(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York has denied Prince Andrew’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit from Virginia Giuffre, an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein.
A spokesperson for Prince Andrew said no comment when asked for one.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Zoe Magee contributed to this report.
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(NEW YORK) — Throughout the pandemic, periodic surges in demand for COVID-19 testing — typically during a spike in cases or prior to holiday travel — have put strain on the nation’s testing capacity.
During these times, it can be difficult for people to quickly learn if they are positive for the virus — and to isolate if they are.
Testing is something the U.S. has struggled to get right from the get-go, from strict rules and problems with the initial test kits to how to manage supply and demand during peaks and lulls. In 2021, America grappled with how to manage the volume of tests needed in a fully reopened country with schools and workplaces requiring regular testing, pressures exacerbated during the highly contagious omicron variant hitting ahead of the holidays.
This presents a real problem because experts believe a successful COVID-19 testing regime — along with vaccinations — is the key to building a new normal.
Over the course of the pandemic, the number and types of tests have proliferated, turnaround times for results have varied and other questions arose, including which test should be used and when and where should they be administrated.
So how can the U.S. increase access to tests, and what kind of infrastructure is needed if COVID is going to be an endemic disease, meaning it is always circulating within the population but at low rates. What kind of testing system is needed to prevent further outbreaks fueled by variants including delta and omicron?
Testing experts told ABC News the answer is decentralizing the system and delivering tests to patients directly, setting up community sites with reliable rapid molecular testing and being able to test people for multiple diseases at one time — including COVID.
The tests we have now
Currently, the U.S. has two different types of viral tests used to diagnose COVID-19: antigen tests and molecular tests.
Antigen tests, also known as rapid tests, look for antigens, or proteins, from the coronavirus and return results usually within less than an hour. Molecular tests, also known as PCR tests, are run in a laboratory for viral material and typically return results within three days.
PCR tests are mostly administered at government-run sites, urgent care centers, doctor’s offices and pharmacies, many of which have seen long lines amid the surge fueled by the omicron variant. At-home antigen tests have soared in popularity in recent weeks as way to avoid lines and quickly determine whether or not a person is infected.
How quickly the omicron variant continues to spread will determine whether the U.S. has enough testing capacity for now, the experts say.
“Certainly we have a lot of testing and I think, currently, in the country we can provide well north of two or three million [lab] tests in a day when you consider everything that’s available,” Dr. William Morice, chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Mayo Clinic, told ABC News.
Currently, the U.S. is performing an average of 1.7 million COVID-19 tests per day, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, experts say we should be performing more tests than that.
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News that the U.S. needs to be performing many more tests — upwards of 2 or 3 million per day — so infected people can get the treatment they need more quickly, avoid being sent to the hospital and contact tracing can occur.
“Use of testing, it’s not as much to show how many cases we have, but it’s actually used for diagnosis ” Chin-Hong said. “When people use testing early on, they can get better bang for their buck with early therapies and prevent them from going to the hospital.”
He continued, “A PCR test can trigger contact tracing, early therapy. There are a lot of other domino effects of testing that’s simply just more than ‘I have another case in my community.’ It actually ends up potentially saving hospital resources.”
Morice believes that if cases continue to rise, then the supply could be strained. The U.S. is recording an average of more than 668,000 infections per day (as of Jan. 7) — the most ever since the pandemic began, although this figure is partially due to a backlog of data reporting over the holidays.
“When the virus is not prevalent and less common in communities, the testing that we’ve had, for example here in Seattle, has been quite adequate,” Dr. Geoffrey Baird, chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at UW Medicine, told ABC News. “I think we have plenty of testing available if we were just testing people who have symptoms.”
He continued, “But when you have to test asymptomatic people before traveling, before gatherings, before school or before sports, that ends up getting difficult to so support because the absolute number of tests needed can get very, very large.”
The experts say that infectious disease modelers didn’t predict the emergence of the omicron variant or how quickly it would spread — especially as people traveled over the holidays — leading to increased demand for testing.
Dr. Brian Rubin, professor and chairman of the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, told ABC News that at his lab, there have been about 50% more positive tests in 2021 than the year before.
During the previous winter surge, the clinic never had more than 1,000 positive tests per day. In late 2021, as many as 1,700 tests per day come back positive, he said. With as many as 4,000 to 5,000 tests being run every day, this puts a great amount of strain on hospitals, laboratory personnel and testing supplies.
The system we need
Rubin believes the key to building up a robust testing program is to decentralize the system the U.S. has even further, meaning more at-home testing without the need of a healthcare provider to order or perform the test.
“Anything we can do to automate that,” he said. “Decentralizing is going to be the key. How do we not call their doctor to order the test, get them to swab themselves, et cetera.”
He added, “If we can get really reliable testing into the hands of individuals so you can test at home without leaving your home, we can handle it.”
Although most at-home tests currently on shelves are pretty reliable, some at-home tests are known to produce an abundance of false positives.
He envisions a system in which the U.S. uses Amazon or an Amazon-like service to deliver test kits to people’s homes on a grander scale than what is already available.
People perform the test themselves, including swabbing and analyzing the sample. Once they get results, they scan a barcode or QR code, alerting public health officials of a positive test result rather than the person having to call a doctor or the local health department to inform them. Although some tests already do this, Rubin would like to see all tests have this capability.
At-home tests have a very low likelihood of delivering false positives if a person is symptomatic. So, under Rubin’s proposed system, if the person is symptomatic and gets a positive result, they could stay home and therefore help eliminate long lines at testing sites and free up appointments at clinics.
However, a person who is asymptomatic and gets a positive result from a delivered at-home test would be recommended to get PCR test to confirm they are truly infected with COVID.
Additionally, under Rubin’s system, if someone is a contact of a positive patient, they would be informed and get guidance on whether to get tested or quarantine.
“We have all the pieces for home testing, but how do we make it super elegant and slick and make it as easy as possible,” he said.
The Biden administration is trying to ramp up testing via a similar method: creating a website that will distribute 500 million free at-home rapid COVID tests to Americans, which officials promised will not cut into the current supply of tests on shelves.
Possible setbacks
However there are issues with rapid tests. At-home testing involves multiple steps and requires a clean workspace, meaning people may be performing the tests incorrectly. Additionally, rapid tests are more likely to return false negatives than laboratory tests because they are less sensitive.
This means that rapid tests have to detect enough antigens, or proteins, in the nose to return a positive result. However, laboratory tests, which look for genetic material, can return a positive result even if only trace amounts are detected.
Because of these potential issues, Baird says he is in favor of setting up community testing sites like UW Medicine has done in Washington that use rapid molecular tests.
These are like PCR tests, which are considered the gold standard of testing, but return results within a few hours rather than within a few days.
The UW community sites collect samples, which are then shipped by courier back to the main lab, where they can be quickly analyzed, Baird would like to see a similar system set up by big hospitals across the country.
“The chances of it giving a false negative are very, very low. No test is 100% perfect but it’s as good as you can get and so we’re doing the best we can by making the best possible test as expendable as possible,” Baird said. “I’d be in favor of multiple community test sites like kiosks or trailers or other sites, it can be in retail spaces or something like that.”
Morice said it’s also important to have combination tests that check for multiple diseases such as COVID-19 and the flu, which are currently available — although not at all clinics.
“That will be really important and it’s certainly needed,” he said. “Last year was really anomalous in that we had no influenza whatsoever. Now we’re seeing rates going back up so we’ll need it for that reason.”
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(WASHINGTON) — The latest government data on inflation indicates consumer prices are continuing their rapid rise as pandemic-battered supply chains struggle to keep up with rebounding consumer demand.
The consumer price index — a measure of the prices Americans pay for a market basket of everyday goods and services — jumped 7% over the last 12 months, the Labor Department said Wednesday. This marks the largest one-year increase since the period ending in June 1982, the DOL noted.
The so-called core index, or measure for all items except the more volatile food and energy indices, climbed 5.5% over the last year — the largest 12-month change since February 1991. The core index spiked 0.6% in December, building on the 0.5% increase seen in November.
The energy index alone rose a whopping 29.3% over the last year (driven hikes in the gas index), and the food index increased 6.3%.
Steep climbs in the prices for shelter and used cars and trucks were the largest contributors driving up the all items index in December, the DOL said, but the indexes for household furnishings, apparel, new vehicles and medical care also increased in December. The indexes for motor vehicle insurance and recreation were among the few to decline last month.
The index climbed 0.5% in December, a slight reprieve from the 0.8% seen in November.
The fresh data comes as economists and policymakers decide how to respond to inflation as data indicates it isn’t going away. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday the Fed is prepared to raise interest rates faster than originally planned to respond to the climbing prices.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(NEW YORK) — When the omicron variant first began sweeping the country, there was some hope that because initial studies indicated it was less severe, it would prove to have less of an impact on the health care system.
However, given its increased transmissibility, the unprecedented explosion of cases is proving otherwise, leaving a record 146,000 coronavirus positive patients hospitalized across the country.
The record-smashing omicron surge, right on the heels of the crushing delta surge of the summer and fall, is pushing many overtaxed hospital systems over the edge — systems facing staffing shortages, patients seeking care for non-COVID-related ailments adding to the burden. The increased pressure also comes despite having 62.6% of the country fully vaccinated and an array of treatments at their disposal.
“Even though they say omicron is probably more mild, I don’t think we’re necessarily seeing that with the unvaccinated,” Dr. Raymond Lee Kiser, a hospitalist and nephrologist at Columbus Regional Health in Indiana, told ABC News. “Here in Indiana, this sort of second wave just superimposed right on top of delta.”
Across the state, a record 3,400 COVID-19-positive patients are currently hospitalized. In mid-November, there were already more than 1,100 patients receiving care.
“There was barely time to breathe before omicron rolled right on over top of us. It really is just like a second surge right on top of the last one.”
On average, more than 18,000 virus-positive Americans are being admitted to the hospital each day, a figure which has more than doubled since early December. In addition, approximately 80% of staffed adult intensive care unit beds are occupied, with more than 23,000 Americans with COVID-19 currently requiring ICU-level care.
Health care workers interviewed by ABC News and officials say the vast majority of those who are severely ill are unvaccinated, leading hospital staff to plead for people to get their shots.
‘Very overwhelming’
Echoing many of her colleagues in numerous health care settings, nurse Becky Bevi, at Columbus Regional Health in Indiana told ABC News she is exhausted.
“Two years later, I’m frustrated,” said Bevi, who has staffed her hospital’s main COVID-19 unit since the beginning of the pandemic. “I feel like this should have been zapped in the first year. Just frustration, tired, exhausted from constantly dealing with it, watching death. It’s just so much and I don’t feel like it’s going to go away anytime soon.”
In Wisconsin, nurse Hilary Krieger, said she often feels overwhelmed, given the constant uncertainty that surrounds the virus.
“It’s hard to explain. It’s lonely. It feels very overwhelming at times,” Krieger said.
In the emergency department at Baystate Health, in western Massachusetts, nurse Thomas Mapplebeck, told ABC News that the staff is burned out.
“We’re working 12- to 14-hour shifts on Sundays up to 16-hour shifts. Breaks are minimal and it’s just that busy, and people are just that sick. Some of us are pushing more than 60 hours a week,” Mapplebeck said.
Nationwide, nearly 30% of hospitals, for which data is available, are reporting that they are experiencing a critical staffing shortage.
Mapplebeck shared his harrowing experiences caring for coronavirus patients over the course of the last two years in the hospital’s 20-bed emergency room.
“We have patients of all age brackets with no medical history, unable to breathe, their bodies unable to compensate and overcome their symptoms. For some, we take over their breathing for them, we transport them to the trauma center where despite all efforts, they die,” Mapplebeck said. “We have 40-year-olds that are trying to walk to the bathroom and get short of breath and collapse and they need resuscitation.”
Sicker, faster
Kaila Sizemore, a nurse at Columbus Regional Health, explained that patients appear to be getting sicker, more quickly, compared to previous surges. While the disease was somewhat “more progressive” during the first wave, Sizemore said, now patients suddenly need oxygen and to be transferred to the ICU.
“It’s just how quickly and unexpectedly I think that people change has kind of been hardest for me,” she added.
At Maine’s Northern Light Health, this state’s latest surge is the “worst” the staff has ever seen.
“The numbers are crazy,” said Melissa Vail, assistant vice president of Ambulatory Care Management. “Our staff is scared. I don’t know that we have ever seen anything like this and I don’t know that we will ever see anything like it.”
Northern Light nurse Allison Leary has also been caring for a growing number of COVID-19-positive children.
“It’s challenging taking care of little people … little kids, and it’s sometimes very emotionally draining and intense,” said Leary.
Nationwide, pediatric hospital admissions have surged to a record high, with an average of 830 children admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 each day.
“I’m saddened by the fact that we’re seeing more kids with it now,” Leary said.
Vast majority of those critically ill are unvaccinated
According to health officials, the vast majority of those who are critically ill in the hospitals continue to be the unvaccinated.
“The sickest of the sick that we are seeing now with the patients that are not vaccinated. COVID patients that come in and go home are the ones typically that are vaccinated. They get fluids, medications if needed, and then go home to recuperate,” said Mapplebeck, the nurse from Baystate. “This vaccine doesn’t put an invisible shield around you like a superhero. It’s meant to jumpstart your immune system. So when and if you do become sick with COVID, your body is ready to fight, which gives you a fighting chance.”
Kiser added that he has witnessed a dichotomy between those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated. The course for the vaccinated patients, is much milder, he said, typically only requiring a few days of medications, and often, they are able to go home without any oxygen therapy. In addition, the patients who end up getting transferred from the medical floor to the critical care unit are “almost exclusively” unvaccinated.
“If it weren’t for that group of people … I don’t think we would feel sort of as physically and emotionally crushed as we do right now,” Kiser said.
Mapplebeck, Kiser, of Columbus Regional Health, and others stressed that people should get vaccinated in order to help decrease the number of people who need hospital beds, and give those who are really sick a chance to get the care they truly need.
“Nobody wants to go get a shot, but you know, do this. If you’re not going to do it for yourself. Do it for your community. All the hospitals are just struggling right now. All the health care providers are struggling. We’re all hurting,” pleaded Kiser.
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(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 842,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 62.6% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jan 12, 7:56 am
Russia sounds alarm over imminent wave of omicron infections
Russian officials are warning that an omicron-fueled wave of COVID-19 infections will soon hit, amid fears about how deadly a surge of the highly contagious variant — even if milder — might be in a country with a low vaccination rate.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova, who is overseeing the COVID-19 response, and Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said Wednesday that the situation could be “more critical” than previous waves of infections in Russia — a worrying prospect since earlier waves led to a high number of deaths.
Russia has reported more than 312,000 fatalities from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. However, the country registered just under 1 million excess deaths in 2021.
The Russian government has said the country will soon see six-figure daily cases. Less than 50% of Russians are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, amid widespread reluctance across the nation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has largely tried to downplay the scale of his country’s COVID-19 outbreak, warned Wednesday of the imminent increase in infections. Putin said Russia is “on the threshold of possible new outbreaks.”
Meanwhile, Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said the country is at a “turning point,” which will decide how bad the wave will be. Russian authorities are calling for people to take precautions and observe social distancing measures. However, there are relatively few restrictions in most parts of the country.
Denis Logunov, deputy director of Russia’s Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, said Tuesday that the nationwide number of omicron cases is expected to rise considerably in late January and early February. The World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe, Dr. Hans Kluge, also warned Tuesday that omicron is expected to infect more than half of Europe’s population within the next two months.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Jan 12, 5:00 am
US government to send schools millions more COVID-19 tests
As U.S. President Joe Biden vows to keep all schools safely open for full-time in-person learning amid the pandemic, his administration announced Wednesday that it will provide schools with an additional 10 million COVID-19 tests per month.
The federal government will send 5 million more rapid tests and 5 million more lab-based PCR tests to schools nationwide each month, at no cost. The rapid tests will be delivered starting later this month, while the PCR tests will be available immediately. The additional tests every month will allow the country’s schools to “more than double the volume of testing that took place in schools across the nation in November,” according to a fact sheet from the White House.
Moreover, as the Biden administration continues to surge testing sites to hard-hit and high-risk communities, the federal government will also “consider how these sites can support the safe operations of K-12 schools,” the White House said.
The U.S. Department of Education and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will also help connect schools with testing providers so they can use money allocated to them last year through the $1.9-trillion COVID-19 stimulus package. Later this week, the CDC will provide new training, resources and materials to help schools implement “test-to-stay” policies, according to the White House.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Jan 12, 4:21 am
West Virginia’s governor says he feels ‘extremely unwell’ after testing positive for COVID-19
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced Tuesday evening that he tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing moderate symptoms.
Justice, who is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and has received a booster shot, said he has started a course of monoclonal antibody treatment, as recommended by his physicians. Everyone who has been in close contact with the governor over the past few days is being notified. His wife, Cathy Justice, tested negative for the virus on Tuesday evening, according to a press release from the governor’s office.
The governor was scheduled to deliver his State of the State address that night but was forced to do so via a written statement to the West Virginia Legislature instead.
“I feel extremely unwell at this point, and I have no choice but to postpone my State of the State address to the Legislature,” Justice said in a statement Tuesday evening. “I woke up this morning with congestion and a cough. A little while later, I developed a headache and fever, so I decided to get tested right away.”
“The rapid test that I took came back negative, but by the late afternoon, my symptoms were still getting much worse,” he continued. “My blood pressure and heart rate were extremely elevated, and I had a high fever. Finally, my PCR test results this evening confirmed I was positive. Because of all this, I began receiving my antibody treatment and I hope this will lessen these symptoms.”
Jan 12, 3:53 am
‘Most people are going to get COVID,’ FDA head warns
The acting head of the Food and Drug Administration warned Tuesday that most people in the United States will contract COVID-19, as the country grapples with record levels of infections and hospitalizations.
“I think it’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, which is most people are going to get COVID,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner of the FDA, said while testifying before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. “What we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function, [and] transportation, you know, other essential services are not disrupted while this happens.”
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(WASHINGTON) — Tax season will begin early this year and is already forecast to be an especially “frustrating” one, the Internal Revenue Service has warned, as pandemic-era tax changes and staffing limitations squeeze the nation’s tax agency.
The IRS announced that it will begin accepting and processing 2021 tax year returns on Monday, Jan. 24. This date is more than two weeks earlier than the start of last year’s tax season, which the IRS said will allow more time to ensure everything runs smoothly amid the ongoing pandemic and programming changes introduced over the past year, including the Child Tax Credit.
Meanwhile, the deadline to file or request an extension this year is April 18.
“Planning for the nation’s filing season process is a massive undertaking, and IRS teams have been working non-stop these past several months to prepare,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a statement.
“The pandemic continues to create challenges, but the IRS reminds people there are important steps they can take to help ensure their tax return and refund don’t face processing delays,” Rettig added.
Some of the steps Americans can take include filing electronically and receiving their refund via direct deposit, Rettig said, and he also urged those who received an Economic Impact Payment or advance Child Tax Credit last year to pay extra attention when filing to ensure all forms are accurate in order to avoid delays. The IRS said that people who received these tax credits for children or stimulus payments in 2021 will need the amounts of these payments when preparing their tax returns. The IRS is mailing letters to recipients and they can also check amounts received on the IRS website.
People can still file 2021 returns even if they are awaiting the processing of previous tax returns, the IRS added.
Finally, Rettig urged that filers “should make sure they report the correct amount on their tax return to avoid delays.”
The tax agency encouraged people to seek out online resources (such as information available on IRS.gov) before calling the IRS, saying that as a result of pandemic-era tax changes and challenges, the IRS phone systems received more than 145 million calls between Jan. 1 and May 17 of last year — representing over four times more calls than in an average year.
The IRS commissioner warned Americans to expect some snags or delays this year, saying the understaffed and underfunded agency is doing the best it can given the challenges of processing over 160 million individual tax returns.
“In many areas, we are unable to deliver the amount of service and enforcement that our taxpayers and tax system deserves and needs. This is frustrating for taxpayers, for IRS employees and for me,” Rettig stated. “IRS employees want to do more, and we will continue in 2022 to do everything possible with the resources available to us. And we will continue to look for ways to improve. We want to deliver as much as possible while also protecting the health and safety of our employees and taxpayers. Additional resources are essential to helping our employees do more in 2022 — and beyond.”
Overall, the IRS said it anticipates most taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days of when they file electronically — if they choose the direct deposit option and there are no issues with their return. The agency recommends against filing paper returns whenever possible to avoid delays and to get refunds faster, adding that the average refund last year was some $2,800.
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(NEW YORK) — An analysis of preliminary data published Wednesday indicates that many candidates for top election administration roles are fundraising at a record-setting clip, with some of the biggest hauls going to those who have made 2020 election denial a central tenet of their message to voters.
In Georgia, Michigan and Minnesota, the key battleground states where data is already available, “fundraising in secretary of state races is two and a half times higher than it was by the same point in either of the last two election cycles,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan organization that tracks elections and voting rights.
Brennan Center analysts credit increased political polarization and controversy over the 2020 election for the deluge of money flooding these races, which have historically been low-profile affairs involving modest sums of fundraising.
As chief election officials in many states — who often wield immense power over the administration of federal, state and local elections — secretaries of state have taken center stage as the nation grapples with core democratic issues.
“Formerly contested on dry issues of bureaucratic processes, these elections are being infused with substantive politics, with more and more candidates making election denial, or opposition to it, central to their campaigns,” the Brennan Center authors wrote.
“Indeed, as far as we are aware,” the authors continued, “this is the first time in the modern era that questions about the legitimacy of elections have played such a prominent role in contests for election officials.”
Many Republican candidates for election administrator posts are campaigning on the false notion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from President Donald Trump — a dangerous falsity that is rewarding those pedaling it most fervently, according to the Brennan Center analysis.
In Georgia, for example, where Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is seeking reelection in a crowded field, challenger Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., who, as a member of Congress, objected to certifying President Joe Biden’s victory, outraised all other candidates — including Raffensperger — through mid-2021.
Hice landed more than $500,000 in the three months after launching his campaign, the Brennan Center found, backed by a mix of small-dollar supporters and national GOP donors such as Richard Uihlein of Uline Inc. Hice has said that if 2020 was a “fair election, it would be a different outcome.”
In Michigan, however, a different story is emerging. Through mid-October of last year, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic incumbent, had raised $1.2 million — more than five times what she had brought in at that point in the 2018 contest.
Benson has attracted national attention for her outspoken criticism of Trump and those who have cast doubt on the 2020 presidential race.
“There is a growing understanding that what’s on the ballot in 2022 is, in some measure, nonpartisan election administration,” Larry Norden, a co-author of the report, told ABC News. “And that’s attracting a lot more money.”
While it is too early to identify the new sources of fundraising, Norden said one trend has already emerged: a flood of out-of-state donations. In Georgia, 22% of donations have come from donors based in other states, a marked uptick from 2018, when only 13% of donations came from elsewhere.
Some strategists say Trump’s proclivity to endorse loyalists up and down state and local ballots has motivated major national donors and political organizations to play a more active role in elections that, in past election cycles, would not have gotten their attention.
“[Trump and his allies are] trying to run out establishment Republicans and elect Trump loyalists at every level of government,” said Sarah Longwell, strategic director at Republican Voters Against Trump, a coalition of conservatives opposed to Trump. “Trump is running a widespread insurgent strategy that is meant to continue to undercut traditional Republican candidates.”
It is not uncommon for fundraising to increase each cycle with the cost of elections. But the amount of money being pumped into races for election administrators is unprecedented. In the coming weeks, new disclosure filings are expected to show how these campaigns fared in fundraising through the end of the year, allowing a better glimpse at where candidates stand now.
Wednesday’s reporting from the Brennan Center is the first installment in a forthcoming series on contests for governors, secretaries of state and local election officials — offices that carry an outsized role in administering the vote.
Analysts will examine fundraising trends and messaging in those races, with a particular focus on how candidates discuss the false notion that the previous election cycle was somehow compromised.
“Nowhere will this issue be more important than in the contests for the offices that will have a direct role in the administration and certification of election results,” the authors of Wednesday’s report wrote.
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(ATLANTA) — When Michelle Lockhart was a teenager in Atlanta, she had to work two jobs — as a camp counselor and fast-food worker — to take care of her family.
She said her mother became disabled at that time due to a brain tumor, but it took months of cutting through red tape to qualify for desperately needed federal assistance.
If they had gotten more help then, “I could have focused on going to college and doing what people my age were doing: going to prom and enjoying their teen years,” Lockhart, now 41, told ABC News.
In the early months of this year, 650 Black women across Georgia — a demographic hit particularly hard by poverty — will get some of that help. Payments of $850 per month will roll out over the next two years in one of the biggest guaranteed income experiments in the country. Some participants in the $13 million initiative may receive lump sum payments totaling the same amount they would have received over two years. For now, the process of inviting and selecting participants is ongoing.
The program will run alongside Atlanta’s own basic income program which plans to serve about 300 residents that live below 200% of the federal poverty line. The initiative is currently working on making its first round of payments to the starting cohort of 25 participants, according to Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ office.
Guaranteed income programs like these have seen a resurgence in recent years amid attempts to address racial and economic equality and reduce poverty. The scope can be either targeted or universal. They have had successes, but some critics say these initiatives have to be multifaceted to work and address the nuances of poverty. Others claim it will stop people from working (though the claim has been debunked) or be too expensive to maintain.
As a community advocate and member of the Old Fourth Ward Economic Security Task Force, Lockhart said many of her neighbors continue to experience similar hardships, despite working day and night in an effort to escape poverty. many of her neighbors continue to experience similar hardships, despite working day and night in an effort to escape poverty.
“Everybody’s on this hamster wheel,” Lockhart said. “They’re working two or three jobs … they’re working low wage jobs, but they’re still in poverty.”
Burden on communities of color
Black residents in Atlanta are more four times as likely to be living under the federal poverty line than their white neighbors, with 46% of Black households earning below $25,000 a year, according to recent research by the Old Fourth Ward Economic Security Task Force.
Some 38% of Black women and 26% of Black men in the city are living in poverty, compared to 8% of white women and 5% of white men in the same city, the task force reports.
“We’re working, we’re tired, we’re stressed,” Lockhart said. “With an extra $850 a month, people will be able to enjoy the sunlight and will be able to spend more time with their babies.”
Hope Wollensack, the executive director of the Georgia Resilience & Opportunity Fund, said the program is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is needed to address inequality.
“It’ll take a multifaceted approach — and probably many different policies — to even begin to address the racial wealth gap,” she said. “But we do know that stabilizing one’s income can be a powerful tool not only to improve one’s material circumstances in the short term and to improve quality of life and opportunities but also to enable individuals across the board to plan for the long term.”
The program, called “In Her Hands,” was shaped by discussions and surveys from community members that examined the causes of economic insecurity and wealth disparities in the city.
The project, run by the Georgia Resilience & Opportunity Fund, is an initiative from the Atlanta City Council, as well as the nonprofit cash assistance service GiveDirectly. It will begin rolling out in the Old Fourth Ward, the childhood neighborhood of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who was a fierce advocate for universal basic income as a way of addressing racial wealth inequities.
“We have economic insecurity that is pervasive and it’s the result of decades of policies, if not more, that have made it harder for the majority of Americans to get ahead,” Wollensack said.
The ability to access quality education, transportation and higher-paying jobs, the burden of childcare or predatory debt — factors like these, Wollensack said, are also more likely to burden communities of color.
Poverty and food insecurity can impact a community’s physical and mental health, and is considered one “of the most serious and costly health problems,” according to the Food Research & Action Center, a national nonprofit research organization working to eradicate poverty.
‘Hard to budget from zero’
Cash assistance and guaranteed income have been repeatedly proven to be a major force against poverty, according to researchers at the Columbia University, Center on Poverty & Social Policy.
Past studies and research has shown evidence that basic income experiments improved the happiness and health of its recipients and appeared to affect crime rates in the regions where it was implemented.
The program won’t offer any financial literacy courses and advise how participants will use the money. Wollensack says that, in surveying and researching the community and its financial needs, people can be trusted to make the right choices using their resources, but don’t have a lot of resources to start with.
“It’s hard to budget from zero,” Wollensack said. “In fact, we’ve seen oftentimes community members with some of the fewest resources are the most resilient and resourceful.”
She added, “Instead of viewing communities that may have experienced cash shortfalls as a deficit, we actually know and believe that these communities were huge assets.”
Lockhart said she expects to see the effects of the income boost almost instantaneously.
She says that when the COVID-19 stimulus reached the bank accounts of Old Fourth Ward residents, she saw a mood shift among her neighbors. She says people were out and chatting with neighbors, engaging with neighborhood businesses — the weight of financial stress lessened for just a while.
“They want to get out and work. They want to start their own businesses. They want to spend more time with their children,” Lockhart said “This will help slow people down a little bit so that they can focus and center themselves and center their energy right.”
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(NEW YORK) — The Orlando Police Department created a new unit in 2021 that sends behavioral health experts instead of law enforcement officers to respond to 911 calls for mental health crises.
It’s in an effort — one of a number around the country — to avoid confrontations with law enforcement responding to non-violent calls and potentially avoidable fatal police shootings. More than 20% of people fatally shot by police since 2015 had mental illness, according to the Washington Post‘s “Fatal Force” database.
Initiatives like these to address community concerns about policing have been ongoing for years but picked up renewed momentum in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the nationwide protests that followed.
Fatal police shootings have been a stubborn and increasingly visible flash point for tensions between communities and police, and the racial dynamics that underpin them, thanks in part to a proliferation of bystander video and police body camera footage.
But experts say there are some glimmers of hope — early indications that a shift may be taking place.
With greater attention being paid to police-community relations, de-escalation training and diversity in the ranks, there were 888 fatal police shootings nationwide in 2021 — down 133 from 1,021 in 2020, according to data from the Washington Post‘s database.
That’s a decrease of 13% year-over-year. The lowest number of fatal shootings in a full calendar year in the database, which stretches back to 2015, is 957 in 2016 and the average is about 991.
There is no comprehensive nationwide database of police use of force, though the FBI has been attempting to build one for years, so it is difficult to get an overall sense of how often police use their weapons.
Instead, private organizations have led the charge in compiling a more complete set of data.
The Washington Post, as well as Mapping Police Violence and the Gun Violence Archive, track and verify police-involved shooting deaths based on a collection of news accounts, social media postings and police reports.
Mapping Police Violence also reports a small decrease in the number of shooting deaths attributed to police, but says the 2021 fatal shooting totals are “similar” to those of years past.
Lowest numbers in 6 years for some states
There is notable variation, however, in the number of fatal police shootings on a state level where many states experienced a drop, according to the Washington Post database.
From 2020 to 2021, Florida saw the largest numeric drop in deadly police shootings, from 93 to 44, followed by decreases in California and Washington, according to the Washington Post data.
While some states saw declines, others saw increases. Illinois saw 10 more fatal police shootings in 2021, Mississippi experienced a rise of eight and New Mexico, Georgia, Nebraska and Idaho had six more shootings.
Some experts caution that a one-year decline doesn’t tell us very much and a decline in the number of police interactions may be a factor (arrests, for instance, declined dramatically from 2019 to 2020, the most recent year for which FBI data is available).
Police violence has been on the rise since the 1980s, according to University of Washington research that has been published in the Lancet. The research compiled independent and federal data in an attempt to get a full picture of police killings in the U.S.
However, other police reform experts interviewed by ABC News are cautiously optimistic about a potential inflection point in police use of force.
They say the call for accountability from protesters and leaders may be behind this apparent change, including what could be an increased conscientiousness on the part of officers in what otherwise may have become deadly altercations.
“We’ve seen the power of protesting in reshaping the public consciousness,” said Howard Henderson, the director of the Center for Justice Research at Texas Southern University. “We’ve been able to see the role of protesting and making sure that the policymakers recognize the concerns of the constituents.”
In Orlando, where the department has been working to change community policing, there were five fatal police shootings in 2020. In 2021, there was one. The numbers, though small, are significant, the department says, in highlighting the impact of efforts made to address community criticisms of police and reduce violence.
“The Orlando Police Department is dedicated to protecting our residents, visitors, and businesses,” an OPD spokesperson said in a statement about the drop in fatal police shootings and the efforts to improve policing. OPD has averaged 3.3 fatal shootings a year since 2015, the data shows.
“We are fully committed to listening to our community’s concerns and to engaging in conversations that will yield a path to positive and long-lasting relationships with our community members,” the statement read.
Tools for change
OPD’s Community Response Team launched in March 2021, but it has already answered 827 calls, assisted 815 people, and helped more than 300 of them access mental health treatment, according to Capt. Lovetta Quinn-Henry, who oversees the program.
Black men, Quinn-Henry said, make up the largest demographic of users.
“I’m just super proud that our agency has taken the first step to be one of the leading agencies to look at an alternative response to police for individuals in a mental health crisis,” Quinn-Henry said.
With these calls, she says responders focus on de-escalating situations, helping people in distress and connecting them with their needed treatment, support and resources.
This effort has reduced referrals to the criminal justice system for distressed individuals, decreased potential for violent interactions and lessens the burden of work on law enforcement officers, Quinn-Henry said.
Some of the seemingly minor mental health-related calls that this team responds to have the potential to escalate into police shootings when law enforcement is involved.
“We really weren’t servicing the individual [before],” Quinn-Henry added. “Having this alternative response gives us a little bit more opportunity to connect them to services. So, now the officers aren’t having those repeat calls. And we get them at the initial crisis level and prevent them from getting to that very acute aggressive level.”
This idea isn’t completely new: This kind of model has effectively been implemented in Oregon, Colorado, Washington and more.
Another initiative replicated across the country is OPD’s citizen review board.
Orlando, like many other cities, established a citizen review board — an independent citizen-run oversight committee — about 10 years ago, to address concerns with local policing.
But board member Tom Keen said that after Floyd’s death and the movement against police use-of-force that followed, CRB meetings went from having just a few participants to having dozens. Community engagement increased dramatically, Keen said, offering citizens and police more insight into civilian relations with the police.
“We can’t take our eye off the ball,” Keen said. “We have to stay focused on making sure that our police department is well-trained and that they are serving the community and that’s one of the jobs of the board.”
Some community members have said they wish the board had more say in the investigative and punitive efforts in cases of abuse of power and use of force, but for now, Keen said, the board has been a valuable venue for citizens to speak directly with law enforcement to voice and plan a way to address concerns.
“We’re one of many voices for change and we’ve been fortunate that we’ve had very good leadership with both the mayor and with our current police chief,” Keen said.
OPD is also implementing a Response to Resistance policy that outlines a new use-of-force framework that is intended to mitigate the potential for excessive force. A recent independent review of the department by the police accountability research organization The Bowman Group is helping the agency fix its “very weak policy system,” according to OPD.
The power of protest
Millions have taken to the streets around the world since Floyd’s murder by former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin.
“I think people are conscientious over what looks like a disconnect between the police and, particularly, communities of color,” said James E. Wright II, an assistant professor at Florida State University.
“Police officers are more conscientious of their actions now,” he added. “They understand they don’t want to end up on the six o’clock news. If they’re conscientious of this behavior, they’re also conscientious of when they’re negligent.”
ABC News contributor and former NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said that the protests are likely to have had a large impact on how officers engage with and police communities.
“What happens across the country, due to the 24-hour news cycle, affects everywhere in the country,” Boyce said in an interview. “If we had strong federal leadership on this, we would be able to have national standards in law enforcement where you wouldn’t have these [abuse of force] behaviors.”
Local leaders have also started to answer the demands of the public in several ways, according to Henderson.
Since Floyd’s death in May 2020, at least 3,428 state bills or executive actions on policing have been introduced, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks state-based law enforcement legislation.
There has also been a rise in protocol changes that reduce the potential for confrontation or incarceration, like ending the enforcement of minor traffic violations or decriminalizing marijuana.
And there has also been a push to implement alternative policing units, civilian review boards, and beef up use-of-force and de-escalation training.
However, some researchers say a single-year push for reform and a drop in shootings isn’t enough to signal progress. Experts say the real test of how much impact these new tools are having remains to be seen in the years to come.
“Research shows that since 1980, 17,000 killings by police have gone uncounted,” Henderson said, citing the University of Washington report. “In order to adequately deal with it, you’ve got to know the extent to which it exists.”
Secondly, he emphasized decreasing unnecessary interactions between the police and the community.
“There’s just way too much interaction that we don’t necessarily need to have being responded to by police officers,” he said.
Lastly, Henderson also said the “qualified immunity” of police officers may also be a sticking point in the path against reducing police use-of-force. Qualified immunity means that officers are protected from many civil lawsuits for their conduct while on duty if it “does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known,” according to the FBI.
The recent efforts and the progress being made can’t be ignored though, Wright said.
“Moving forward, [the trend] will hold up if people continue to put political pressure on their local officials as well as their local leaders to hold not just police officers, but public servants, accountable,” Wright said.
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(NEW YORK) — An open door to an apartment unit where a space heater caught fire allowed the smoke to spread throughout all floors of a 19-story building in New York City on Sunday, Mayor Eric Adams told ABC News.
At least 17 people, including eight children, have died from the incident and more than 60 others were injured, according to the New York City Fire Department. All 17 victims died of accidental smoke inhalation, the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner ruled Tuesday.
The city passed a law in 2018 mandating self-closing doors in all apartment buildings. It’s unclear whether those were operating properly at 333 East 181st St., located in the Tremont section of the Bronx. The high-rise was built as affordable housing in 1972 and has 120 units, according to city records.
“It appears the ability to have the smoke spread is due to the door being open,” Adams told ABC News in an interview Monday on “Good Morning America.” “There may have been a maintenance issue with this door and that is going to be part of the ongoing investigation.”
So far, investigators believe the building met all other standards for fire safety. There were a couple violations documented over the last few years but no outstanding issues, according to the mayor.
“This is all going to come out during the investigation,” he added. “This is really early in the investigation.”
The flames ignited Sunday morning before 11 a.m. ET, due to a malfunctioning electric space heater in a bedroom of a duplex apartment on the third floor. In less than three hours, smoke enveloped all 19 floors. The building’s smoke alarms were operable at the time of the blaze, according to the New York City Fire Department.
More than 200 firefighters rushed to the scene of the five-alarm fire, smashing windows to rescue trapped residents. The mayor described the incident as “horrific” but praised the firefighters as heroes.
“Many of them, of their oxygen tanks were on empty,” Adams told ABC News. “But instead of turning back and exiting the building, they pushed through, through the smoke.”
Many of the injured were located on the upper floors and likely suffered from severe smoke inhalation. Approximately 13 people are in Bronx hospitals with life-threatening injuries, according to the New York City Fire Department.
The New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner has released the identities of the deceased victims, with the youngest being just 2 years old. Many of them were from the same families and had similar names, while none were carrying identification, the medical examiner’s office said.
The victims were identified as Sera Janneh, 27; Seydou Toure, 12; Haouwa Mahamadou, 5; Haji Dukary, 49; Haja Dukureh, 37; Mustapha Dukureh, 12; Mariam Dukureh, 11; Fatoumata Dukureh, 5; Fatoumata Drammeh, 5; Foutmala Drammeh, 21; Muhammed Drammeh, 12; Nyumaaisha Drammeh, 19; Omar Jambang, 6; and Fatoumata Tunkara, 43; Isatou Jabbie, 31; Hagi Jawara, 47; Ousmane Konteh, 2.
The New York City Fire Department previously reported that 19 people, including nine children, had died from the blaze, but the death toll was revised Monday due to a miscount.
All residents in need of a place to stay have been provided temporary shelter. They will later be moved into permanent housing as the building undergoes repairs, according to Adams.
“One thing about New York City, unfortunately, is that we are capable of dealing with crises,” he said. “We’ve dealt with so many of large proportion and we immediately kick in gear our coordinated efforts.”
The ongoing investigation into the deadly inferno is being led by the New York City Fire Department’s marshals.
The Bronx Park Phase III Preservation LLC, the name of the joint venture that owns the building, said in a statement Sunday that it was “devastated” over the tragedy.
“We are devastated by the unimaginable loss of life caused by this profound tragedy,” the statement read. “We are cooperating fully with the Fire Department and other city agencies as they investigate its cause, and we are doing all we can to assist our residents. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those who lost their lives or were injured, and we are here to support them as we recover from this horrific fire.”
Sunday’s blaze was the deadliest to occur in New York City in three decades. A total of 73 people died in fires citywide in all of 2021.
ABC News’ Joshua Hoyos, Julia Jacobo, Aaron Katersky and Ileana Riveros contributed to this report.
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