforcement experience under his belt.
Plunkett said a field training officer “has great control over a young officer’s future in the Minneapolis Police Department.”
He said Chauvin was clearly in charge of the incident even though Lane should have been because he was the senior officer in the first squad car to arrive at the scene.
Lane’s attorney, Earl Gray, called the government’s case against his client a “perversion of justice.”
Gray said Floyd measured 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds and put the officer in a “scary” scenario when he struggled with them.
“He was all muscle,” Gray said of Floyd.
He said Lane “was totally concerned and did everything he could possibly do to help George Floyd.” He said Lane asked Chauvin and Kueng if they should turn the man on his side to help him breathe, but his suggestions were rejected.
“Not deliberatively indifferent about his health at all,” Gray said of Lane’s reactions during the episode.
Gray told the jury that Lane will testify during the trial.
Attorneys for the Floyd family released a statement earlier saying the trial is “another milestone in the long, slow journey to justice for George Floyd and his family.”
“This trial will be another painful experience for the Floyd family, who must once more relive his grueling death in excruciating detail,” the statement from the family’s attorneys said.
The 18-member jury, including six alternates, was impaneled in just one day, chosen on Thursday from a pool of 256 potential jurors. The jury is comprised of 11 women and seven men, none of whom are Black.
All three defendants are charged with using the “color of the law,” or their positions as police officers, to deprive Floyd of his civil rights by allegedly showing deliberate indifference to his medical needs as Chauvin dug his knee in the back of a handcuffed man’s neck for more than 9 minutes, ultimately killing him.
Kueng and Thao both face an additional charge alleging they knew Chauvin was kneeling on Floyd’s neck but did nothing to intervene to stop him. Lane, who was heard on police body camera footage asking if they should roll Floyd on his side to help ease his breathing, does not face that charge.
Kueng, Lane and Thao have pleaded not guilty.
Opening statements in the trial commenced a little over a month after Chauvin, 45, a former Minneapolis police officer, pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges stemming from Floyd’s death and the abuse of a 14-year-old boy he bashed in the head with a flashlight in 2017. He admitted in the signed plea agreement with federal prosecutors that he knelt on the back of Floyd’s neck even as Floyd complained he could not breathe, fell unconscious and lost a pulse.
The guilty plea came after Chauvin was convicted in Minnesota state court in April of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison in the state case and is facing an even stiffer sentence in the federal case.
Kueng and Lane were rookies being trained by Chauvin at the time of Floyd’s fatal arrest.
The May 25, 2020, police encounter with Floyd, who was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes at a convenience store, was recorded on video from start to finish and included multiple angles taken by bystanders with cellphones, police body cameras and surveillance cameras.
The footage showed Chauvin grinding his knee into the back of Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds while Kueng helped keep Floyd down even after he stopped resisting by placing his knee on the man’s back and holding and lifting one of his handcuffed hands. Lane, according to the videos, held down Floyd’s feet.
Thao, according to footage, stood a few feet away, ordering a crowd to stand back despite several witnesses, including an off-duty firefighter, expressing concern for Floyd’s well-being.
Following the federal trial, Lane, Keung and Thao are facing a state trial on charges arising from Floyd’s death of aiding and abetting second-degree murder, and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.
The three defendants have pleaded not guilty to the state charges.
(NEW YORK) — Tesla filed a counterclaim against JPMorgan Chase Monday, the latest salvo in an ongoing battle between the electric automaker and the country’s biggest bank.
The lawsuit accused JPMorgan of filing “cynical litigation” when the bank sued Tesla last year, claiming it was owed $162 million when Tesla stock warrants expired.
In its counterclaim, Tesla accused JPMorgan of deploying “illegitimate machinations” and is seeking a declaratory judgment that it does not owe the bank the additional funds.
“Last year, JPM obtained billions of dollars’ worth of shares of Tesla’s common stock for a bargain price that the parties negotiated in 2014. Not content with this multibillion–dollar gain, JPM now seeks, through this cynical litigation, to extract an additional nine-figure windfall from Tesla,” the lawsuit said.
The legal dispute began after Tesla’s Elon Musk posted on Twitter that he was considering taking the company private. He took back the statement but was sued by securities regulators. Musk and the SEC settled for $20 million. Part of the settlement required him to step down as chairman of the company’s board of directors.
“JPM took improper advantage of a Twitter post from August 7, 2018 – nearly three years before the Warrants’ exercise dates – in which Elon Musk stated that he was considering taking Tesla private. Ten days after that tweet, JPM falsely asserted that the tweet constituted an announcement by Tesla of an extraordinary corporate transaction,” Tesla’s lawsuit said.
The stock warrants were arranged after JPMorgan handled a 2014 transaction for Tesla and allowed the bank to buy shares of the automaker at a fixed price, below market value, for a period of years. JPMorgan claimed Musk’s tweet impacted the value of those shares, leaving the bank entitled to an additional $162 million.
Tesla, which is represented by Quinn Emanuel’s Alex Spiro, the lawyer who successfully defended Musk from a defamation claim, is seeking to dismiss JPMorgan’s earlier lawsuit.
JPMorgan told ABC News in a statement, “There is no merit to their claim. This comes down to fulfilling contractual obligations.”
The dueling lawsuits add to the personal animus between Musk and JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon. Musk prefers to do business with other banks and JPMorgan recently inked a deal to be the primary lender to Tesla rival Rivian, The Wall Street Journal reported.
(LOS ANGELES) — Students in Los Angeles public schools must wear a non-cloth mask with a nose wire at all times, including during sports, beginning Monday, the district announced in a letter to families this weekend.
Schools will give surgical-style masks to students and employees who need them, Los Angeles Unified’s interim superintendent, Megan K. Reilly, wrote on Saturday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this month that loosely woven cloth masks provide the least amount of protection.
LA County schools will also continue weekly testing for students and staff through February, Reilly said.
The interim superintendent said “in-school case rates dropped 7% since our baseline testing and current rates of students and staff are half of those in the general community due to the safety measures in place.”
COVID-19 cases in LA County remain high, with 39,117 new daily cases reported Saturday.
As Los Angeles County schools ban cloth masks, masks will be optional starting this week at Fulton County schools in Atlanta.
In-person learning resumed in Fulton County last week.
“Maintaining face-to-face instruction is a top priority for our district,” the school system said. “Though some employees have been out due to COVID, we intend to stay open, providing we have the staff to safely operate our schools.”
Of everyone PCR tested in Fulton County between Jan. 3 and Jan. 16, 2022, 25.2% were positive, according to county data.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Amid deepening anxiety over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States announced it’s pulling out diplomats’ families and some staff from its embassy in the country. Meanwhile, NATO announced it was putting extra forces on standby.
As Russia continues to mass tens of thousands of troops close to Ukraine’s borders, NATO said the alliance was sending a small number of ships and fighter jets to Eastern Europe to strengthen its “deterrence” presence there and reassure its eastern members,
Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and four F-16 warplanes to Lithuania. At the same time, France is ready to send troops to Romania under NATO command, and Spain is considering deploying fighter jets to Bulgaria, NATO said in a statement. The Netherlands has agreed to send two F-35 jets to Bulgaria and has put a ship and land-based forces on standby for a NATO response force, officials said.
“NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance,” NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.
The NATO announcement coincided with a report in The New York Times that the Biden administration may be preparing to send up to 5,000 American troops to Eastern European members of the alliance.
The White House and the Pentagon have not confirmed the report, though the administration has previously said sending more U.S. troops to Eastern Europe is on the table if Russia attacks Ukraine.
NATO on Monday said the “United States has also made clear that it is considering increasing its military presence in the eastern part of the Alliance.”
The steps to boost NATO’s readiness came as the U.S. State Department announced Sunday it was ordering the families of its diplomats at its embassy in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv to leave the country over security fears.
The State Department said it has also authorized non-emergency staff at the embassy to depart voluntarily.
The United Kingdom on Monday followed suit, with its Foreign Office saying some embassy staff and their dependents would be withdrawn “in response to the growing threat from Russia.”
Ukraine’s government criticized the U.S. evacuation calling them “premature” and “excessively cautious.”
“While we respect right of foreign nations to ensure safety & security of their diplomatic missions, we believe such a step to be a premature one & an instance of excessive caution,” Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, tweeted.
Ukrainian officials are unhappy with the message the evacuations send by suggesting that a Russian invasion could be imminent. In general, they are much more skeptical that Russia is planning to launch a major attack and worry that western countries risk helping Moscow by exaggerating the risk and spreading panic.
Privately, American officials acknowledge there is a gap between the Ukrainian and U.S. assessment of the level of threat. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.S. official told ABC News this weekend that Ukraine was “p—– off” over the evacuations.
A senior State Department official on Sunday insisted the embassy drawdown did not undermine America’s commitment to Ukraine, saying they were just “prudent precautions” given the heightened fear of a Russian attack.
The official said the decision was “based on this military buildup, based on how we see these developments,” calling it the “right moment.”
Those leaving the embassy will do so on commercial flights, the State Department has said, indicating it is not an emergency evacuation.
The State Department were scarred by the chaotic evacuation of Afghanistan, where thousands of Americans were stranded after the sudden Taliban takeover there caught the U.S. off guard. Officials are anxious to avoid a similar situation in Ukraine, should the worst happen.
Russia has repeatedly insisted it has no intention of attacking Ukraine. However, its military buildup continues near Ukraine’s eastern border and now in Belarus, where trainloads of Russian tanks and artillery have been arriving for joint exercises there.
A top commander of Russian-controlled separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine on Monday also accused Ukraine’s military of preparing to launch an offensive against the separatist areas.
The U.S. and Ukraine are concerned that a false claim of a Ukrainian offensive against the separatists could be used as a pretext for Russia to launch an invasion.
Eduard Basurin, the head of the militia of the separatists’ self-declared ‘People’s Republic of Donetsk’ (DNR), in local media warned it “firmly recommends the enemy to give up its criminal intentions,” promising the Ukrainian army “will suffer irreparable damage, after which it will not be able to recover.”
Ukraine’s government has insisted it will not launch any offensive and there is no evidence Ukraine is preparing to.
