(WASHINGTON) — In a memo never before made public, the Presidential Personnel Office under the direction of John McEntee, a favorite aide of former President Donald Trump, made a case for firing then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper three weeks before Esper was terminated, according to reporting in a new book by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl.
The contents were first reported by Karl in The Atlantic for an article adapted from his forthcoming book, “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.”
The memo from McEntee’s office, dated Oct. 19, 2020, provides what Karl calls a remarkable window inside the thinking of the Trump White House during the final months of his presidency and the power held by the then-29-year-old director of the Presidential Personnel Office.
It includes bullet points outlining what Karl calls Esper’s “sins against Trumpism,” including that he “barred the Confederate flag” on military bases, “opposed the President’s direction to utilize American forces to put down riots,” “focused the Department on Russia,” and was “actively pushing for ‘diversity and inclusion.'”
Three weeks later on Nov. 9, 2020, Karl says, Trump fired Esper in precisely the way McEntee recommended and replaced, as recommended, by Christopher Miller. The firing also came two days after Trump lost reelection and as the former president was expected to purge top members of his administration with whom he had long been unhappy.
Obtained by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan KarlObtained by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl
Esper’s termination was made official with a terse two-sentence letter dated Nov. 9 and signed by McEntee that has also, until now, never been made public.
The Presidential Personnel Office, what Karl describes as a normally under-the-radar group responsible for the hiring and firing of the roughly 4,000 executive branch appointees, transformed into an internal police force in the final year of the Trump administration, with employees scouring for acts of dissidence in their ranks.
“Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show” is scheduled to be released on Nov. 16, 2021.
(KENOSHA COUNTY, Wisc.) — Kyle Rittenhouse took the witness stand on Wednesday to testify in his own defense and broke down in sobs as he began to describe shooting three men, two fatally, in what he claimed was an act of self-defense.
Rittenhouse began testifying in a Kenosha County courtroom after telling a judge that he made the decision to do so after consulting with his lawyers.
In his hourslong testimony, the 18-year-old spoke of his background as a trained lifeguard, a fire department EMT cadet and a student studying nursing at Arizona State University.
“Did you come to downtown Kenosha to look for trouble?” his attorney, Mark Richards asked.
Rittenhouse, wearing a blue suit and matching tie, answered, “No.”
Rittenhouse said he went to Kenosha with his sister and friends on Aug. 25, 2020, after seeing online pleas for people to come to the city to help protect it after looting and vandalism broke out over a police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man who was left paralyzed.
“I went down there to provide first aid,” Rittenhouse testified, adding that he brought along his medical supplies as well as his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle.
Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide. He claimed he shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, in self-defense.
“I didn’t intend to kill them. I intended to stop the people who were attacking me,” Rittenhouse repeatedly testified during his testimony.
‘I hear somebody yell, ‘Burn in hell”
Richards directed Rittenhouse to the event of the Aug. 25, 2020, shooting. He testified that he had witnessed a police officer being hit with a brick, another man getting his jaw broken and had been allegedly threatened by Rosenbaum.
He said he got separated from his friends who were guarding three car lots that had been vandalized. He said he was rushing to put out a fire at one of the car lots when he again encountered Rosenbaum and a man named identified by prosecutors as Joshua Ziminski.
“I hear somebody scream ‘Burn in hell,” said Rittenhouse of when he reached the car lot that was being vandalized. “I reply with ‘Friendly, friendly, friendly to let them know hey, I’m just here to help. I don’t want any problems. I just want to put out the fires if there are any.”
Rittenhouse testified that Ziminski pulled a gun and pointed it at him when he approached the car lot with a fire extinguisher.
“As I’m walking towards to put out the fire, I dropped the fire extinguisher and I take a step back (from Ziminski),” Rittenhouse said. “My plan was to get out of that situation.”
But he said before he could get away, Rosenbaum was allegedly bearing down on him and Ziminski and three other people were blocking his path.
Rittenhouse breaks into sobs
“Once I take that step back, I look over my shoulder and Mr. Rosenbaum was now running from my right side, and I was cornered from in front of me with Mr. Ziminski,” Rittenhouse said.
Rittenhouse then began to break down in sobs on the witness stand, prompting Judge Bruce Schroeder to call a recess.
Following the recess, Rittenhouse returned to the witness stand.
He picked his testimony back up at when he saw Rosenbaum charging toward him.
“Mr. Ziminski stepped towards me. I went to go run south,” Rittenhouse said.
‘I shot him’
He said as Rosenbaum began to chase him, he heard Ziminski allegedly tell Rosenbaum “to get him and kill him.”
“As I’m running in that southwest direction, Mr. Rosenbaum throws, at the time I know it’s a bag now,” Rittenhouse said, adding that he initially thought it was a heavy chain Rosenbaum had been seen carrying earlier in the evening.
“I turn around for about a second while continuing to run and I point my gun at Mr. Rosenbaum,” Rittenhouse said.
Richards asked, “Does that stop him from chasing you?”
Rittenhouse replied, “It does not.”
He said Rosenbaum continued to “gain speed” on him and then he heard a gunshot from behind him.
Rittenhouse said Rosenbaum lunged at him.
“I remember his hand on the barrel of my gun,” Rittenhouse said.
Richards asked, “As you see him lunging for your gun, what do you do?”
Rittenhouse answered, “I shot him.”
‘I was defending myself’
He said people in the car lot quickly scattered when he fired four shots at Rosenbaum. He said he tried to go and help Rosenbaum, but as people started to surround them again, he heard individuals screaming, “Get his a–, get his a–. Get him, get him, get him.”
He said he immediately called a friend, Dominick Black, who came with him to Kenosha and told him that he had just shot someone.
“I had to shoot him,” Rittenhouse said he told Black.
He said he started to run in the direction he thought the police were positioned.
Richards asked, “Why were you trying to get to the police?”
Rittenhouse responded, “Because I didn’t do anything wrong. I was defending myself.”
Shooting of Huber and Grosskreutz
Rittenhouse said that as he continued to run, Huber came up behind him and hit him in the back of the head with a skateboard. He also said a concrete rock hit him in the back of the head.
“I get lightheaded. I almost pass out and I stumble and hit the ground,” Rittenhouse said.
He said people quickly surrounded him and he pointed his gun at them and they backed off, except from one unidentified man who kicked him in the face. He said he fired two shots at the man and missed.
“I thought if I were to be knocked out … he would have stomped my face in if I didn’t fire,” Rittenhouse said.
He testified that Huber allegedly ran up to him as he was trying to sit up and struck him in the neck with his skateboard.
“He grabs my gun, and I can feel it pulling away from me, and I could feel the strap starting to come off my body,” Rittenhouse said. “I fire one shot.”
Rosenbaum was struck in the chest and died at the scene, prosecutors said.
He said he lowered his weapon and then saw Grosskreutz in front of him with his hands up.
“As I’m lowering my weapon, I look down and then Mr. Grosskreutz, he lunges at me with his pistol pointed directly at my head,” Rittenhouse said, adding they were so close that their feet were touching.
He said Grosskreutz held his hands in the air and looked at him.
“And that’s when Mr. Grosskreutz brings his arm down. … His pistol is pointed at me and that’s when I shoot him.”
Grosskreutz testified that he was shot in the bicep, causing him to retreat and yell for a medic.
Rittenhouse surrenders
Rittenhouse said he climbed to his feet and proceeded to walk toward a line of police vehicles to turn himself in. He said he approached the window of a squad car and said, “I just shot somebody. I just shot somebody.”
He said the officer responded by telling him to get back and threatened to use pepper spray on him.
The teenager said he then went back to one of the Car Source car lots he had been helping to guard and spoke to the group of allies who were locked inside.
“I’m in shock. I was freaking out. I was just attacked. My head was spinning,” Rittenhouse said.
He said his friend, Dominick Black, drove him to his home in Antioch, Illinois, where he told his mother and two sisters what happened to him. He said his mother drove him to the local police station, where he surrendered.
He said when he arrived at the police station, “I had to tell them that I was involved in a shooting in Kenosha and I needed the Kenosha detectives.”
‘I didn’t intend to kill them’
Prosecutor Thomas Binger then began cross-examining Rittenhouse by asking, “Everybody that you shot that night, you intended to kill, correct?”
Rittenhouse answered, “I didn’t intend to kill them. I intended to stop the people who were attacking me.”
“By killing them?” Binger pressed Rittenhouse.
The teenager responded, “I did what I had to do to stop the person who was attacking me.”
Binger began to ask Rittenhouse about sitting in court for the eight days of trial and having heard all of the 30 sum odd witnesses and view multiple videos that captured the shootings.
“And after all of that, you are telling us your side of the story, correct?” Binger asked.
Schroeder then stopped the questioning and after sending the jury out of the courtroom, Richards objected to Binger’s questioning, telling the judge, “He’s commenting on my client’s right to remain silent.”
Schroeder agreed, telling Binger, “You need to account for this.”
Binger responded, “No, your honor, I am making the point that after hearing everything in the case, now he’s tailoring his story to what has already been introduced.”
Schroeder warned Binger that it was a “grave constitutional violation” to talk about Rittenhouse’s silence until now.
“You’re right on the borderline and you may be over it,” Schroeder said. “But it better stop. This is not permitted.”
When Binger’s cross-examination resumed, he began to ask Rittenhouse about his use of deadly force.
“You’d agree with me that we’re not allowed to use deadly force to protect that Car Source building?” Binger asked.
Rittenhouse answered, “I wasn’t using deadly force to protect the property. I was using deadly force to protect myself.”
Blistering rebuke from judge
Binger then asked Rittenhouse about an incident 10 days before the shooting.
“But yet you have previously indicated that you wished you had your AR-15 to protect someone’s property?” Binger asked.
Richards immediately objected, saying Schroeder had not ruled on the admissibility of the previous act.
When the judge sent the jury out of the courtroom again, Richards suggested that Binger was “attempting to provoke a mistrial.”
“I ask the court to strongly admonish him (Binger) and the next time it happens I’ll be asking for a mistrial with prejudice,” Richards said.
Binger claimed that he believed the “court left the door open” on the matter, prompting an angry and loud response from the judge.
“For me, not for you,” Schroeder shouted. “You should have come and asked for reconsideration.”
Schroeder continued, “I was astonished when you began your examination by commenting on the defendant’s post-arrest silence. That’s basic law. It’s been basic law in this country for 40 years, 50 years.”
Why didn’t you just go home?
Following a lunch break, Binger continued his cross-examination of Rittenhouse, questioning him about his actions before the shootings and whether he would describe the protesters on the streets that night as hostile.
Rittenhouse said he didn’t believe the crowd was hostile toward him or his group. But after Binger played a video of the crowd setting a Dumpster on fire and chanting to Rittenhouse and others protecting the car lots to “protect the property, not the street.”
But Rittenhouse said that he once went into the street to retrieve a dumpster that had been taken from one of the Car Source properties and set on fire.
“Would you agree that the crowd was reacting to members of your group going out in the street and trying to interfere with what was going on off your property?” Binger asked.
Rittenhouse answered, “I didn’t think they were happy about it, no.”
Binger noted that police moved the crowd south past the Car Source lot where Rittenhouse and his group were and set up a demarcation line at 60th Street in Kenosha.
Rittenhouse agreed with Binger that once the police moved the crowd south there appeared to be no more threat to the Car Source location.
“So why not go home at that point?” Binger asked.
Rittenhouse said he stayed to help provide first aid to anyone in need.
Binger noted that despite the threat being apparently eliminated from the business he was protecting by police moving the crowd south, Rittenhouse ventured south of the demarcation line at 60th St. armed with his rifle and accompanied by another man, Ryan Balch, an armed military veteran.
Rittenhouse said he was looking for people who needed first aid when he and Balch got separated, leaving him isolated in the crowd Binger said appeared hostile.
“You are now entering a crowd of whatever you want to call them, protesters, demonstrators. Your attorneys called them rioters, or looters, or whatever. That’s who you’re now going to be part of. You’re going to be in that crowd, right?”
Rittenhouse responded, “I was walking through. I announced myself as friendly and that I was there to help them.”
The defense has three more witnesses to call before they will rest their case. Closing arguments could come Friday or Monday.
(NEW YORK) — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview over the summer he “wouldn’t be surprised” if somebody who worked for him at some point sat on his lap.
“I don’t recall anyone specifically. But, you know, I have people who have worked with me 14 years, 10 years,” Cuomo said, according to a newly released transcript of a July interview with attorneys deputized by the New York Attorney General to investigate claims of sexual harassment. “If somebody were to sit on my lap, you know, I wouldn’t push them off.”
Cuomo resigned in August after a monthslong investigation by State Attorney General Letitia James found he sexually harassed 11 women, including current and former state employees.
The interview began just after 8 a.m. on July 17 in the governor’s Manhattan office. The 515-page transcript, which was released Wednesday, depicts Cuomo as standoffish from the start, sparring with attorneys Joon Kim and Anne Clark over their titles and reminding them of his potent political resume.
“I’m a former attorney general,” Cuomo reportedly said in the 11-hour interview. “I’m aware of the attorney general’s power. I’m aware of the special prosecutor power, independent investigator power.”
Cuomo was governor of New York for 10 years and previously served as the state’s attorney general. In all of that time of government service, Cuomo said he only recalled taking sexual harassment training in 2019.
“I don’t remember what years I did or didn’t take sexual harassment training,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo also told the investigators he had come to believe some of the sexual harassment accusations were the work of political opponents who “have been part of orchestrating and resonating the complaints against me.”
“That’s what you think now?” Kim asked. “That’s what I know now,” Cuomo replied.
The investigation included interviews with 165 witnesses, including several of Cuomo’s accusers, including former New York Executive Chamber employee Brittany Commisso.
According to the transcript, Commisso alleged throughout her interview that Cuomo would hug and kiss her in a way that made her feel uncomfortable and that he made “inappropriate comments about her marital status.”
“His hugs definitely got closer and tighter to the point where I knew I could feel him pushing my body against his,” she alleged.
“I definitely noticed that when he would kiss me on the cheek, I took it as OK, he is being friendly,” she said. “Then obviously when he would turn his head and get me on the lips, it startled me. It obviously wasn’t normal.”
When asked about the allegations made by Commisso, Cuomo said they were “not even feasible” because he believed that his conduct was constantly under scrutiny, including by Kim when the lawyer served as acting U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York.
“You’ve investigated me for six years,” he told Kim, referring to corruption investigations conducted by federal prosecutors during Kim’s tenure. “I would have to lose my mind to do some — such a thing. It would be an act of insanity to touch a woman’s breast and make myself vulnerable to a woman for such an accusation.”
Cuomo cast Commisso as the “initiator” of any intimate conduct.
“She was very affectionate. I would say more she was the initiator of the hugs,” Cuomo said, according to the transcript. “She said that she was Italian and Italians are very affectionate people. But she was a hugger.”
A state trooper on Cuomo’s security detail also said she felt “completely violated” during an encounter at the end of a 2019 groundbreaking ceremony for a new arena for the NHL’s New York Islanders
The trooper told investigators she held open the door when it came time for the governor to leave.
“And while he’s walking and we’re in motion, while he’s walking into the door, he takes his left hand and basically like thumb facing down, I felt the palm of his hand in the center of my stomach on my bellybutton and like pushed back towards my right hip like where my gun is. So he’s walking one way, his hand is running across my stomach in the opposite direction,” the trooper said, according to the transcript.
“And I felt completely violated because to me, like, that’s between my chest and my privates, which, you know, if he was a little bit north or a little bit south, it’s not good.”
When Kim asked Cuomo about the alleged incident in the interview, the former governor said if he did touch her, “It was incidental, and I don’t remember doing that.”
Cuomo also denied asking if he could kiss the trooper as she also alleged.
“Do you remember ever asking her on any occasion, ‘Can I kiss you? May I kiss you?’” Kim asked.
“No, I don’t remember that,” Cuomo replied.
A spokesperson for Cuomo called the investigation a “fraud” in a statement.
“These transcripts include questionable redactions and raise even more questions about key omissions made during this slanted process, which reeks of prosecutorial misconduct,” spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said.
Members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee have been invited to Albany to review the report next week, Assemblymember Charles Lavine, chair of the committee, said in a statement sent to ABC News.
ABC News’ Luc Bruggeman, Celia Darrough and Soorin Kim contributed to this report.
(GLASGOW, Scotland) — Leaders from nearly every country in the world have converged upon Glasgow, Scotland, for COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference that experts are touting as the most important environmental summit in history.
The conference, delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was designed as the check-in for the progress countries are making after entering the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, a value that would be disastrous to exceed, according to climate scientists. More ambitious efforts aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Not one country is going into COP26 on track to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, according to experts. They will need to work together to find collective solutions that will drastically cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
“We need to move from commitments into action,” Jim Harmon, chairman of the World Resources Institute, told ABC News. “The path to a better future is still possible, but time is running out.”
All eyes will be on the biggest emitters: China, the U.S. and India. While China is responsible for about 26% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, more than all other developed countries combined, the cumulative emissions from the U.S. over the past century are likely twice that of China’s, David Sandalow, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told ABC News.
Latest headlines:
-US, China announce joint statement addressing climate crisis
-America ‘ready to take on the challenge,’ Pelosi says
-Obama addresses COP26, endorses Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ bill
-American agriculture is ready to tackle climate change, agriculture secretary says
-US needs to ‘get in the game’ on clean energy transitions, energy secretary say
-New climate targets announced for sports worldwide
-Biden, world leaders push to conserve global forests
-‘It’ll take trillions,’ Jeff Bezos says of his $10 billion climate pledge
-Biden apologizes for Trump administration pulling out of the Paris Agreement
Here’s how the conference is developing. All times Eastern.
Nov 10, 3:29 pm
US, China announce joint statement addressing climate crisis
Top carbon emitters U.S. and China have committed to working together on reducing emissions and transitioning to renewable energy over the next decade, according to U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry.
Kerry said it’s important that the countries work together on climate issues.
“And as I’ve said many times, the United States and China have no shortage of differences. But on climate, cooperation is the only way to get things done,” he told reporters Wednesday.
ABC News’ Stephanie Ebbs
Nov 09, 1:39 pm
America ‘ready to take on the challenge,’ Pelosi says
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi focused on the domestic political success of the Build Back Better plan and its investment in climate change while speaking to reporters at COP26, continuing the message that America is back on the international climate stage.
“We come here equipped, ready to take on the challenge to meet the moment,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi said she still plans to pass the reconciliation bill the week of Nov. 15 and backed up remarks made by former President Barack Obama on Monday — that both he and President Biden could take more aggressive action on climate change if it wasn’t for near Republican control on Capitol Hill.
“Let me just say that when President Obama was president and we had majority in the first term … we did pass in the House a very strong climate bill,” she said.
“Sixty votes in the Senate is an obstacle that is very hard to overcome and is another subject for another day.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also declared that “America is back” but was more critical, saying that leaders will need to “actually deliver.”
“We’re here to say that we’re not just back, we’re different … and we are more open, I think, to questioning prior assumptions about what is politically possible and that is what is exciting about this time,” she said.
ABC News’ Stephanie Ebbs
Nov 08, 5:23 pm
Obama addresses COP26, endorses Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ bill
During his speech at Monday’s COP26 events, former President Barack Obama shined a spotlight on the upcoming midterm elections and called upon young Americans to consider climate when deciding how to vote.
“Saving the planet isn’t a partisan issue,” Obama said, frustrated over the divided government.
Obama endorsed President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill and drew a comparison to when “one of our two major parties” made climate change a partisan issue back during his tenure.
On climate change, Obama harkened back to the Paris Agreement, saying, “We have not done nearly enough to address the crisis.”
He called for countries to push for ambitious action and acknowledged that while older generations have failed the young, they “can’t afford hopelessness.”
Addressing the youth participating in protests outside COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, the former president encouraged them to get more involved to deal with their anxiety over climate change.
“Protests are necessary to raise awareness. Hashtag campaigns can spread awareness,” Obama said. “But to build the broad-based coalitions necessary for bold action, we have to persuade people who either currently don’t agree with us or are indifferent to the issue.”
Nov 05, 1:23 pm
Greta Thunberg leads youth activist march
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, 18, was among thousands of young people demonstrating outside of COP26.
Thunberg spoke at the Fridays for Future march, the group she founded in 2018, criticizing politicians and labeling the conference as a “failure.”
“It should be obvious that we cannot solve a crisis with the same methods that got us into it in the first place,” Thunberg said.
Many of the demonstrators who spoke to ABC News said they attended the rally to see Thunberg speak.
Some demonstrators said they did not trust their leaders to create real change but were encouraged to see how many other young people were fighting for climate action.
Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate, 24, also spoke at the protest, where she said Africa was experiencing some of the harshest effects from climate change.
Nakate said she envisions a future when “the world is green again.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 757,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 68.4% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-White House confident pace of shots for kids will increase in coming days
-Over 900,000 kids 5-11 will have 1st shot by end of day, White House estimates
-10 states see increase in hospital admissions
-Pfizer asks FDA to amend booster authorization to include all adults
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Nov 10, 1:35 pm
White House confident pace of shots for kids will increase in coming days
White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said Wednesday that the pace of vaccines for kids is expected “to continue to accelerate across the coming days and weeks.”
CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky made the case that children get vaccinated against far less deadly vaccines.
“In the years prior to the recommendation for Hepatitis A, meningococcus and varicella vaccination, the average annual reported deaths from these infections were three, eight and 16 respectively,” she said. “All of those numbers are far lower than 66 — the number of deaths we have seen from COVID-19 in children 5-to-11 over the past year.”
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Nov 10, 8:55 am
Over 900,000 kids 5-11 will have 1st shot by end of day, White House estimates
The White House estimates that by the end of Wednesday over 900,000 children ages 5 to 11 will have received their first vaccine shot.
That’s 3% of the 28 million newly eligible kids in this category.
Another 700,000 kids in that age range have appointments booked at pharmacies to get their first jab, according to the White House.
ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Nov 09, 10:36 pm
Mask mandate ending in Florida’s largest school district
Masks will be optional for students in Miami-Dade County, Florida’s largest school district, beginning on Friday, the district announced Tuesday.
This change is “based on significantly improved COVID-19 conditions in the community and within our schools,” school officials said in a statement.
Fully vaccinated employees also have the choice to not wear a mask.
ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Nov 09, 4:41 pm
Boosters required for people 65+ to retain health pass in France
French residents over the age of 65 must get a booster in order to keep their health pass, President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday.
The health pass, which indicates a person is vaccinated, is mandatory for restaurants, theaters, museums and similar institutions throughout the country.
(ATLANTA) — The man suspected of shooting and killing a police officer in Georgia last week was found dead Tuesday night.
Police sources told WSB-TV, an ABC affiliate, that Jordan Jackson was found dead in a Clayton County apartment complex from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Tuesday night. Henry County Police Department confirmed his death on its Facebook page.
Clayton County police were tipped off to Jackson’s presence at the Chateau Forest Apartments in Riverdale at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, WSB-TV reported.
The complex was put on lockdown after investigators found Jackson’s body.
“Jordan Jackson was found hiding out with some friends in Clayton County,” the Henry County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. “After barricading himself in a room, SWAT Teams addressed the situation utilizing tactful methods which resulted in authorities being feet away from Jordan. The suspect took his own life seconds before being captured.”
On Nov. 4, Henry County police officer Paramhans Desai, 38, was responding to a domestic dispute and attempting to arrest Jackson when he was shot. Desai then fled the scene, according to police.
Desai was pronounced dead on Monday night at Grady Memorial Hospital after succumbing to his injuries, the police department said in a Facebook post. He was married with two children.
On Sunday, Georgia investigators and NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal offered a $60,000 reward for information about the suspect, who police later said was Jackson.
(NEW YORK) — Prosecutors are taking over the case of a 14-year-old New Jersey girl who has been missing for nearly a month.
Jashyah Moore, 14, was last seen around 10 a.m. on Oct. 14 at Poppie’s Deli Store in East Orange.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II called her disappearance “particularly troubling.”
“Our society cannot ignore the fact that a 14-year-old girl, otherwise normal in all respects as far as we can tell, would disappear without a trace on a sunny day on a central thoroughfare,” he said at a news conference Wednesday.
The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office has superseded the investigation and now will be the lead agency, Stephens said, though East Orange police, the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, FBI, New Jersey State Police and Orange police will continue to be involved.
“This case cries out and demands our attention,” Stephens said.
There’s still little information about the mysterious case. When asked about surveillance video, Stephens told reporters Wednesday, “There is video, and we’ve captured all that we can and will continue to go through that.”
He added that investigators “have gone through cell phones of anyone associated.”
Moore’s desperate family held a search party Tuesday night.
“Please, my daughter is 14 years old, she does not deserve this, she did not run away,” her mother, Jamie Moore, told ABC New York station WABC on Tuesday. “I love you Jashyah. If you see this, don’t be scared. Mommy is going to find you.”
(BENTON HARBOR, Mich.) — Construction has finally begun in Benton Harbor, Michigan, to replace the lead-tainted service lines that have been poisoning the predominantly Black community’s water supply for years.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer went the western Michigan city on Tuesday to visit a construction site where the first lead service lines are being replaced after the governor previously announced a commitment to remove 100% of the lead service lines in 18 months.
“I am proud of the progress we are making, and I look forward to much more,” Whitmer said in a statement. “I am confident that we can meet our goal to replace 100% of lead service lines in Benton Harbor within 18 months and utilize the $1.3 billion headed our way from the federal bipartisan infrastructure bill specifically for water to protect safe drinking water in every community.”
Whitmer said she attended a community meeting to hear “directly from people on the ground doing the work to help residents.”
“We will not rest until every parent feels confident to give their kid a glass of water, knowing that it is safe,” the governor added.
Some residents have expressed remorse that the government action and attention to the water crisis is coming too late.
Elevated levels of lead have been detected in the Benton Harbor’s water system since at least 2018, according to a Natural Resources Defense Council petition filed in September to the Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of local advocacy groups and residents.
Residents live with “significant and dangerous levels of lead contamination three years after the contamination was first discovered with no immediate solution in sight,” the petition stated, calling it an “environmental justice” issue.
Some 45% of Benton Harbor residents live in poverty and 85% are Black, according to the most-recent Census data. The crisis has also shined a harsh spotlight on the real-world impacts of the nation’s dilapidated infrastructure as lawmakers in the nation’s capital are mulling over the Biden administration’s $1 trillion “Build Back Better” infrastructure plans.
The estimated cost to replace 100% of the lead service lines in Benton Harbor is $30 million, according to Whitmer’s office. So far, state lawmakers have earmarked some $18.6 million, but a deficit of some $11.4 million remains. Whitmer has previously called on the state legislature to secure this money using the remaining federal funds sent to Michigan through the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan.
“We need to get the lead out of Benton Harbor ASAP and this funding will replace approximately 100 lead service lines right now,” Benton Harbor Mayor Marcus Muhammad said in a statement Tuesday. “My focus is on protecting the residents of this great city and I look forward to 100% of the lead lines being replaced on an aggressive timeline of 18 months to make sure families have access to safe drinking water.”
Last month, Whitmer signed an executive directive that sought to use all available tools to tackle the Benton Harbor water crisis. Some of the actions the directive takes includes ensuring residents continue to have access to free bottled water until further notice (though the distribution of this water has faced some hurdles), offering free or low-cost lead-related services such as drinking water testing kits, and more.
Lead poisoning can bring a slew of detrimental health impacts, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns, including: abdominal pain, constipation, headaches, irritability, loss of appetite, pain or tingling in the hands and/or feet and weakness.
Moreover, census data from Benton Harbor further indicates that nearly 28% of the population is children under 18 years old. The CDC states on its website that lead generally affects children more than it does adults, and children tend to show signs of severe lead toxicity at lower levels than adults.
(NEW YORK) — More than 22 million infants across the globe didn’t get their first measles vaccine dose last year, according to a joint statement Wednesday from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Two-thirds of those children live in just 10 countries: Nigeria, India, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Angola, the Philippines, Brazil and Afghanistan.
Even in countries with high vaccination rates, anti-vaccine sentiment has led to outbreaks in some communities. In 2019, for example, the United States saw the highest number of preventable measles cases since 1992, according to the CDC.
Measles, one of the most contagious viruses in the world, is “almost entirely preventable” through the two vaccine doses, the WHO and CDC said.
Globally in 2019, 19 million infants missed their first dose; this increase to 22 million marks the biggest jump in two decades, which creates “dangerous conditions for outbreaks,” the organizations warned.
Only 70% of kids received their second dose last year, which is well below the 95% threshold needed to protect communities, the organizations said.
The number of measles cases actually dropped in 2020 to 7.5 million, but Dr. Kate O’Brien, the director of WHO’s department of immunization, vaccines and biologicals, warned in a statement, “evidence suggests we are likely seeing the calm before the storm as the risk of outbreaks continues to grow around the world.”
“It’s critical that countries vaccinate as quickly as possible against COVID-19, but this requires new resources so that it does not come at the cost of essential immunization programs,” O’Brien said. “Routine immunization must be protected and strengthened; otherwise, we risk trading one deadly disease for another.”
(NEW YORK) — Duchess Meghan has responded to a tabloid publisher’s appeal of a privacy case she won earlier this year, saying she is “standing up for what’s right.”
“It’s an arduous process but, again, it’s just me standing up for what’s right,” Meghan said Tuesday at The New York Times DealBook Online Summit. “At a certain point, no matter how difficult it is, you know the difference between right and wrong, you must stand up for what’s right, and that’s what I’m doing.”
Meghan, who now lives in California with her husband, Prince Harry, and their two children, sued Associated Newspapers Ltd., a U.K. tabloid publisher, in 2019 for alleged copyright infringement, misuse of private information and breach of the Data Protection Act over the publication of a handwritten letter she wrote to her now-estranged father, Thomas Markle, in 2018, ahead of her wedding to Harry.
The letter was reproduced by Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, in five articles in February 2019.
Meghan won in a summary judgement earlier this year, but Associated Newspapers has appealed, requesting that the case go to trial and claiming new evidence shows Meghan knew the letter might be made public.
“The fundamental point turns out to be false on the new evidence,” a lawyer for the publishing group said in court Tuesday. “The letter was crafted specifically with the potential of public consumption in mind because the claimant appreciated Mr. Markle might disclose it to the media.”
The new evidence cited by the publishing group is testimony from Harry and Meghan’s former communications secretary Jason Knauf.
Knauf, who reportedly filed a complaint against Meghan in 2018 over her alleged treatment of aides, claims in a witness statement that Meghan “indicated in messages to me that she recognized that it was possible that Mr. Markle would make the letter public.”
“When the Duchess was considering how to handle Mr. Markle’s increasing public interventions – both for concerns about his welfare and also to protect her reputation – she explored options for written communication that might convince him to stop giving interviews, but that could also set the record straight if he gave them to the media,” Knauf said in the statement provided to Associated Newspapers’ lawyers. “The Duchess wanted to make sure that if the letter became public it would assist with setting out her perspective on the problems with her father’s behavior. In the messages on 24 August she said she felt ‘fantastic’ after writing it and added that: ‘And if he leaks it then that’s on his conscious but at least the world will know the truth. Words I could never voice publicly.'”
Knauf also claims Meghan and Harry later authorized specific cooperation in December 2018 with the authors of “Finding Freedom,” a book about her and Prince Harry’s departure from official royal duties. The book was co-authored by Carolyn Durand, a former ABC News producer, and Omid Scobie, currently an ABC News royal contributor.
Knauf cited an email exchange with Prince Harry regarding an upcoming meeting Knauf had with the authors, and provided Harry a list of topics the authors wanted to discuss. He said he expressed to Harry that “being able to say hand on heart that we did not facilitate access will be important” in the email.
According to Knauf, Harry replied, saying: “I totally agree that we have to be able to say we didn’t have anything to do with it. Equally, you giving the right context and background to them would help get some truths out there. The truth is v much needed and would be appreciated, especially around the Markle/wedding stuff but at the same time we can’t put them directly in touch with her friends.”
Knauf claims Meghan also provided him with a list of background information and bullet points to discuss with the authors, including her happiness about moving to Windsor and her relationship with her father and half-siblings.
Lawyers for Associated Newspapers argued during the original privacy lawsuit case that Meghan was trying to manipulate the narrative around her to be more positive, and that she gave or enabled “them [the authors of Finding Freedom, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand] to be given a great deal of other information about her personal life, in order to set out her own version of events in a way that is favorable to her.”
Meghan’s lawyers categorically refuted those claims at the time and Meghan did so again Wednesday in a new response to the Associated Newspapers’ appeal.
“It is untrue that my husband and I [or either of us] spoke to the authors for the purposes of the Book. Nor did we meet with them ‘in about late 2018,’ far less did we do so at any time to discuss ‘the ways in which [we] would cooperate in the writing of the Book'(as also alleged. I note that this is effectively confirmed by Mr. Knauf at paragraph 18 of his Witness Statement,” she wrote in a 22-page response to Knauf.
Meghan also stated she did not believe the letter was “likely to reach the public domain,” but “merely recognized that this was a possibility given the extraordinary level of media attention and unusual lens we were all under.”
“To be clear, I did not want any of it to be published, and wanted to ensure that the risk of it being manipulated or misleadingly edited was minimized, were it to be exploited,” she said, adding that writing a letter was the only “viable option” for communicating with her father due to the media intrusion into their relationship.
Meghan also said in her response that it was only until Thomas Markle began including the royal family in his media attacks that senior members of the family expressed concern over wanting him to be stopped. She said she was “eager to please” them, and that the situation was putting significant pressure on Harry.
She said she decided to write the letter in accordance with advice she received from two senior family members, who are not named.
