(NEW YORK) — Muhammad Aziz, one of two men exonerated last month in the killing of Malcom X, filed a civil claim Tuesday against New York state, seeking $20 million in damages.
Aziz cited “more than 55 years living with the hardship and indignity attendant to being unjustly branded as a convicted murderer of one of the most important civil rights leaders in history” in a statement released by his attorneys at The David B. Shanies Law Office.
He also filed a notice of claim against New York City seeking legal redress for civil rights violations and other “government misconduct” that caused his wrongful conviction, according to the release.
“While I do not dwell on what my life might have been like had this travesty of justice never occurred, the deep and lasting trauma it caused cannot be overstated,” Aziz said in a statement. “Those responsible for depriving me of my liberty and for depriving my family of a husband, a father, and a grandfather should be held accountable.”
Aziz and Khalil Islam were convicted of being accomplices in the assassination of Malcom X in 1965, and Aziz spent more than 20 years in prison before he was paroled in 1985. Islam died in 2009.
Both men claimed that they were innocent, and confessed assassin Thomas Hagan, who served 45 years in prison, also maintained that neither man had participated in the killing.
Last month, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance moved to vacate the convictions of the two men due to “newly discovered evidence and the failure to disclose exculpatory evidence,” according to a joint motion Vance’s office filed with the defense.
Aziz, previously known as Norman Butler, appeared in front of a judge on Nov. 18 to officially clear his name.
“The events that led to my conviction and wrongful imprisonment should never have happened,” Aziz read in a statement on Nov. 18. “Those events were the result of a process that was corrupt to its core — one that is all too familiar — even in 2021.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.3 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 798,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 60.9% 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:
Dec 14, 2:52 pm
Omicron will ‘for sure’ become dominant strain in US: Fauci
Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN Tuesday that omicron will “for sure” become the dominant strain in the U.S. given how rapidly it is spreading.
“Omicron is going to be a challenge because it spreads very rapidly,” Fauci said.
Fauci reiterated that omicron so far appears to be less severe, adding, “Whether it is inherently less pathogenic as a virus or whether there is more protection in the community, we’re just going to have to see when it comes in the United States.”
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Dec 14, 2:21 pm
Cornell moves exams online due to ‘substantial’ number of suspected omicron cases
Cornell University is moving into a “level red” alert after a “significant” number of suspected omicron cases were detected among student samples.
“While we must await confirmatory sequencing information to be sure that the source is Omicron, we are proceeding as if it is,” university president Martha Pollack wrote in a letter to the community.
All final exams will be online beginning Tuesday, Pollack announced, and libraries and fitness centers are closed.
All undergraduate events are canceled, as is Saturday’s recognition ceremony for December graduates, Pollack said.
Cornell has recorded more than 600 confirmed cases among students and staff in the last week alone, according to the university dashboard. While no infected students are seriously sick, Pollack said the university has “a role to play in reducing the spread.”
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos, Chris Donato
Dec 14, 12:34 pm
Omicron ‘spreading at a rate we have not seen,’ WHO says
“Omicron is spreading at a rate we have not seen with any previous variant,” World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Tuesday.
Omicron has been reported in 77 countries, he said, adding that the new variant is likely in most countries.
Tedros said health officials are “concerned that people are dismissing omicron as mild.”
“Even if omicron does cause less severe disease, the sheer number of cases could once again overwhelm unprepared health systems,” he said.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Dec 14, 11:41 am
England to lift travel ban on southern African nations
British Transport Secretary Grant Schapps announced Tuesday that England will remove all southern African nations from its travel red list.
After the omicron variant was first discovered in South Africa and Botswana in November, several countries around the world, including England and the United States, imposed travel bans on a swath of nations in southern Africa.
The World Health Organization warned that blanket travel bans will not prevent the international spread of omicron, deemed a “variant of concern,” and that restrictions place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods.
The countries of Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be taken off England’s travel red list on Wednesday at 4 a.m. GMT, according to Schapps, who noted that all current testing measures remain in place.
“As always, we keep all our travel measures under review and we may impose new restrictions should there be a need to do so to protect public health,” Schapps wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
Despite the travel bans, the heavily mutated variant has taken a foothold in London. British Health Secretary Sajid Javid told Parliament on Monday that omicron accounts for more than 44% of COVID-19 infections in the U.K. capital and it’s expected to become the dominant variant there by Wednesday, overtaking the highly contagious delta variant.
Addressing Parliament again on Tuesday, the health secretary called omicron “a grave threat” and said the “race” to get as many people vaccinated and boosted “is new national mission.”
“Scientists have never seen a COVID-19 variant that’s capable of spreading so rapidly,” Javid said.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Dec 14, 7:55 am
Africa clocks fastest surge in cases this year, but deaths remain low: WHO
An 83% surge in newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 during the past week in Africa, driven by the delta and omicron variants, is causing fewer deaths than previous surges, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
But the WHO cautioned that more waves of COVID-19 infections could be building as updated forecasts warn Africa, the world’s second-largest and second-most-populous continent, may not reach 70% vaccine coverage until late 2024.
Africa recorded more than 196,000 new cases for the week ending on Dec. 12, an increase of around 107,000 from the previous week, bringing the cumulative count since the pandemic began to 8.9 million cases, according to the WHO. The number of new cases is currently doubling every five days, the shortest reported this year. While the speed of the spread is fast, the WHO said, deaths remain low and even dropped by 19% last week compared with the previous week.
Africa is currently in its fourth wave of the pandemic, during which there were a little over 3,000 deaths reported in the first three weeks. About half as many cases were reported in the same time frame during the continent’s third wave, which was fueled by the highly contagious delta variant, according to the WHO.
The WHO said this spike in infections coupled with low hospitalizations is particularly evident in South Africa, which saw a 66% rise in new cases last week compared with the previous seven days. While hospital admissions have jumped by 65% in the past week, the bed occupancy rate for intensive care units remains low at 7.5%, with 14% of the hospitalized patients receiving supplemental oxygen. Though the number of deaths also remain low, the WHO warned that this pattern may change in the coming weeks.
“We are cautiously optimistic that deaths and severe illness will remain low in the current wave, but slow vaccine rollout in Africa means both will be much higher than they should be,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, said in a statement Tuesday. “We’ve known for quite some time now that new variants like Beta, Delta or Omicron could regularly emerge to spark new outbreaks globally, but vaccine-deprived regions like Africa will be especially vulnerable.”
As of Tuesday, only 20 African countries had vaccinated at least 10% of their population — the global target the WHO had set for September 2021. Only six African nations have hit the year-end target of fully vaccinating 40% of their population, while just two countries — Mauritius and Seychelles — have reached the 70% coverage seen as essential for controlling the pandemic. At the current pace, the WHO estimates that it will take until May 2022 before Africa as a whole reaches 40% coverage and August 2024 before it reaches 70%.
“In a world where Africa had the doses and support to vaccinate 70% of its population by the end of 2021—a level many wealthy countries have achieved—we probably would be seeing tens of thousands of fewer deaths from COVID-19 next year,” Moeti said. “But we can still save many lives if we can accelerate the pace of vaccination in early 2022.”
Dec 14, 6:45 am
Pfizer says ‘game changer’ pills could save thousands of lives
Pfizer’s forthcoming COVID-19 treatment could be authorized for emergency use in the United States by the end of this year or early next year, pending the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory timeline, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told ABC News.
The pharmaceutical giant announced Tuesday that it has submitted promising new data to the FDA, including lab experiments showing its oral antiviral medicine, Paxlovid, will likely work against the omicron variant. And in updated clinical trial data, Pfizer found the treatment reduces the risk of being hospitalized or dying by 89% when taken within three days of being diagnosed with COVID-19, and 88% when taken within five days of being diagnosed among high-risk, unvaccinated patients.
“It is a game changer,” Bourla told ABC News. “But at the same time, I want to emphasize that no one should use the existence of the pill as an excuse to avoid vaccination.”
Bourla said the medicine could save thousands of lives.
“We did some calculations how many deaths or hospitalizations can be avoided based on the current U.S. mortality rates and the current U.S. hospitalization rates,” he said. “On the back-of-the-envelope calculation, we estimate that 100,000 people if they take the pill, we will avoid 6,000 hospitalizations and 1,200 deaths approximately.”
-ABC News’ Sony Salzman
Dec 14, 6:45 am
Pfizer says COVID-19 pills could be FDA authorized by end of year
Pfizer’s forthcoming COVID-19 treatment could be authorized for emergency use in the United States by the end of this year or early next year, pending the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory timeline, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told ABC News.
The pharmaceutical giant announced Tuesday that it has submitted promising new data to the FDA, including lab experiments showing its oral antiviral medicine, Paxlovid, will likely work against the omicron variant. And in updated clinical trial data, Pfizer found the treatment reduces the risk of being hospitalized or dying by 89% when taken within three days of being diagnosed with COVID-19, and 88% when taken within five days of being diagnosed among high-risk, unvaccinated patients.
“It is a game changer,” Bourla told ABC News. “But at the same time, I want to emphasize that no one should use the existence of the pill as an excuse to avoid vaccination.”
Bourla said the medicine could save thousands of lives.
“We did some calculations how many deaths or hospitalizations can be avoided based on the current U.S. mortality rates and the current U.S. hospitalization rates,” he said. “On the back-of-the-envelope calculation, we estimate that 100,000 people if they take the pill, we will avoid 6,000 hospitalizations and 1,200 deaths approximately.”
-ABC News’ Sony Salzman
Dec 14, 5:57 am
France mulls tightening entries from UK due to omicron
France is considering tightening restrictions for travelers arriving from the United Kingdom, where the omicron variant appears to be spreading swiftly.
“Regarding Britain, the current rule is to show a negative test less than 48 hours old in order to enter France,” French government spokesman Gabriel Attal told France Info radio on Tuesday. “But we are always looking at means to tighten the framework, we are currently working on that and we should, I think, come to a conclusion in the coming days.”
Dec 14, 5:44 am
Mainland China confirms 1st case of omicron variant
China has confirmed its first case of the omicron variant on the mainland, state-run media reported Monday.
The variant was detected in a traveler from overseas who arrived in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin on Dec. 9. The individual tested positive for COVID-19 last week and subsequent genome sequencing confirmed it was the omicron variant.
The patient, who showed no symptoms, is being treated in isolation at a hospital, according to state-run media.
Dec 14, 5:31 am
UK reports 1st death from omicron variant
At least one person has died in the United Kingdom after being infected with the omicron variant, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday.
It’s the first publicly confirmed death globally from the new variant of the novel coronavirus, which was initially identified in southern Africa last month and has since spread rapidly around the world. Deaths from omicron may have already occurred in other countries but no others have been publicly confirmed yet.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to a vaccination clinic in London, Johnson said the death was a patient who had been diagnosed at a hospital but gave no further details.
“Sadly, at least one patient has now been confirmed to have died with omicron,” the prime minister said. “So I think the idea that this is somehow a milder version of the virus, I think that’s something we need to set on one side and just recognize the sheer pace at which it accelerates through the population. So the best thing we can do is all get our boosters.”
Dec 13, 9:59 pm
NFL to require vaccinated Tier 1 and 2 employees receive boosters by Dec. 27
The NFL will require that all its vaccinated Tier 1 and 2 employees receive their COVID-19 booster shots by Dec. 27, according to a memo they sent all 32 teams on Monday.
This group of employees includes coaches and other employees who work closely with players and help in essential league operations.
“On November 29, the CDC issued a study showing that the effectiveness of the approved COVID-19 vaccines may decrease over time and has recommended that all eligible vaccinated individuals over the age of 18 should receive a booster shot,” the memo reads. “Given the increased prevalence of the virus in our communities, our experts have recommended that we implement the CDC’s recommendation.”
The memo came as 36 players were added to the league’s COVID-19 reserve list. Players are currently not required to receive boosters, but in Monday’s memo, the NFL said clubs should consider making boosters available for players and their families.
“Any individual who is not currently subject to the requirement for boosters will be required to obtain the booster within 14 days of becoming eligible,” the memo reads.
(NEW YORK) — Scientists have long predicted that sea level rise will be one of the most disastrous consequences of global warming — and now, they’re discovering that the northernmost region, the biggest contributor to sea level rise, is warming at unprecedented rates.
Climate change is transforming the Arctic into a “dramatically different state,” with the region warming at a rate more than twice as fast as the rest of the world due to the melting of white and sea ice, according to the 2021 Arctic Report Card released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Tuesday morning.
The substantial decline in Arctic sea ice extent since 1979 is one of the most iconic indicators of climate change, according to the report. Summer 2021 saw the second-lowest amount of older, multi-year ice since 1985, and the post-winter sea ice volume in April 2021 was the lowest since records began in 2010.
In addition, the period between October and December in 2020 was the warmest Arctic autumn on record, dating back to 1900, according to the report.
The average surface air temperature over the Arctic in the past year, October 2020 through September 2021, was the seventh-warmest on record, and this is the eighth consecutive year since 2014 that air temperatures were at least 1 degree Celsius above the long-term average.
Recent studies on ocean acidification, the process in which the water’s pH levels are lowered as a result of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, show that the Arctic Ocean is acidifying faster than the global ocean, but with high spatial variability, the report states.
Since ocean water is typically neutral, the acidification could have implications on the ecosystem of the Arctic Ocean, including effects on algae, zooplankton and fish, according to the report.
In the Eurasian Arctic, terrestrial snow cover in June 2021 was the third-lowest since records began in 1967, the report states. In the North American Arctic, snow cover has been below average for 15 consecutive years.
Beavers are also colonizing the Arctic tundra of western Alaska, transforming lowland tundra ecosystems and degrading permafrost by increasing the amount of unfrozen water on the landscape during the winter, according to the report.
The number of beaver ponds in Alaska has doubled since 2000, likely due to the warming trend that has resulted in widespread greening in what was previously tundra, scientists and local observers have both noted, the report states.
The Greenland Ice Sheet, the largest contributor to sea level rise in the world, experienced three melt episodes in late July and August, according to the report. Satellite imagery provides “unequivocal evidence” of widespread tundra greening. A melt episode on a glacier can include melting, evaporation, erosion and calving in a short period of time.
Retreating glaciers and thawing permafrost are causing local to regional-scale hazards as well, the scientists wrote.
The Arctic Report Card documents how climate change continues to alter the once “reliably-froze” region as increasing heat and the loss of ice drive its transformation into an uncertain future, according to NOAA.
“This year’s Arctic Report Card continues to show how the impacts of human-caused climate change are propelling the Arctic region into a dramatically different state than it was in just a few decades ago,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “The trends are alarming and undeniable. We face a decisive moment. We must take action to confront the climate crisis.”
(EDWARDSVILLE, Ill.) — The Occupational Health and Safety Administration has launched an investigation into the collapse of an Amazon delivery station in Edwardsville, Illinois, that left six people dead after a tornado pummeled the facility during the height of the busy holiday shopping season.
OSHA spokesman Scott Allen told ABC News that compliance officers from the agency have been at the complex since Saturday to provide assistance.
“OSHA has six months to complete its investigation, issue citations and propose monetary penalties if violations of workplace safety and or health regulations are found,” Allen told ABC News in a statement. “No further information will be available until OSHA has completed their investigation.”
The Edwardsville Fire Department is still working to clear debris from the Amazon site and transition the property back to the company’s control as of Monday, city officials said in a statement on Facebook, saying the transition will take place “in the near future when emergency crews have completed their efforts.”
As of Monday, everyone reported having been at the Amazon facility when the tornado struck on Friday evening has been accounted for, and there are no further reports of missing individuals. One individual remains hospitalized with “serious injuries,” the city’s statement added, and six people have died.
“We’re deeply saddened by the news that members of our Amazon family passed away as a result of the storm in Edwardsville,” Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson, told ABC News in a statement Monday. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their loved ones and everyone impacted by the tornado. We also want to thank all the first responders for their ongoing efforts on scene. We’re continuing to provide support to our employees and partners in the area.”
Edwardsville city officials identified the names of the six deceased on Sunday, who ranged in age from 26 to 62.
Among the victims identified by authorities was Larry Virden, 46, whose daughter Justice Virden told ABC News’ Rob Marciano for Good Morning America, “I walked out of that building after they told me my dad was gone, and I dropped to my knees and screamed at the sky at the top of my lungs.”
“I said, ‘No, my dad’s coming home,” Justice Virden said. “‘I need my daddy. He can’t leave.'”
The other victims of the tragedy are: Deandre Morrow, 28, of St. Louis, Missouri; Kevin Dickey, 62, of Carlyle, Illinois; Clayton Lynn Cope, 29, of Alton, Illinois; Etheria Hebb, 34, of St. Louis, Missouri; and Austin McEwen, 26, of Edwardsville, Illinois.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, known for representing the family of George Floyd, announced that he was representing the family of Morrow and meeting with other injured workers and their families.
“The family members we represent are deeply distraught and want answers to their questions. We are seeking to determine if Amazon did everything in its power to warn employees of the incoming danger from the tornado and provide a designated safe area for employees to shelter,” Crump said in a statement Monday evening.
“We are asking Amazon employees who worked at the fulfillment center to assist us with our investigation and help us understand what warnings were given and what procedures followed,” the statement added.
One tornado out of a barrage that raged through six states late Friday touched down just outside of the Edwardsville Amazon facility at around 8:30 p.m. local time, according to Edwardsville Fire Chief James Whiteford.
“There’s about 150 yards of the building that were impacted by the tornado. The walls on both sides of the building collapsed inward; the roof of the building collapsed downward,” Whiteford said during a news conference Saturday, where he also announced that the efforts were shifting from rescue to recovery. “These walls are made out of 11-inch thick concrete, and they’re about 40 feet tall, so a lot of weight from that came down.”
Whiteford also said that a shift change was going on when the tornado struck, causing further confusion for rescue efforts regarding how many workers were in the building at the time.
The building directly impacted by the storm was a delivery station that had opened in July 2020, according to Amazon, and was approximately 1.1 million square feet with approximately 190 employees across multiple shifts.
Amazon said it was donating $1 million to the Edwardsville Community Foundation, in addition to working with local officials to assist with recovery efforts. The company also said it was reaching out to the victims’ families to see how it can best support them.
The company said the site received tornado warnings and alerts, and employees worked quickly to ensure as many people as possible could get to a designated shelter-in-place location. In this case, the site got tornado warnings between 8:06 and 8:16 p.m. local time, and site leaders directed people on site to immediately take shelter. It appears the tornado formed in the parking lot and struck the building at 8:27 p.m., according to Amazon, which said it all happened incredibly fast.
The majority of the workers took shelter in a primary designated location, and a small group took shelter in another part of the building that was then directly impacted by the tornado, according to Amazon, which said this is where most of the deaths occurred.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who stepped down as CEO of the e-commerce giant earlier this year, reacted to the news on Twitter late Saturday. Bezos took some heat from critics on social media for a seemingly delayed response as his private space-tourism firm Blue Origin was launching a crew — that included ABC News’ Michael Strahan — on a suborbital jaunt earlier Saturday.
“The news from Edwardsville is tragic. We’re heartbroken over the loss of our teammates there, and our thoughts and prayers are with their families and loved ones,” Bezos wrote. “All of Edwardsville should know that the Amazon team is committed to supporting them and will be by their side through this crisis. We extend our fullest gratitude to all the incredible first responders who have worked so tirelessly at the site.”
(WASHINGTON) — Maryam Jami, 23, an attorney in Herat, Afghanistan, who calls herself a “mini-human rights activist,” still dreams of obtaining her Masters of Law in the United States as a Fulbright scholar next year, pinning the program as both a venue to her own dreams and a tool for a better future for Afghanistan.
But she and roughly 100 other semi-finalists in the country now taken over by the Taliban have been left in limbo since the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops and unofficial pause of the prestigious program run by the U.S. State Department.
“For me, the Fulbright was just my dream — and my actual path to my dreams,” Jami told ABC News in a video call from her home in Herat. “Sometimes I feel that I’m going to be depressed because it’s really — it’s just getting really too tough for me… I just feel that I’m running out of time.”
Jami planned on studying comparative and international law and taking that training after one year back to Afghanistan to help aid women and refugees. Instead, she’s confined to her small home in Herat with her mother, father, and three younger sisters, unable to go out for coffee or tea, her family fearful of fighters in the street, and confined to watching movies inside while she frantically applies to other scholarships after having turned down multiple offers to evacuate in August, she says, holding out hope for the Fulbright Program.
She used to spend her days prepping for her twice-delayed interview with State Department officials. Now, she says she can no longer look at her notes.
“Before the fall of Kabul, I used to check those papers and check those questions, get prepared for them every day,” she said. “I just feel that a long time has passed since that time, which I was preparing for this program, and I feel so old. I feel that my dreams are shattered and buried and I cannot continue working for them.”
But, Jami added, she tries to keep hope, as might be expected of a Fulbright leader.
“Still, I’m trying to keep my energy and not get disappointed, because if we are intending to be future leaders of our community and our country, we have to be positive in also negative situations. And we just have to keep our hope that better, better days are coming and the best is yet to come,” Jami told ABC News.
The timeline of the 2022 Fulbright Foreign Student Program was disrupted first by COVID-19 and then, again, with the end of America’s longest war and diplomatic presence in the country now on the brink of economic collapse and famine. More than half of Afghanistan experiences severe food insecurity with 72% of the country living below the poverty line even before the fall of Kabul, but with international aid being cut off since the Taliban took control, the situation is even more severe.
Jami, who says the State Department promised another update to her cohort by Dec. 15, fears their opportunity to study in the U.S. — and create a better future for their home country — will soon be vanquished.
“We are reviewing the significant safety, logistical, and programmatic constraints which must be overcome to successfully implement the 2022-23 Fulbright Program,” a State Department spokesperson told ABC News. “We are committed to remaining in communication with the semi-finalist group about the status of the program, understanding they must pursue the choices that make the most sense for themselves and their families.”
“The United States has a longstanding commitment to the Fulbright Program in Afghanistan, which has supported more than 950 Afghan Fulbright students since 2003, including 109 who began their studies in the United States this academic year,” the spokesperson added in response to specific concerns Jami posed to ABC News.
Left in limbo: ‘#SupportAfgFulbrightSemiFinalists2022’
The Fulbright Foreign Student Program, administered by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, enables the brightest minds from abroad to study and conduct research in the U.S. with about 4,000 foreign students awarded the scholarship each year. Congress established the educational exchange program in 1946 with a goal of international relationship building by offering both grants to U.S. citizens to study or teach abroad and to non-U.S. citizens to study in the states.
Jami submitted her application for the 2022 class by the first deadline of Feb. 15, 2021, when American troops were still in the country and it wasn’t clear the Taliban would swiftly rise to power by the end of the summer. When she learned she was a semi-finalist for the highly competitive program back in April, she first called her mother in apparent disbelief.
“I really felt so happy because I was not believing that it was me achieving this,” she recalled to ABC News. “I just remember that my mother was in the kitchen, cooking something. I just called my mom and said, “Oh, Mom, I received the email. I’m selected. I’m a semi-finalist for the Fulbright Program!'”
“My mom said, ‘Wow, it’s such a big achievement,’ and she was really proud of me,” Jami said with a smile. “My friends were also so proud of me and then, whenever after that day, whenever I thought about or told them about life problems, my friends just told me, “Oh girl, you’re selected for the Fulbright Program and you’re still talking about your life problems?”
With an understanding that she would be accepted so long as she passed the final interview portion, Jami grew disheartened when her interview for June would be postponed due to COVID-19. Then in July, President Joe Biden announced the U.S. military mission would conclude in Afghanistan on Aug. 31, 2021. By August, when Jami expected to have her interview at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the Taliban had already taken over parts of her home city ahead of seizing the presidential palace on Aug. 15.
“After the fall of Kabul, we couldn’t get an update from the officials,” Jami told ABC News.
To that end, Jami joined a What’s App group with dozens of other semifinalists who launched a social media and email campaign to draw awareness to their plight. Using the hashtag, “SupportAfgFulbrightSemiFinalists2022,” Jami credits their efforts with getting the State Department’s attention after, she said, officials had gone silent on them.
“I think they felt that the kind of embarrassment when somebody is pointing at you in front of other people,” Jami said. “I think they wanted to make us silent for a while, but maybe we will receive good news on the 15th of December. Most of the people in the group think, though, maybe it is something just to keep us silent for a while.”
In the past, the State Department has canceled the Fulbright Program for certain cohorts for safety reasons. Typically, scholarships are rescinded and semi-finalists are asked to reapply if they want to pursue the Fulbright again.
Jami, who says she completed her program application when her home didn’t even have electricity, told ABC News there isn’t time to wait another year. Her TOEFL score, or “Test of English as a Foreign Language” expires next August, when she had hoped to begin her studies in the U.S.
“Actually, we don’t have time. We are getting so old. We are getting out of energy. We are getting tired. We are getting exhausted. We are already so tired. So the reconstruction of Afghanistan cannot wait. This is a project, in our minds, which cannot wait. Our dreams cannot wait. That is why education should not be conditioned to the politics because people are starving out there in Afghanistan,” she said.
The State Department told ABC News it’s committed to the cohort and working to review the safe and effective implementation of the program.
“We are committed to remaining in communication with the semi-finalist group about the status of the program while we review the significant safety, logistical, and programmatic constraints which must be overcome to successfully implement the 2022-23 Fulbright Program,” a spokesperson told ABC News.
Jami says despite the fact that officials have promised them an update by Dec. 15, she and other semi-finalists are pushing for a substantial and positive answer — “because just an answer is not enough,” she said.
“They must deem us as an exception, even if they are going to cut ties with the Taliban, cut relations with the Taliban forever because our application is completely pre-Taliban and we have nothing to do with the Taliban government. Not just us but the Afghan youth have nothing to do with the Taliban’s government or with the politics, so this is my message to the U.S. government and the U.S. Department of State,” she said.
“We really put too much effort into our applications and this program. We rejected most of the immigration offers, lots of other scholarships, just for the Fulbright Program. Because this is a different program. It’s obvious from its principle,” she added.
Principle of the program: ‘I belong to Afghanistan’
Jami, who graduated from Herat University with a law degree in 2019 and has worked with international aid organizations on legal and humanitarian needs of refugees, said she was attracted to the Fulbright Program because of its principle to return and work in one’s home country after completing studies in the U.S.
“So this is the time that Afghanistan needs the prospective Fulbright Scholars the most,” Jami said, taking a serious tone.
She believes many of the 100 or so semifinalists have already evacuated the country or went silent due to a lack of hope. Jami told ABC News that she even left the What’s App group last month after the conversations shifted from their campaign to continue the program to participants asking advice on how to leave the country — though has been advised by former coworkers and friends to try and do the same.
“I belong to Afghanistan,” Jami said. “Whether the Taliban are governing Afghanistan or any other government, this homeland is mine and I am committed to serve here, serve its people especially in the time that they need me and people like me the most, and the time they’re at the poverty and homelessness is resonating in Afghanistan and people need someone who can help take their hand and we can do something for them.”
Determined to continue her campaign, Jami still holds out hope for the Fulbright Program so she is ready if the day finally comes that it’s her time to interview to become a finalist in the 2022 group.
“Education cannot wait,” she told ABC News. “And education — and the fate of the Afghan youth — should not be conditioned to political rivalries or political games.”
ABC News’ Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.
(OXFORD, Mich.) — Oxford Community Schools announced it is closing its middle school Tuesday due to a social media threat.
The news comes days after the school district in Oxford, Michigan, decided to reopen its high school following last month’s deadly shooting.
“Today, December 13, we received an image from social media that included a specific threat directed at our middle school,” Oxford Community Schools said in a statement posted on its website Monday evening. “We immediately notified law enforcement, who are investigating.”
The school district said that out of an abundance of caution, it is canceling classes in all of the buildings on Tuesday.
“We plan to do a full security check of all our buildings while our security experts and law enforcement conduct their investigation,” the school district said. “Please talk to your students and remind them that all threats at Oxford Community Schools will be taken seriously, investigated by law enforcement, and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Further details about the threat were not released.
The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said it is working to determine the credibility of the threat to Oxford Middle School but confirmed that it was violent in nature.
“Dozens of threats have been made all across Oakland County in multiple school districts,” Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe told ABC News in an email Tuesday. “It is out of control.”
Four students were killed and seven people were injured at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, after a gunman opened fire. Both the alleged gunman — a 15-year-old student — and his parents have since been arrested and charged.
As middle schoolers stay home on Tuesday, the suspect’s parents are scheduled to appear in court on charges of involuntary manslaughter.
Oxford Community Schools closed its schools after the fatal shooting. Once the school district reopened classroom doors, it did so with various rules in place, such as no backpacks allowed. It also placed law enforcement, private security, trained trauma specialists and additional staff in each building.
Oxford Community Schools superintendent Tim Throne said in a statement last Thursday that every school would also have trained therapy dogs through the rest of the school year.
At the time, Thorne also said that the district was monitoring “all outgoing content from students and staff” and would immediately raise “any concerning images, links to websites and shared items from Google Drive for our technology safety and security team.”
Threats can be reported anonymously to the State of Michigan’s Okay2Say tip line at 8-555-OK2SAY or OKAY2SAY@mi.gov.
(NEW YORK) — One year ago, on Dec. 14, 2020, Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse from Northwell Health, became the first American to roll up her sleeve and receive a COVID-19 vaccine, following the green light from federal authorities.
“That day, when that needle pierced my arm, all I felt was this huge boulder, this weight just roll off my shoulders. I’m always optimistic, but my light got even brighter that day,” Lindsay told ABC News.
Lindsay’s image rapidly circulated across the country, a symbolic representation of the light at the end of the tunnel after the pandemic had forced families apart, shuttered businesses and schools and confined millions of Americans to their homes.
“I just felt hopeful for myself, for the entire country, for the world — that yes, the day that we’ve waited so long for healing is coming,” Lindsay said.
The country’s unprecedented creation and rollout of the vaccine was once considered a nearly impossible feat, given that vaccine development is often a long and arduous process, requiring years of regulatory and manufacturing hurdles to be overcome before it can be made available to the general public.
However, leaning on years of prior research on vaccine technology and with support from the federal government, the process was expedited, allowing for emergency authorization of the shots less than a year after work began.
“When the vaccine first became available a year ago, it seemed miraculous that a vaccine could be developed, rigorously tested in large clinical trials and ready to go in less than a year after the virus was identified,” Dr. Stephen Morse, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, told ABC News. “That’s an amazing accomplishment considering that we really didn’t have the infrastructure for a rapid national mass vaccination campaign when we started.”
Nevertheless, hundreds of millions of Americans are now inoculated — but tens of millions of others remain completely unvaccinated, an ongoing hurdle that experts say will likely result in the loss of tens of thousands of more lives.
Millions vaccinated but hundreds of thousands still lost to COVID-19
Nearly two years after the vaccine companies first raced to study the virus genome, around 600 million vaccine doses have been distributed and more than 200 million Americans — about 61% of the population — have been fully vaccinated.
“Overall, I think that the vaccine rollout has been a major success over the past year,” Dr. Cindy Prins, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Florida, said. “This took a lot of effort and flexibility, with public health professionals in different states tailoring the rollout to the needs of their own populations. … Looking back, I’m really in awe of what the U.S. has achieved in the past year.”
Pfizer, along with its partner BioNTech, was the first company to receive U.S. regulatory emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine. Reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the rollout, Pfizer CEO and Chairman Albert Bourla told ABC News he feels proud of what the company has accomplished over the last two years.
“I’m proud and proud for the people at Pfizer. I’m proud for everything that we’re able to do. They [made] the impossible possible, in the way that they manufactured, they brought the treatment, they brought the vaccine,” Bourla said, later adding, “We have the tools to control the situation and go back to our normal way of life.”
However, the road to vaccinate the country has not been easy.
Even with the Trump administration’s multi-billion dollar initiative, Operation Warp Speed, created to speed up the development, manufacturing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as a subsequent push from the Biden White House to acquire vaccines and get Americans vaccinated, there have been inconsistent ebbs and flows of interest in the shots.
Over the last year, an average 1.3 million shots — including first, second and third doses — have been administered every day. Comparatively, an average of more than 1,300 lives have been reported lost to the virus each day.
When the first COVID-19 vaccines were administered last December, many hoped the shots would herald a return to normalcy. However, even with vaccines, the U.S. continues to lose thousands of lives every week.
The one-year vaccine anniversary coincides with yet another pandemic sobering milestone: 800,000 Americans reported lost to the virus. Since the first shots went into arms a year ago, approximately half a million Americans have died of the virus.
Of those lost in the last year, just shy of half — 230,000 — have died since mid-April of 2021, when President Joe Biden announced that the vaccine was widely available to every American over the age of 18.
“Since the unvaccinated are most likely to get serious disease and end up in the hospital, vaccination is lifesaving,” Morse said. “This week, we will reach 800,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. At least a quarter of these deaths, and probably more, were preventable and didn’t have to happen if these people had been vaccinated.”
According to federal data compiled in September 2021, unvaccinated individuals had a 5.8 times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19 and a 14 times greater risk of dying from it, as compared to vaccinated individuals.
Vaccine hesitancy an ongoing obstacle
Across the country, the issue of vaccine hesitancy remains an ongoing obstacle in the country’s fight against COVID-19.
About 93 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated, including 73 million Americans who are currently over the age of 5, and thus, eligible for a shot.
“I think we were unprepared for the ferocity of the negative response and how many were adamantly opposed,” Morse said.
According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released earlier this month, one in four adults remain unvaccinated, with about 14% saying they will “definitely not” get vaccinated. An additional 3% said they will only get the shot if they are required to do so for work, school or other activities.
In addition, despite the fact that all children above the age of 5 are now eligible to receive a shot, millions of youth remain unvaccinated.
About two-thirds of parents of elementary school-aged children are either holding off on getting their younger children vaccinated or refuse to do so, according to another recent KFF poll, conducted before the discovery of omicron.
Coronavirus infections among children continue to surge, currently accounting for about a quarter of all new cases.
“The challenge with having so many people remain unvaccinated is that the virus will circulate most efficiently among those people,” Prins said.
Issues of access still a roadblock for many Americans
Minority communities in the U.S. have faced disproportionate hardships in the pandemic. According to federal data, adjusted for age and population, the likelihood of death because of COVID-19 for Black, Latino and Native American people is approximately two to three times that of white people.
Vaccination rates among Black and brown Americans have notably improved since the first months of the pandemic, though some groups are still lagging behind in the rollout.
Despite representing 12.4% of the U.S. population, Black Americans currently account for 10.1% of those fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
“It’s OK to have questions, but go to trusted sites,” Lindsay, who has become a vaccine advocate, said. “Everyone knows that we are scarred from historical events. But you’ve got to put that aside. So much has happened since all those terrible things. Safeguards have been put into place to ensure that these terrible experiments don’t happen again.”
Issues of access, particularly in minority communities, remain a significant hurdle for many to get vaccinated.
“The access issues still exist, and I think that they can be even more challenging now, because a lot of the mass vaccine clinic and mobile clinic efforts have given way to vaccines being distributed by pharmacies or doctors’ offices,” Prins said. “There are many neighborhoods in the U.S. where people don’t have access to a pharmacy or physician’s office and may not have good transportation to be able to get to one easily.”
According to an ABC News’ analysis of pharmacy locations across the country conducted earlier this year, there are 150 counties where there is no pharmacy, and nearly 4.8 million people live in a county where there’s only one pharmacy for every 10,000 residents or more.
“While it is important to celebrate the incredible science, engineering and public health expertise that went into designing and delivering so many vaccines this past year, we must also remember the lack of equity both nationally and internationally in who has been vaccinated,” said Samuel Scarpino, managing director of pathogen surveillance at the Rockefeller Foundation. “As we move forward, it is critical that we address the systemic barriers preventing more equitable delivery vaccines.”
‘Now is the time to take action’
Ultimately, experts concurred that the country’s vaccination efforts are far from over.
“If we had controlled the virus early on, we could have avoided this. More recently, if everyone had been vaccinated, we could have prevented many deaths and much suffering. Too late now, but still not too late to use the vaccine to soften the landing,” Morse said.
With the waning of immunity over time and the potential that the omicron variant could chip away at efficacy, experts are urging Americans to slow the rise of infections by getting vaccinated and boosted.
“The virus isn’t going anywhere,” Lindsay added. “Now is the time to take action, get informed and make the right decision for yourself and for your loved ones.”
ABC News’ Sony Salzman and Chris Donato contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — In late November, Twitter rolled out a new privacy policy it said was aimed at preventing the misuse of media to harass, intimidate or reveal the identities of individuals — but, within days, accusations circulated that some users were abusing the new policy to remove legitimate media.
Under the policy, which was announced on Nov. 30, Twitter users could ask the company to remove photos and videos of themselves posted to the platform without their permission. Twitter said there were exceptions, including photos and videos taken at public events, such as protests, those taken by journalists, or those that were in the public interest.
However, Twitter soon “became aware of a significant amount of coordinated and malicious reports,” a spokesperson told ABC, “and unfortunately, our enforcement teams made several errors.”
“It was completely predictable,” said David Greene, civil liberties director and senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The policy was too broad and too imprecise, so it was very quickly abused, he said, adding, “I don’t think anyone was really surprised. Only surprised by how fast.”
The day after the policy was introduced, Sean Carmitchel, a freelance videographer in California, who covers protests, said he found himself locked out of his account. Two of his tweets had been flagged as violating the policy.
“It’s frankly a pretty boring tweet,” he told ABC News. “The thread itself was of an anti-mask rally which was counter-protested and ended up in a very brief shouting match. What’s funny is that I wasn’t even sure what the tweet was until I was able to get back on Twitter.”
Carmitchel said he doesn’t know who reported him. However, he showed ABC screenshots, which we verified, from right-wing accounts calling for him to be targeted.
The caption on a post on the messaging app Telegram read: “…NOW is the time to mass report for them posting piks [sic] of patriots without their consent and with the intent to cause harm! We need to get these doxxer accounts shut down! LET’S GO BRANDON!”
After Carmitchel was locked out of Twitter, a user on Gab, a rival social network, posted a screenshot of the Twitter notification Carmitchel received and wrote: “Keep going. Antifa ‘press’ are getting hit with their doxing riot videos.”
The Gab account owner also posted that he had “made over 50 reports myself today. Keep reporting all Antifa who post any media (video/photos). It’s time to stay on the offensive.”
In the wake of the introduction of Twitter’s policy, multiple other reports emerged of far-right activists misusing it.
Carmitchel’s challenged tweets contained videos he had filmed of small public protests in January and March. Once Twitter had ruled that the two tweets violated the new policy, Carmitchel said his account was suspended until he either deleted them or appealed the decision. Carmitchel, who relies on Twitter for his livelihood, said he chose to delete one and appeal the other. Carmitchel said his account was then restored without an explanation from Twitter.
Twitter has said that this new policy is an extension of existing rules preventing private information such as addresses or telephone numbers from being posted publicly. It is based on Right To Privacy laws in place around the world, including in the European Union, and extends those rules to all Twitter users whether they live in such jurisdictions or not.
The new policy is “a very egregious overreach” of regulation in the free-speech-versus-privacy debate, according to Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association.
Immediately after the introduction of the policy, he accused Twitter of misunderstanding U.S. law, tweeting that “a person photographed in a public place has NO reasonable expectation of privacy.” If Twitter chose to enforce the policy, it would “be undermining the ability to report newsworthy events by creating nonexistent privacy rights,” he said.
As a private company, Twitter can regulate speech on the platform however it wants, Osterreicher told ABC News, but he said the new policy has dangerous implications because it may embolden those who think they have no right to be photographed in public.
In the past, NPPA members have experienced resistance, often violent, to being photographed in public from both sides of the political spectrum, he said. Osterreicher told ABC he isn’t aware of left-wing abuse of the Twitter policy, but said: “We’re seeing it from the far right, but it could easily be from people on the left.”
Samir Jain, director of policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said he agreed. “There’s a chilling effect on speech on the platform,” he told ABC News. He said that account suspension is a significant penalty, and the threat creates a deterrent effect.
“If you know that particular photos of extremists result in a suspension, even if that’s eventually overturned, it will make you reluctant to post them even if they’re in the public interest,” Jain said.
Explaining why they see the new policy as necessary, a Twitter spokesperson told ABC about a photo of a rape victim that was shared widely in a country without Right to Privacy laws.
“This led to revelation of their identity,” the spokesperson said. “Twitter had no policy basis for enforcement, but the expansion of this rule would close that gap.”
Twitter does already have a “Non-consensual nudity” policy that allows it to remove some media, but with a much narrower scope. That policy applies only to explicit sexual images or videos.
Greene, Osterreicher and Carmitchel said the policy was aimed at an issue Twitter should address. But, Osterreicher said, it was easy to see how the policy would be misused. “How could they not have foreseen this?” he said.
“I am sensitive to having to fix online issues of doxing,” Carmitchel said, but this is having “the opposite effect — silencing people who are speaking out about perpetrators of crimes. I think we can all agree that there’s a difference between showing a photo of a rape victim and showing a video of someone assaulting a counter protestor.”
Carmitchel said the exemptions in Twitter’s policy — including videos shot by journalists or those in the public interest — were vague.
“Twitter is having to make value-based judgements, and not easy value-based judgements,” Greene said.
Twitter has said that after receiving a report “that particular media will be reviewed before any enforcement action is taken.” The company did not reply to a question from ABC about how many take-down requests it has received.
Osterreicher said it was a step too far and Greene said he thought the policy should have been more specific, perhaps just targeting sexual harassment, for example. He said he hoped Twitter would revise it.
“I wouldn’t want to see this replicated by other [social media] sites — certainly not as broadly as it was rolled out by Twitter,” he said. “I think it is too subject to manipulation, involves too many impossible decisions.”
There should be a clear and timely appeals process, according to Jain, and part of that is clearer guidelines and appropriate training for Twitter moderators.
For Carmitchel, the tweet he appealed is back online, but the tweet he deleted is, of course, gone.
A Twitter spokesperson did not reply to ABC’s request for comment on Cartmitchel’s case, but acknowledged errors were made.
“We’ve corrected those errors and are undergoing an internal review to make certain that this policy is used as intended — to curb the misuse of media to harass or intimidate private individuals,” the spokesperson said.
(NEW YORK) — At least 88 people across five U.S. states have been confirmed dead after a swarm of tornadoes tore through communities in the South and the Midwest over the weekend.
There were at least 44 tornadoes reported across nine states between Friday night and early Saturday morning — unusual for December in the United States. Kentucky was the worst-hit state, with at least 74 confirmed fatalities, according to Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who cautioned that figure “is fluid” and “will change.”
“Undoubtedly, there will be more,” Beshear told reporters during a press conference Monday.
The governor, who has two relatives among the dead, fought back tears as he revealed the age range of the known victims. He said 18 bodies have yet to be identified.
“Of the ones that we know, the age range is 5 months to 86 years old and six are younger than 18,” he said.
On average, there are 69 tornado-related fatalities in the U.S. each year, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The deadliest tornado on record to hit Kentucky occurred on March 27, 1890. There were 76 deaths.
Kentucky alone was hit by at least five tornadoes between Friday and Saturday, including one that stayed on the ground for some 200 miles, “devastating anything in its path,” Beshear said.
At least 18 counties in Kentucky reported lives lost, and 18 counties reported damages. As of Monday morning, some 30,000 homes in the southeastern state were still without power, according to Beshear.
“Thousands of homes are damaged, if not entirely destroyed,” he told reporters. “We’re not going to let any of our folks go homeless.”
Beshear acknowledged that it will take time to rebuild from what he described as the “worst tornado event” in Kentucky’s history and doubted whether it would have been possible to be better prepared.
“I don’t think anyone could have predicted something as devastating as this,” he said. “I don’t fault warning systems, I don’t fault training.”
He then posed the question: “How do you tell people that there’s going to be one of the most powerful tornadoes in history and it’s going to come directly through your building?”
At least 300 members of the Kentucky National Guard have been deployed across the state to help local authorities remove debris and search for survivors as well as victims, according to Beshear.
“There is significant debris removal going on right now, but there is just a mountain of waste. It is going to take a significant amount of time,” he said. “We’ve got significant livestock dead in all of the areas — there’s ongoing cleanup with that, too.”
In an interview with ABC News’ David Muir on Sunday, the Kentucky governor said rescuers have pulled some survivors from the rubble.
“We are still hoping for miracles,” Beshear added. “We are finding people and every single moment is incredible.”
Speaking to reporters Monday afternoon, Beshear said more than 20 deaths were in Kentucky’s Graves County, where Mayfield is the county seat. Another 17 deaths were reported in Hopkins County, 11 in Muhlenberg County, 15 in Warren County, four in Caldwell County, one in Marshall County, one in Taylor County, one in Fulton County, one in Lyon County and one in Franklin County, according to the governor.
Beshear said the latest confirmed death was a government contractor whose vehicle was pushed off a road and crashed during the storm. He said there are about 109 people in Kentucky who remain unaccounted for, including 81 in Hopkins County and 22 in Warren County.
Among others killed were eight night-shift workers at a candle factory in Mayfield, a city of about 10,000 people in western Kentucky. There were 110 employees inside the Mayfield Consumer Products facility when a tornado closed in late Friday night, Mayfield Consumer Products CEO Troy Propes told ABC News.
“We feared much, much worse and, again, I pray that it’s accurate,” Beshear told reporters Monday morning, noting that “15-plus feet of wreckage,” along with a lack of cellular service, made it difficult to determine how many individuals made it out of the destroyed facility alive.
On Monday evening, Louisville Emergency Management director E.J. Meiman told reporters that the factory’s owners said they “verified that they have accounted for every occupant” who was present during the storm.
“We’ve also been meeting with all of our rescue experts that have been on the pile, and we have a high level of confidence there is nobody in this building,” Meiman said, adding that the figure of eight fatalities at the facility hasn’t changed.
One of the survivors, Kyanna Parsons, recalled hunkering down at the candle factory with her co-workers when the tornado hit. She said she felt a gust of wind and her ears popped. The lights flickered before going out completely and the roof of the building suddenly collapsed, she said.
“Everybody just starts screaming,” Parsons told ABC News during an interview Sunday.
“I definitely had the fear that I wasn’t gonna make it,” she added. “It’s a miracle any of us got out of there.”
Mayfield Mayor Kathy Stewart O’Nan said she was at the scene of the destroyed factory the following morning. She recalled seeing first responders from Louisville, Kentucky’s largest city, more than 200 miles away, “who had already gotten there, who had got in their trucks as quick as they could and come to help us.”
“The offers from all over the United States are overwhelming,” O’Nan told ABC News’ Robin Roberts during an interview Monday. “We are so blessed with the state and federal support.”
The mayor said her city lost its sewage treatment plant and a water tower, in addition to many homes and businesses. Mayfield still has no power, natural gas nor flowing water, according to O’Nan.
“The immediate needs of our city people and our responders are being met with just wonderful donations,” she said. “But our infrastructure is damaged so severely that getting that up and running is our absolute greatest priority at this time.”
O’Nan, who lives about four blocks from the center of the city’s downtown area, said she knew from watching the weather forecast on the news last week that this storm would be “different.”
“This was not a storm that us Kentuckians like to go out on the porch and watch roll by,” she said.
When the tornado touched down on Friday night, O’Nan said she took shelter in the basement of her home and waited there until she heard it pass overhead.
“That is a horrifying sound that I hope I never hear again,” she said.
A few minutes later, O’Nan said, she got a call from the city’s fire chief saying he couldn’t get the firetrucks or ambulances out of the bay at the fire station because the doors wouldn’t open. He ultimately had to attach a chain to his truck to pry the doors wide so firefighters and emergency workers could be dispatched, according to O’Nan.
“To watch them work tirelessly as they have during the last two days so far has just been heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time,” the mayor said.
“When I’m ever asked what’s the greatest asset of our community, it is always our people,” she added. “We’ve had small tragedies before and every time immediately the people bond together. I’ve seen that so much now, but we’re joined by so many people from all across the commonwealth, all across the United States.”
In the small town of Gilbertsville in Kentucky’s Marshall County, about 35 miles northeast of Mayfield, entire neighborhoods were leveled. Wilbert Neil, an 88-year-old resident, returned to what was left of his two-story home with his 63-year-old son Jerry on Sunday and tried to salvage whatever valuables they could find. All of their belongings — from clothing to vehicles — were buried beneath debris. But they managed to find a safe with cash, their wallets, their firearms and a few spare clothes.
“Everything is destroyed,” Wilbert Neil told ABC News while surveying the destruction. “We almost didn’t make it.”
The house was home for 21 years, Wilbert Neil said. He and his wife had bought it a year after they retired and it became the place where their children and grandchildren gathered during the holidays.
“This was the dream house for my wife,” he said, tearfully. “She loved it. She’ll never see it again.”
Meanwhile, six people were killed in Illinois, where a tornado hit an Amazon facility. Four others were killed in Tennessee. There were two deaths reported in Arkansas and another two in Missouri, according to local officials.
During a press conference Monday, Amazon representatives told reporters that all six of the employees killed at the company’s warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, had congregated in a part of the massive facility that was not meant to provide shelter from severe storms.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said authorities are investigating “what exactly occurred” that evening at the Amazon warehouse and called the tornado that slammed into the building part of “an unexpected major, severe storm.”
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said the Edwardsville facility had a designated shelter-in-place room, with no windows, on the north side of the building. Nearly all of the 46 employees working when the twister hit Friday night had gathered in the room after receiving tornado warnings, according to Nantel.
Nantel told reporters that seven of the employees, including the six who died, were working at the south end of the building that did not have a shelter-in-place room and huddled there as the tornado closed in. She said it was only a “matter of minutes” between the warning and the tornado strike.
She said the surviving worker huddled with that group was injured and is still receiving medical care.
John Felton, senior vice president of global delivery services at Amazon, said there was a “tremendous effort to keep everybody safe” on Friday, including the use of megaphones at the facility.
U.S. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Kentucky on Saturday, ordering federal assistance to support the local response efforts. On Sunday night, Biden updated the declaration, making federal funding available to affected individuals in the Kentucky counties of Caldwell, Fulton, Graves, Hopkins, Marshall, Muhlenberg, Taylor and Warren. He also made it possible for residents to get assistance, such as grants for temporary housing or business repairs.
On Monday night, Biden approved emergency declarations for both Illinois and Tennessee.
The president will travel to Kentucky on Wednesday for a briefing from officials and to tour the damage in the cities of Mayfield and Dawson Springs, according to the White House. Biden received a briefing on Kentucky’s storm damage in the Oval Office on Monday, after asking for a “detailed briefing” from his administration officials who were on the ground in Mayfield on Sunday.
“It’s a town that has been wiped out, but it’s not the only town, it’s not the only town. That [tornado] path you see moves all the way up to well over 100 miles, and there’s more than one route it goes,” Biden told reporters Monday. “We’re also seeing destruction met with a lot of compassion, I’m told.”
The Kentucky governor said Biden called him three times on Saturday and that the president “has moved faster than we’ve ever seen on getting us the aid we need.”
“We will welcome him here and we will thank him for his help and, sadly, we will show him the worst tornado damage imaginable — certainly the worst in our state history,” Beshear told reporters Monday.
Beshear has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff across Kentucky for a week in honor of those who were killed or impacted by the tornadoes. He asked other states to join in.
According to Beshear, more than 44,300 people from across the nation have donated over $6 million to Kentucky’s relief fund: TeamWKYReliefFund.ky.gov. Meanwhile, Kentucky’s first lady, Britainy Beshear, announced she is launching a Christmas toy drive on Tuesday to provide gifts to children who have been displaced by the devastation and “make this Christmas special for as many babies, kids and teens as possible who need our love and support more than ever.”
Michael Dossett, director of Kentucky’s Division of Emergency Management, praised the swift federal response during Monday’s press conference, but cautioned that the restoration efforts on the ground “will go on for years to come.”
“I can tell you from just being a veteran of now 17 disasters, it takes time to get wheels rolling,” Dossett said. “This is a massive event — the largest and most devastating in Kentucky’s history.”
ABC News’ Patrick Doherty, Matt Foster, Ivan Pereira, Jakeira Gilbert, Max Golembo, Will Gretsky, Will McDuffie and Briana Stewart contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Monday recommended the full chamber hold Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s last White House chief of staff, in contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for a deposition under subpoena.
After the unanimous committee vote, the full House could hold Meadows in contempt as early as Tuesday.
In the brief session Monday night, the committee blasted Meadows for refusing to appear for a deposition to field questions about some of the more than 9,000 pages of emails and text messages he had previously turned over to the committee.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the vice chair of the panel, quoted extensively from text messages sent to Meadows during the riot from Fox News hosts, GOP lawmakers and Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son.
Cheney said the messages left “no doubt” the White House “knew exactly what was happening” at the Capitol during the riot.
“He’s got to condemn [the riot] ASAP,” Trump Jr. told Meadows in a text message, according to Cheney, saying that Trump’s tweet about Capitol Police “is not enough.”
“I’m pushing it hard,” Meadows replied. “I agree.”
“We need an Oval address,” Trump Jr. said in a follow up message. “He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”
“Please get him on tv,” Fox News host Brian Kilmeade wrote to Meadows. “Destroying everything you have accomplished.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., read aloud from text messages Meadows received from unnamed GOP lawmakers before and after the riot.
“Yesterday was a terrible day,” one wrote. “We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. I’m sorry nothing worked.”
“A day after a failed attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power, an elected lawmaker tells the White House chief of staff, ‘I’m sorry nothing worked.’ That is chilling,” Schiff said. “We would like to ask Mr. Meadows what he thought about that.”
After initially signaling cooperation with the committee, Meadows reversed course and said he would respect Trump’s assertion of privilege even though the Biden White House declined to invoke executive privilege over his testimony.
In a 51-page report released Sunday night, the committee argued that Meadows is “uniquely situated to provide critical information” to its inquiry, given his proximity to Trump before, during and after the presidential election and Jan. 6 Capitol attack, as well as his own extensive involvement in efforts to contest the results.
Meadows, the committee said, played a central role in those challenges, communicating with GOP lawmakers, activists, Trump allies and campaign officials from the west wing, often using a personal email account and a nongovernment cell phone.
Meadows had initially agreed to cooperate with the inquiry, turning over more than 9,000 pages of records to investigators, including text messages with GOP lawmakers and a member of the president’s family during the riot, as well as emails with Justice Department officials encouraging them to investigate claims of voter fraud.
But he changed course before he was scheduled to appear for an in-person deposition on Capitol Hill last month, arguing instead that he would respect Trump’s assertion of privilege even though the Biden White House declined to do so over his testimony.
“To be clear, Mr. Meadows’s failure to comply, and this contempt recommendation, are not based on good-faith disagreements over privilege assertions. Rather, Mr. Meadows has failed to comply and warrants contempt findings because he has wholly refused to appear to provide any testimony and refused to answer questions regarding even clearly non-privileged information—information that he himself has identified as non-privileged through his own document production,” the panel wrote in its report.
In a Monday letter to the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, George Terwilliger, an attorney for Mark Meadows, urged the panel and House not to hold Meadows in contempt for refusing to cooperate with a subpoena, saying it would be “unjust.”
“It would ill-serve the country to rush to judgment on the matter,” Terwilliger wrote.
“We recognize and do not dispute that the violence and interference with the processes of our democratic institutions as occurred on January 6, 2021, were deplorable and unjustifiable events,” he wrote. “But the real strength of our democratic institutions comes from the principles that undergird them, and no singular event can justify overrunning centuries-old safeguards of the republic.”
In addition to the records already turned over to investigators, the panel argued that Meadows’s claims were undercut by the fact that he recounted his experience on Jan. 6 in his just-released memoir, The Chief’s Chief.
“He can’t decline to tell the story to Congress and on the very same day publish part of that story in a book to line his pockets,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., a member of the committee, said Monday.
“It’s hard to reconcile how he can talk about Jan. 6 and his conversations about it and others for a book but not to Congress,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the commitee, previously told ABC News.
If the Justice Department decides to charge Meadows, he could face up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine for refusing to appear before the panel.
Already, the Biden Justice Department has charged Trump adviser Steve Bannon with two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the committee’s subpoena for records and testimony. His trial is set to begin in July, a federal judge announced last week.
Should the House vote go through, Meadows would become the first former lawmaker to be held in criminal contempt by his former chamber.
In 1832, former Rep. Sam Houston was detained and reprimanded by the House speaker for assaulting a former colleague, under the House’s “inherent contempt” powers.
“Whatever legacy he thought he left in the House, this is his legacy now,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said of Meadows. “His former colleagues singling him out for criminal prosecution because he wouldn’t answer questions about what he knows about a brutal attack on our democracy.”
