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Why some experts say corporate ‘net-zero’ emissions pledges could have net-zero impact on climate crisis

November 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Dubbed a “code red for humanity” by the head of the United Nations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in its most-recent report that the impacts of human-induced climate change are already being seen in “every region across the globe” and urgent action must be taken immediately, not decades into the future, to mitigate the devastation.

As scientists sound the alarms, it has become near-impossible for business leaders to ignore the research — or the global, youth-led protests spurred by activists like Greta Thunberg, who view climate change as an intergenerational justice issue — as a new generation of consumers accuse major greenhouse gas-emitting corporations of robbing the young of their future.

In recent years, a slew of high-profile announcements have followed from hundreds of major U.S. companies, pledging to achieve “net-zero” emissions by a date often decades in the future. Some have welcomed these public-facing commitments as positive indicators that the private sector is heeding to public pressure, but the scientific community says a lack of universal accounting standards results in most of these promises being ineffective, unjust and the latest form of “greenwashing” from corporate America.

Scientists are urging that at this point, with the impacts of climate change already manifesting, the “net” part of these “net-zero” announcements are coming too late and have shifted the focus from reducing emissions to simply “offsetting” them with nature- or tech-based solutions that simply don’t yet exist at the scale necessary to meet the need. Some researchers have used the analogy that if your house is flooding, you would likely focus on turning off the faucet spewing the water rather than on trying to mop the floodwaters up.

“The word ‘net’ is really the key to the zero,” Rahul Tongia, a senior fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, told ABC News of these recent pledges from major companies.

“What that means is relying on offsets, where I don’t actually ‘zero’ my emissions, I don’t stop completely, but I compensate for them, I adjust for them, I offset them,” Tongia added. “And this is really a very long, complex challenge of understanding what these mean.”

With businesses and industry contributing to an outsized share of greenhouse gas emissions, it’s going to take more than individual lifestyle changes to tackle the crisis. Here is how scientists say the private sector’s “net-zero” emissions pledges could end up having “net-zero” impact.

Already decades off track to meet climate goals, ‘offset’ commitments don’t cut it

Data directly ties greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions — the largest source of which in the U.S. comes from humans burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat and transportation — to the rising average surface temperature on our planet. This research led to the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, which sought to limit warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably to 1.5 degrees, compared to pre-industrial levels by drastically reducing emissions.

In a subsequent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that the world must bring its carbon dioxide emissions to “net zero” by 2050 in order to keep global warming below the 1.5 degrees Celsius benchmark.

More recent data from the U.N., however, suggests that at the current rate of emissions (if the world continued emitting the same amount of carbon dioxide as it did in the pre-COVID year of 2019), we would surpass our carbon budget necessary to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in approximately eight years. This means that on our current trajectory, the plans for “net-zero” by 2050 as outlined in the Paris accord likely won’t cut it anymore as the planet could surpass the dire 1.5 degrees Celsius mark around 2030.

A world warmed by just the 1.5 degrees Celsius benchmark would already look vastly different than today, the IPCC has warned, with some 70 to 90% of coral reefs projected to be gone at that temperature (and 99% disappearing at the 2 degrees Celsius mark). Moreover, a warming of just 1.5 degrees Celsius “is not considered ‘safe’ for most nations, communities, ecosystems and sectors and poses significant risks to natural and human systems,” the IPCC has stated, saying some of the worst impacts are expected to be felt among agricultural and coastal-dependent communities.

With the consequences dire, experts say the stakes are too high to rely on vague promises of “net-zero” emissions — with the emphasis on “net” — or offsetting in the future. Over 350 climate-focused nongovernmental organizations recently released a statement directed toward the Biden administration and lawmakers decrying “net-zero” as a “dangerous distraction.”

“Net-zero pledges delay the action that needs to happen,” Diana Ruiz, a senior campaigner at the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace USA, one of the statement’s signatories, told ABC News. “What we’ve seen is more of the abuse of these pledges by corporations to allow them to continue to pollute and and continue business as usual.”

Ultimately, net-zero emissions pledges “can mean a very wide variety of things,” Joeri Rogelj, the director of research at the Grantham Institute and a reader in climate science and policy at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, told ABC News.

“There are lots of net zero targets out there today,” Rogelj added. “What do they mean? It’s not always equally clear.”

In a recent commentary published in the scientific journal Nature, Rogelj and his team of researchers argue that net-zero targets are too vague, and while they are welcome signs of intent, they are fraught with difficulties that impede their effectiveness at reaching climate change goals, and the stakes of climate change are too high to take comfort with mere announcements.

“First of all, a net-zero target can be applied to either carbon dioxide or all greenhouse gases. Very often, that’s not really clearly specified,” he told ABC News, adding the scope of the pledges can also refer to just the tail-end emissions versus the sum of all the activities along the supply chain and distribution of products or services a company delivers.

Greenpeace’s Ruiz, said they ultimately view net-zero pledges as a way for corporations “to greenwash their pollution by using carbon offsets and other false climate solutions.”

“It allows the corporations to continue to pollute while claiming to reduce their emissions somewhere else,” Ruiz told ABC News. “The key here is that net zero doesn’t mean companies will stop polluting.”

Swedish teen activist Thunberg summed up what net-zero pledges mean to her on Twitter as the COP26 conference commenced, writing: “I am pleased to announce that I’ve decided to go net-zero on swear words and bad language. In the event that I should say something inappropriate I pledge to compensate that by saying something nice.”

How a computer model ‘opened Pandora’s box’: Where does ‘net-zero’ come from?

Climate scientist Wolfgang Knorr, a senior researcher at Sweden’s University of Lund, has said he now feels remorse over how some of his earlier climate research, built by computer models, was coopted by policymakers and the private sector to contribute to the rise of net-zero pledges.

“Basically, what happened is the Paris Agreement was signed, but then nobody actually knew what it meant,” he said. “And then the scientific community, the IPCC tasked to actually figure out what 1.5 meant in two ways — what’s the difference between climate impacts with 1.5 versus 2 degrees of warming? And the other question is what needs to be done and/or what can we still emit to stay within 1.5 degrees?”

To solve for the latter, Knorr said he was running integrated assessment computer models that looked at how the economy works and calculating in emissions from industrial activity, the agricultural sector and more to figure out the best pathway to keep the rise in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably within 1.5 degrees Celsius, as outlined in the Paris Agreement.

“Personally, my job was and has been for most of the time to devise mathematical models,” he said, adding that in these models, “the ‘net’ exists as an abstract idea, but what it means in reality, that didn’t actually affect these models at all by the way they were constructed.”

The models they ran, he said, found “it’s just not possible” to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius with all of the other variables, and he wrote in his research that in the end, “any remaining emissions would have to be offset.”

“We actually really wrote, then, by some ‘artificial means,'” he added of offsets, but stressed that this was still “just existing in a computer model and their lines of code.”

“By bringing that offsetting on the table, we have basically opened Pandora’s box,” Knorr says now. “We should have been really cautious about bring it on the table.”

“That ‘zero’ has sort of disappeared from sight, and it’s all about the ‘net,'” he added. “I think that I might have contributed to this.”

In its most-recent 2021 report, the IPCC simply defines “net-zero” as a “condition in which anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are balanced by anthropogenic CO2 removals over a specified period,” though details on this “removals” process remain sparse.

“Originally, when I was working on this topic like 10 years ago or more, we were thinking about, ‘OK, I mean, maybe a few percent of what we emit, CO2, will have to be offset,’ because for example, cement production is very difficult without producing CO2, or certain forms of agriculture might be still be emitting greenhouse gases.”

“But we were not thinking of entire sectors carrying on, like the fossil fuel sectors, for example,” he said.

Unpacking the ‘offsets’ on which ‘net-zero’ pledges are based

At the core of net-zero emission pledges is the concept of offsetting emissions, but scientists warn that the nature-based proposals are limited and fraught with potential environmental justice issues and the technology-based proposals haven’t nearly caught up with the scale and pace of emissions. The myriad of net-zero pledges are likely betting the planet’s future on the possible development of carbon removal technology emerging at some point.

“The potential for that carbon dioxide removal is very limited,” Rogelj, who has been a lead author for multiple annual Emissions Gap Reports by the United Nations Environment Programme, said. “First of all, because it’s expensive, because we have limited land and because we can’t scale those technologies up quick.”

Rogelj said ultimately, the science shows that rather than offsetting, the focus should be on deep reductions of emissions in the first place. What has emerged, however, is “companies that basically are not focusing on reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, but rather are buying very cheap offset credits, not all of which are very reliable or trustworthy.”

“For a very small cost, they just continue polluting while giving the impression of trying to achieve ‘net-zero,'” he said.

There is no universal standard for offsetting or offsetting credits, Rogelj added, which is why it is important for the public to unpack what a company or even country means when they say their emissions are “net-zero” versus “zero.”

Knorr said there have been offsetting proposals “that basically allow a company or country to emit more than pledged for when another entity does less of that.”

“That’s often called avoidance offsetting, and it’s really important to stress because it’s often not very clear,” he said, arguing that this system needs to be entirely done away with. Among the worst net-zero pledges he’s seen emanating from Eastern Europe simply counted the nation’s existing forest lands as an “offset” that then by their calculations meant they essentially had to take no action on reducing emissions while claiming a goal of “net-zero.”

The second two forms of offsets, according to Knorr, are “nature-based solutions” (like planting trees) and “technological solutions” (that use emerging tech to remove carbon from the atmosphere and often store it underground).

Nature-based solutions often rely on land in poorer or developing nations to make up for the carbon emitted by wealthier countries, Knorr said, adding, “We currently have far too many tree-planting pledges for there being places, and there are also people living in these areas that might actually be then claimed for that.”

Thunberg said in a tweet that these nature-based offsets are also often fraught with human rights and environmental justice issues.

“Nature-based offsetting that relies heavily on land use in the Global South and in Indigenous lands risks shifting responsibility for emissions made by Global North countries to those already struggling with the impacts of the climate crisis and are least responsible for it,” she wrote from COP26.

While technology is rapidly improving in carbon capture and removal techniques, it has been hard for them to keep up with the amount of emissions being spewed.

The world’s biggest carbon capture facility opened in Iceland just last month to much fanfare. According to the calculations posted to Twitter by climate scientist Peter Kalmus, however, “If it works, in one year it will capture three seconds worth of humanity’s CO2 emissions.”

Echoing the questions of fairness raised by Thunberg and others, Tongia said that the impacts of carbon dioxide emissions on the globe are indiscriminate — highlighting the need for wealthier nations and corporations to take actions beyond just exploiting the land or lack of carbon coming from poorer nations.

“It doesn’t matter if a rich person or a poor person emits or cuts down, carbon is a global externality or pollutant,” he said. “So by saying all carbon is equal, that’s what offsets are intellectually driven by, that lets someone richer pay for the offset in a poor country.”

The real, capital-intensive challenges require changing industrial processes and the infrastructure that relies on fossil fuels, according to Tongia, which can take decades before seeing a return on investments.

“Instead of doing all of that, if you have an offset mechanism, the rich are able to say, ‘Oh, I’ll take an offset through low-hanging fruit that happens to be with a developing country,'” he added, such as a forestation project, which is a relatively cheap endeavor. “But that doesn’t actually reduce their emissions, it’s just a zero-sum game at one level.”

“The problem becomes, now let’s say some years later, the poor country needs to reduce its emissions as well, there’s nothing for them to offset against,” Tongia said. “And at that point we’ll be such far along this trajectory of total emissions, that we can’t rely on offsets anymore.”

Ultimately, with the damage already done, Knorr said this “net” or “offset” faze is “quite tangential in the current debate,” admitting that “to a large degree we have failed, also as scientists for example, for not calling that out.”

Looking beyond net-zero pledges

Tongia said that in his research, these offsets seem to have emerged in the private sector as short-term solutions while tackling the climate crisis needs to have a much broader approach.

“What I worry about is we’re taking too simplistic of an approach; we’re ‘financializing’ a lot of this space,” he said. “What these companies want is just tell me how to do it today, I’ll write a check.”

“People are stepping up and saying I’m willing to write a check, but now translating that instrument, that writing-a-check into what action on the ground is needed to actually offset those emissions, that is still not figured out,” he said. “And the problem is everyone looks for quick fixes.”

“It’s not that people are inherently evil,” he added of those looking for offsets. “But in general, it’s that people are looking for things that they’re familiar with, comfortable with, that are visible and achievable. This is a long-haul problem, and so just looking for short-term wins isn’t going to be enough.”

Rogelj and his colleagues established a “checklist” for how consumers can hold leaders accountable with their net-zero plans.

The threefold checklist includes examining the scope, fairness and road map of these plans.

The scope asks what global temperature goal does the plan contribute to, what is the target date for net-zero, which greenhouse gases are considered, what is the extent of the emissions, what are the relative contributions of offsets and how will risks around offsets be managed.

The fairness arm asks what principles are being applied, what the consequences for others are if these principles are applied universally, how will the individual target affect others’ capacity to achieve net zero and more.

“Net-zero targets globally are a zero-sum game,” Rogelj said. “If one country or company reduces emissions more slowly, then another country or company needs to do more for the same global net-zero target to be met. And that is really where this question of adequacy and fairness comes into play.”

“So, based on whether one operates in a sector that has a lot of mitigation potential, that has a lot of carbon dioxide removal potential, that has really large profit margins, it can be considered more or less fair to go slow or on the other hand to go particularly fast on carbon dioxide mitigation,” he said.

Finally, the roadmap asks for milestones and policies, monitoring and review systems to assess progress, and if net zero will be maintained or if it is a step toward net negative.

“Besides net-zero pledges, it is absolutely essential that the private sector sets targets that are measurable over the near term, and targets that really show the trajectory on which a company or a sector is evolving towards a long-term pledge,” Rogelj said. “Setting pledges for three decades in the future, and not working towards them, is simply greenwash.”

Tongia similarly said there needs to be a clearer set of standards among the slew of net-zero pledges that can mean so many different things.

“There’s so many layers at which accounting gets very, very tricky and messy,” Tongia said of emissions and offsets. “So, what we need is far better accounting norms, and then we can figure out, ‘Well, these will get full [offset] credit, these will get partial credit, these will share the credit and these should just be thrown out the window.'”

Tongia also argued that in order to be conducted humanely and fairly, more onus on high emitters to reduce emissions immediately is absolutely necessary.

Knorr said he now recommends a global body dishes out strict “carbon budgets” that limit the total amount of emissions without relying on offsets.

“‘Net-zero’ allows you to reliably at least carry on your business model for quite a long time,” Knorr said. “I don’t want to say that people who come up with these pledges aren’t acting responsibly … but it is very clear that they are buying time, and that kind of rapid reduction immediately right now hasn’t happened.”

“The impact of these pledges being in the future is negative,” Knorr said, equating it to somebody battling addiction who continues to binge a substance now, but promises by a far-off date they will quit. “Everybody knows that doesn’t work.”

He added, “Without honesty and going a bit deeper into ourselves and admitting our dependence on cheap energy … I think there’s a big risk that net-zero pledges will have actually even a perverse incentive to just carry on.”

Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill reduces risk of being hospitalized or dying by 89%, company says

November 5, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A course of pills developed by Pfizer can slash the risk of being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19 by 89% if taken within three days of developing symptoms, according to results released Friday by the pharmaceutical company.

In a study of more than 1,200 COVID-19 patients with a higher risk of developing serious illness, people who took Pfizer’s pills were far less likely to end up in the hospital compared to people who got placebo pills.

None of the people who got the real pills died, but 10 people who got placebo pills died, according to results summarized in a Pfizer press release.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in prepared remarks that the data suggest the pill-based treatment, if authorized, could “eliminate up to nine out of ten hospitalizations.”

Infectious disease experts cautioned these results are preliminary — only described in a press release and not in a peer-reviewed medical journal — but they represent another promising development in the search for effective and easy-to-administer COVID-19 pills.

Right now, the only authorized treatments are given via intravenous infusion.

“Having an oral therapy is critically important,” said Dr. Carlos Del Rio, the executive associate dean and a global health expert at the Emory School of Medicine.

“If we can get patients to start treatment early before they progress to severe illness and unfortunately death, everyone wins in the fight against COVID,” said Dr. Simone Wildes, a board-certified infectious disease physician at South Shore Health and an ABC News contributor.

Infectious disease specialists stressed that these pills are not a replacement for a vaccine — by far the safest and most effective way to reduce the risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19.

But they may make a big difference if given quickly to people after getting COVID-19, especially the immune compromised, or in places where a vaccine is not available.

Pfizer’s pill-based treatment “would be a good drug for patient with COVID and high risk of progression, vaccinated or not,” said Del Rio, “although the vaccinated were not included in this study.”

Another company — Merck — is ahead of Pfizer on developing a COVID pill treatment, having already applied with the Food and Drug Administration for authorization. Emergency use authorization for the Merck treatment may come before the end of the year.

Merck’s treatment reduced the risk of hospitalizations and deaths by 50%. This could indicate Pfizer’s treatment has an edge on efficacy, but experts cautioned against comparing the studies directly because they were designed in different ways, and measured different so-called “primary endpoints.”

“We need to be cautious comparing studies,” said Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health and an ABC News Medical Contributor.

The FDA analyzes safety and efficacy before authorizing any medication.

The FDA’s advisory committee is set to review Merck’s application on Nov. 30. Merck CEO told CNBC at the end of October that the company is ready to distribute 10 million courses of treatment by the end of the year.

Pfizer, meanwhile, plans to start sharing the data with the FDA “as soon as possible.”

This Pfizer data is from one of three clinical trials that the company is running. The results from the other two trials are expected by the end of the year. Pfizer then plans to submit all the data and seek authorization at that time, meaning the new medication may be available in early 2022.

Using lessons learned from other infectious diseases, experts said it might one day prove beneficial to combine different antiviral treatments.

“Pfizer oral drug is an investigational SARS-COV-2 protease inhibitor antiviral therapy,” Wildes said. “We have used protease inhibitors drugs in our HIV patients with and they have worked well.”

“Big picture is this is similar to HIV and [hepatitis C] where we have different antivirals,” Ellerin added. “There may be opportunity for combination therapy in the future.”

Tied city council race in Portland, Maine, decided by drawing name out of a bowl

November 4, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(PORTLAND, Maine) — Hundreds of people in Portland, Maine, turned up Thursday to watch an unprecedented event unfold in local election history: The winner of an open city council seat was chosen by chance, by drawing a name out of a wooden bowl.

None of the four candidates in the race for the city’s at-large council seat won a majority of the vote in Tuesday’s municipal election. The ranked-choice instant runoff determined that two of the candidates — Brandon Mazer and Roberto Rodriguez — were tied with exactly 8,529 votes each.

In the event of a tie, the city’s charter, which was amended in 2011 to adopt rules for administering ranked-choice voting, governs that “the City Clerk shall determine the winner in public by lot” — meaning the winner is selected at random.

So on Thursday morning, City Clerk Katherine Jones brought an antique wooden bowl from home as people gathered on the plaza outside Portland’s City Hall for the public drawing to determine the winner.

Mazer and Rodriguez, who both agreed to the unique process in advance, verified that their names were printed on identical pieces of cardstock paper. They folded the cards in half and placed them in the bowl, at which point Elections Administrator Paul Riley swirled them around while averting his eyes.

He then held the bowl above Jones’ eye line so she could pull out a card. After displaying it to the candidates, she announced the winner into a microphone — Brandon Mazer. Cheers erupted from the crowd, and the two candidates shook hands and embraced.

“I’m incredibly proud of the campaign we ran, and I really appreciate everyone who came out, and this truly shows that every vote matters,” Mazer, an attorney, told ABC Portland, Maine, affiliate WMTW after the drawing.

Rodriguez promptly submitted an official request for a manual recount, which has been scheduled for Nov. 9. If needed, it will continue on Nov. 10. If the outcome changes from the drawing, Rodriguez will be the winner.

“After such a grueling campaign season, to have it come down to chance was a little bit of a shock,” Rodriguez, a member of the Portland School Board, told WMTW. “But, again, you know, this is what the policy says. This is what we’re governed by, and so here we are today.”

“There is going to be a recount. We’re going to make sure every vote is counted,” he added.

Mazer told the station he supports a recount.

The new councilor will be sworn in on Dec. 6 in what is a historic event for the city.

“This is the first time anyone here can remember having a tie in an election,” Portland spokesperson Jessica Grondin told ABC News. “It is certainly the first time ever having a tie since we’ve used ranked choice voting, which was adopted in 2011.”

The unusual process sparked some criticism on Facebook, with commenters on a video post of the drawing mockingly suggesting using a dartboard, a coin toss or Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine the winner.

Portland isn’t the only place to decide ties by lot. The winner of a hotly contested Virginia House of Delegates seat in a 2017 race was determined by drawing a name out of a ceramic bowl.

Newly released FBI tapes show white supremacist members of ‘The Base’ plotting terror attacks

November 4, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(RICHMOND, Va.) — For a month, FBI agents listened in as two members of a white supremacist group discussed their sinister plans: a plot to use a pro-gun rights rally in Richmond, Virginia, to engage in mass murder and attacks on critical infrastructure, which they believed would mark the start of a racial civil war.

Patrik Mathews, a former Canadian Army reservist illegally in the U.S., and Brian Lemley, a Maryland resident and self-described white nationalist, fantasized about the brutal murders they’d soon carry out against law enforcement and Black people, all with the goal of bringing about the “Boogaloo,” or the collapse of the U.S. government in order to prop up a white ethno-state, according to recordings of the pair’s discussions.

“We need to go back to the days of … decimating Blacks and getting rid of them where they stand,” Mathews said in one recording. “If you see a bunch of Blacks sitting on some corner you f***ing shoot them.”

“I need to claim my first victim,” Lemley said in another recording. “It’s just that we can’t live with ourselves if we don’t get somebody’s blood on our hands.”

The two men were each sentenced in late October to nine years in prison, and ABC News has now obtained newly released audio from the FBI’s secret recording of Mathews and Lemley at their Delaware residence in late 2019.

The tapes offer a chilling look into the private plotting of the two members of “The Base,” a white supremacist extremist group that the FBI says has, since 2018, recruited members both in the U.S. and abroad through a combination of online chat rooms, private meetings, and military-style training camps. In their plea agreements and at sentencing, Mathews and Lemley both acknowledged their membership in the group.

After the two men were arrested in January 2020, just days before the Richmond rally was set to take place, law enforcement found tactical gear, 1,500 rounds of ammunition, and packed cases of food and supplies in their residence.

In the course of their investigation they also found that Lemley and Mathews had both attended military-style training camps with other members of The Base, and had built a functioning assault rifle that they tested out at a gun range in Maryland.

The recordings captured by the FBI included Mathews and Lemley discussing potential acts of terror they could carry out around the Richmond rally that would lead authorities and, eventually, the U.S. government, to capitulate to the chaos and bloodshed taking place.

“You wanna create f***ing some instability while the Virginia situation is happening, make other things happen,” Mathews said. “Derail some rail lines … shut down the highways … shut down the rest of the roads … kick off the economic collapse of the U.S. within a week after the [Boogaloo] starts.”

“I mean, even if we don’t win, I would still be satisfied with a defeat of the system … and whatever was to come in its place would be preferable than what there is now,” Lemley said. “And if it’s not us, then you know what, we still did what we had to do.”

Prior to their sentencing, Mathews and Lemley had pleaded guilty to firearms and immigration violation-related charges. At their Oct. 28 sentencing hearing, U.S. district judge Theodore Chuang went above the sentencing guidelines in applying a terrorism enhancement to each charge, sentencing both men to nine years in federal prison.

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified earlier this year that the number of domestic terrorism investigations into white supremacist individuals and groups has tripled since he joined the bureau in 2017.

2 dead after shootout between alleged drug gangs near Cancun resorts

November 4, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(PUERTO MORELOS, Mexico) — Two people are dead after a shooting involving alleged drug gangs in a Mexico resort zone Thursday afternoon, authorities said.

The shooting occurred on a beach in Puerto Morelos, south of Cancun, during a confrontation between alleged members of rival groups of drug dealers, according to a statement from the Quintana Roo Attorney General’s Office. Two of the alleged gang members died, and there were no additional injuries, the office said. Armed suspects escaped in a stolen motorboat, authorities said.

The stretch of beach is near two resorts, and the shooting sent vacationers running to their hotel rooms.

An American vacationing in Cancun confirmed to ABC News that he heard shots fired while at the Hyatt Ziva Hotel in Puerto Morelos.

Shortly after 2 p.m. local time, Jim Wildermuth, of Atlanta, said he was at the pool outside his room with other guests when they heard “cracks.”

“We kind of looked at each other funny,” Wildermuth said.

They then ran up to their rooms and were told to stay there because there was an active shooter on the property, according to Wildermuth, who said he saw military personnel directing people in front of the hotel.

A Hyatt spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News that they are “aware of a developing situation at Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun.”

“We understand the hotel team immediately engaged local authorities who are on the scene investigating the situation,” the company said, adding that it is “taking steps in an effort to ensure the safety of guests and colleagues.”

Guests at the hotel were deemed safe after the shooting, authorities said.

A spokesperson for the Azul Beach Resort Riviera Cancun, which is located near the Hyatt Ziva Cancun, told ABC News it has no comment at this time.

The shooting comes nearly two weeks after two female tourists were killed during an apparent drug gang shootout in the Mexico resort destination of Tulum. Three tourists were wounded in the Oct. 23 shooting.

ABC News’ Josh Margolin and Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

DOJ sues Texas over restrictive voting law

November 4, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department announced Thursday it has sued the State of Texas over its restrictive voting law that went into effect in September.

The complaint argues SB1 violates Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act “by improperly restricting what assistance in the polling booth voters who have a disability or are unable to read or write can receive.”

SB1 affects voters who have a disability by preventing those who assist them from providing help like answering questions on their behalf, confirming voters with visual impairments have properly marked their ballots and responding to any requests they might have about certain ballot translations.

The complaint also accuses the law of violating Section 101 of the Civil Rights Act “by requiring rejection of mail ballots and mail ballot request forms because of certain paperwork errors or omissions that are not material to establishing a voter’s eligibility to cast a ballot.”

The complaint filed in civil court asks a judge to prohibit Texas from enforcing the identified provisions in the law.

The DOJ similarly sued Georgia in June, alleging provisions in its new voting law violated Section 2 of the Civil Rights Act.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance convenes new special grand jury to investigate Trump Organization: Sources

November 4, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance has convened a new special grand jury to hear evidence in the investigation of former President Donald Trump and his eponymous company, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The new grand jury was convened as the time limit on the original special grand jury is about to expire.

The new six-month special grand jury allows the case to continue beyond Vance’s tenure if needed. He leaves office in early January, when District Attorney-elect Alvin Bragg takes office. In a historic victory, Bragg was elected as Manhattan’s first Black district attorney on Tuesday.

News of the grand jury was first reported by The Washington Post.

The initial grand jury returned an indictment in June against the Trump Organization and its long-serving chief financial officer Allan Weisselberg. Both have pleaded not guilty.

The first indictments returned in the case involved corporate benefits for which, allegedly, no taxes were paid.

“During the operation of the scheme, the defendants arranged for Weisselberg to receive indirect employee compensation from the Trump Organization in the approximate amount of $1.76 million … in ways that enabled the corporate defendants to avoid reporting it to the tax authorities,” the indictment said.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, along with New York Attorney General Letitia James, have also been investigating whether Trump valued his holdings one way when seeking loans and a different way when preparing taxes, manipulation alleged by Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, in 2019 congressional testimony.

Neither the Vance nor James has commented. The Manhattan DA fought a battle for the former president’s tax returns that twice went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump, who has not been charged, has denied wrongdoing and decried the investigation as political.

He told ABC News in July that Weisselberg is a “tremendous man and called the indictment a “disgrace” and “shameful.”

Navy fires top 3 leaders of submarine that struck uncharted sea mountain

November 4, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Navy has fired the top three leaders who were aboard the attack submarine USS Connecticut when it struck an uncharted sea mountain in the Pacific Ocean in early October.

The commander of the Navy’s Seventh Fleet relieved the commanding officer of the submarine, Cmdr. Cameron Aljilani, the executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Patrick Cashin, and the top enlisted sailor, Master Chief Sonar Technician Cory Rodgers, “due to loss of confidence,” according to a Navy statement.

Though the vessel struck an uncharted sea mountain, Vice Adm. Karl Thomas, commander of Seventh Fleet, determined that the incident could have been prevented.

“Sound judgement, prudent decision-making and adherence to required procedures in navigation planning, watch team execution and risk management could have prevented the incident,” according to the statement.

The three who were fired will be replaced by a new leadership team while the submarine remains in Guam before it makes its way to Bremerton, Washington, for repairs to the hull and interior.

On Oct. 2, the Seawolf-class fast-attack submarine struck an unknown object while underwater, but the Navy did not publicly disclose the incident until after the vessel was close to arriving at the naval base in Guam, where a damage assessment would be made.

A Navy official said at the time that two sailors had suffered moderate injuries and were treated aboard the vessel. Other sailors suffered bumps, bruises and lacerations. There was no damage to the submarine’s nuclear reactor.

While the Navy would not say where the submarine had been operating, China has claimed it was in the South China Sea, where China has made territorial claims not accepted by the United States and the international community.

Last week, a Navy investigation into the incident determined that the submarine had struck an uncharted sea mountain and that the Seventh Fleet commander would determine whether accountability actions might be appropriate.

At Afghanistan’s northern border, worries about what comes next

November 4, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(RUZVAT, Tajikistan) — In many places along Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan, the countries are separated by just a few yards of water — the narrow Panj River.

There are no walls or fences, and, standing on the Tajikistan side, northern Afghanistan is so close that as ABC reporters looked across last week, Taliban fighters waved back at them.

The Taliban have taken control of the Afghan side of the border, something they were unable to achieve even when they ruled there 20 years ago. Now their white flags can be seen flying in the villages perched along the river as it winds between two towering walls of mountains.

The border, which runs through the Pamir Mountains, is a new fault line in a new reality. It’s a place that poses questions to Afghanistan’s neighbors, including regional powers like Russia and China, about what a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan will mean.

There are fears that instability could spread from Afghanistan to surrounding countries. Terrorist groups including ISIS and Al-Qaeda have footholds in northern Afghanistan, and Tajikistan is already a major drugs route. And as a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan threatens, so does a potential refugee exodus.

So where does that leave Tajikistan?

The nearly 850-mile-long border is now closed. As the Taliban advanced this summer, groups of Afghans, mostly government soldiers, began to flee across the border. Tajikistan’s government reacted by sending 20,000 troops to the area.

The sealed border has cut off the flow of refugees. The Taliban are also stopping people, according to Afghans who’ve tried to cross.

ABC News reporters visited a stretch of border in the Darvoz region last week. To enter, foreigners must have special permission and pass through three checkpoints. But beyond that, the only visible security force was an occasional three-man patrol of young conscripts.

Locals said things have been calm since the Taliban took over, with the sound of shooting on the other side stopping. Life has been relatively unchanged, they said, except Tajik security service agents now lived in some villages. The three nearby bridges spanning the river all have been closed.

Tajikistan is the only one of Afghanistan’s neighbors to adopt an openly hostile attitude toward the Taliban since their takeover. Nearly half of Afghanistan’s population are ethnically Tajiks, and in the 1990s, Tajikistan’s government supported the anti-Taliban resistance. This time, Tajikistan has again become a sanctuary for resistance leaders.

Ahmad Massoud, the son of the legendary mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud and leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, is in Tajikistan, his spokesman said this week, seeking to drum up international support.

But unlike the last time, the resistance has almost no holdouts in Afghanistan, and Tajikistan’s government has shown little appetite for assisting beyond offering shelter.

Before Kabul fell, Tajikistan said it could take in 100,000 Afghan refugees, but now it’s closed to new entries. Several thousand Afghans did manage to arrive, including 160 U.S.-trained Afghan Air Force Pilots, who are now trapped waiting evacuation.

Those who did reach Tajikistan are now struggling, unable to find work or feed themselves in one of the world’s poorest countries. Tamim Talash, a former official at Afghanistan’s election commission, is now stranded there with his wife and 4-month old daughter.

“We have a lot of problems,” Talash said. “I am jobless now.”

Talash, who said the Taliban twice tried to kill him, has applied for asylum in the U.S. but heard nothing so far.

“I don’t know how to find out any person or any organization to help us,” he added.

The upheaval in Afghanistan has also boosted Russia’s role in the region, where it already retains a strong grip on former Soviet colonies. Worried about potential terrorists in those countries, Russia has been moving to bolster them.

Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, already is home to Russia’s 201st Military Base, the largest it has anywhere in the world outside Russia.

Since the summer, Russia has sent to Tajikistan military equipment and money to construct new border posts and re-equip military forces. The countries have staged large joint military exercises. In October, Russia took journalists to watch the culminating display of scheduled exercises organized by the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance of former Soviet countries.

Russian troops took part alongside those from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Belarus and others at a firing range about 15 miles from Afghanistan. The display, involving around 2,000 troops, simulated a response to an imagined attempt by an Islamist group that had crossed into Tajikistan and declared it an Islamic state.

But Moscow also is building a working relationship with the Taliban. Last month, it hosted the Taliban in Moscow for talks with regional countries, chaired by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.

Russia has asked for, and received, public guarantees from the Taliban that it will not destabilize Central Asian countries like Tajikistan or allow Afghanistan to be used as a launchpad for international terrorism again.

“Just as we want positive relations with others, we also seek positive relations,” Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s acting foreign minister, told reporters through a translator during the Moscow talks. “We remain committed to our commitments that the soil of Afghanistan will not be used to threaten the security of other nations.”

Text from McDonald’s CEO appears to blame parents of Jaslyn Adams and Adam Toledo for their deaths

November 4, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(CHICAGO) — Protests erupted at McDonald’s headquarters in Chicago this week after a text exchange between the fast food giant’s chief executive and Mayor Lori Lightfoot seemed to blame the parents of two children who were recently shot to death in the city.

Lightfoot had visited McDonald’s headquarters and met with CEO Chris Kempczinski in April, the day after the fatal shooting of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams, who died in a hail of bullets fired into her family’s car that was in a McDonald’s drive-thru lane. The child’s death came as the city was still mourning and outraged over the fatal shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo by a police officer.

In a text exchange recently made public, Kempczinski wrote to Lightfoot: “With both, the parents failed those kids, which I know is something you can’t say. Even harder to fix,” according to ABC Chicago station WLS-TV.

The comment sparked immediate backlash and accusations of racism and victim blaming.

Images shared to social media by the labor advocacy group Fight for 15 Chicago, which helped organize a protest on Wednesday, showed crowds of protestors descending on McDonald’s headquarters. Many of those marching were children.

“As the leader of the largest fast food corporation, Mr. Kempczinski has a responsibility to do much better for Black and Brown communities than add on to racist stereotypes,” Fight for 15 Chicago said in a Tweet.

Kempczinski acknowledged the text exchange in a note sent to McDonald’s U.S. corporate employees, which was viewed by ABC News.

“In the text exchange, I thanked Mayor Lightfoot for the visit and reflected on our conversation about the recent tragedies, commenting that ‘the parents failed those kids,'” the CEO wrote. “When I wrote this, I was thinking through my lens as a parent and reacted viscerally.”

“But I have not walked in the shoes of Adam’s or Jaslyn’s family and so many others who are facing a very different reality,” Kempczinski added. “Not taking the time to think about this from their viewpoint was wrong, and lacked the empathy and compassion I feel for these families. This is a lesson that I will carry with me.”

Kempczinksi lamented the “senseless surge in gun violence that is affecting so many children,” adding that, “it is also clear to me that everyone has a role to play.”

“Quite simply, it is on all of us to do better for the children of our communities,” the CEO stated, saying he was committed to working with civic leaders and elected officials to “understand what that means for McDonald’s.”

Lightfoot did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment Thursday, but a spokesperson for the mayor told told WLS-TV: “Victim shaming has no place in this conversation.”

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