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(DENVER) — A 14-month probe into the actions of the Aurora Police Department in Colorado found the department “has a pattern and practice of violating state and federal law through racially biased policing, using excessive force, and failing to record legally required information when interacting with the community,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said Wednesday.
Investigators found that Aurora Police have used force against people of color almost two and a half times more than against white people based on their relative percentage of the population, according to the attorney general’s report.
The report, which was conducted in response to the death of Elijah McClain, also found Aurora Police arrested people of color “1.3 times more than whites based on population percentage alone.”
“That multiplier was even greater for Black community members, who were arrested over two times more than whites,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement.
The Aurora Police Department didn’t immediately return messages to ABC News for comment.
The report highly recommends the city of Aurora enter a consent decree with the department to require changes to training, policies and record-keeping.
(LONDON) — Duchess Kate made her first public appearance in more than two months on Wednesday.
The Duchess of Cambridge, 39, visited RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, England, to meet with those involved in the United Kingdom’s evacuation of thousands of people from Afghanistan.
In the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of the country, the Royal Air Force undertook the largest humanitarian aid operation in more than 70 years as the UK ended its 20-year military campaign in Afghanistan.
Operation PITTING saw the RAF fly out more than 15,000 people from Kabul between Aug. 14 to Aug. 28. More than 850 people arrived in the country via RAF Brize Norton.
During her visit, the duchess met with everyone from military personnel, including RAF aircrew and medics, to civilians and volunteers who helped evacuees in Operation PITTING through a repatriation center at the base. In addition to the RAF, the Royal Navy, the British Army and aid organizations assisted in the mission.
This is the first time Kate has been photographed in public since appearing at two major sporting events on July 11.
The duchess attended the UEFA Euro 2020 Championship with her husband, Prince William, and their oldest child, Prince George, and attended the 2021 Wimbledon Championship finals.
(NORTH PORT, Fla.) — Police have named the boyfriend of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old woman who went missing during a couple’s cross-country road trip, a person of interest in her disappearance.
Brian Laundrie raised flags among Petito’s family after he returned home to their home in North Port, Florida, with Petito’s white Ford van — but Petito was nowhere to be found.
The couple embarked on their trip on July 22 from New York, where Petito is originally from, and made stops in Colorado and Utah, her family told ABC News. Her mother, Nichole Schmidt, last heard from her on Aug. 25, when Petito informed Schmidt that they were on their way to Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Laundrie returned to Florida on Sept. 1, police said.
The North Port Police Department in Florida announced Wednesday that Laundrie is now a person of interest in Petito’s disappearance. The department has taken a lead in the investigation, since both parties reside there, but investigators “have no information” that a crime took place there, police said.
Petito’s van was recovered from the North Port home where she resided with Laundrie and his parents, but investigators are not ready to release details from the search, North Port Police Public Information Officer Josh Taylor told reporters in a news conference Wednesday. A search warrant for the home has not been issued, Taylor added.
Laundrie has not made himself available to be interviewed by investigators, police said.
Investigators and Petito’s family are pleading with Laundrie to share crucial information that could help locate her. North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison even accused Laundrie of “hindering this investigation,” stating that “the answers will eventually come out.”
“As a father, I can imagine the pain and suffering Gabby’s family is going through,” Garrison said in a statement. “We are pleading with anyone, including Brian, to share information with us on her whereabouts in the past few weeks.”
Petito was last seen on Aug. 24 as she and Laundrie checked out of a hotel in Salt Lake City, her family said. Schmidt had received two text messages from Petito since Aug 25, but they did not contain any photos or updates on the couple’s plans, so it is not clear whether Petito actually sent those texts. Schmidt also posted her last Instagram post, which was not geotagged, on Aug. 25.
Petito seemed “excited” the last time Schmidt spoke to her, but she began to worry after she had not heard from her for several days, she said.
“A few days is one thing when you’re out camping, but when it starts to become seven, eight, nine, 10 days, that’s a problem,” Schmidt told ABC News.
Instagram posts from both Petito and Laundrie show them at the Mystic Hot Springs in Utah on July 26 and on a large rock structure at Arches National Park in Grand County, Utah, on Aug. 12.
On Aug. 12, police in Moab, Utah, responded to an “incident involving Brian Laundrie and Gabrielle Petito,” but there “insufficient evidence existed to justify criminal charges,” Moab, Utah Police Chief Bret Edge said in a statement Tuesday night. The incident was not reported by Laundrie or Petito, Edge said.
Petito also posted an eight-minute compilation of the couple’s adventures so far on her YouTube channel “Nomadic Statik” on Aug. 19.
Her family reported her missing to the Suffolk County Police Department in New York on Saturday.
Taylor, of the North Port Police Department, expressed concern that Laundrie had been in Florida for 10 days without saying anything before Petito’s family reported her missing.
“We’re hopeful to talk to him. He needs to talk to us,” Taylor said. “We need to know exactly where he was, where she was, their last locations. And the fact that he was back here for 10 days, you know the family reported her missing 10 days later …”
While Laundrie has not spoken publicly, his family released a statement Tuesday through their attorney Steven P. Bertolino, describing Petito’s disappearance as “an extremely difficult time” for both families.
“This is understandably an extremely difficult time for both the Petito family and the Laundrie family,” the statement read. “It is our understanding that a search has been organized for Miss Petito in or near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. On behalf of the Laundrie family, it is our hope that the search for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is re-united with her family. On the advice of counsel, the Laundrie family is remaining in the background at this juncture and will have no further comment.”
Petito’s family released a statement Tuesday claiming that “the one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help,” adding that they “beg the Laundrie family to not ‘remain in the background’ but to help find who Brian referred to as the love of his life.”
“Brian is refusing to tell Gabby’s family where he last saw her,” the Petito family said. “Brian is also refusing to explain why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida. These are critical questions that require immediate answers.”
The FBI and agencies in Utah and New York are also participating in the investigation.
ABC News’ Alexandra Faul contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Nicholas, now slamming Louisiana with heavy rain, is expected to stall over the state through Friday, bringing more destruction as residents still recover from deadly Hurricane Ida.
Six to 14 inches of rain has already inundated Texas and Louisiana, with more on the way. Flash flood watches have been issued in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
Four to 10 more inches of rain is expected over the next three days from southern Louisiana through New Orleans and into the Florida Panhandle. Flooding is possible including in New Orleans.
Slow-moving Nicholas does not bode well for Louisiana, which is still recovering from devastating storms in 2020 and 2021.
The heaviest rain is forecast for southeast Louisiana, which was the area most devastated by Hurricane Ida a few weeks ago, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said.
As of Tuesday, about 87,000 customers in Louisiana were still without power from Hurricane Ida, and the power restoration effort could be set back by Nicholas, he said.
Over 1,000 Louisiana residents remain at shelters in the wake of Ida, he said.
The governor requested an emergency federal declaration, which was granted by President Joe Biden.
In a tweet Tuesday, the governor thanked Biden and the Federal Emergency Management Agency “for their help as we respond to this storm while also recovering from Hurricanes #Laura, #Delta & #Ida.”
Before heading to Louisiana, Nicholas first struck the Houston area, shuttering schools.
In the Houston area, 460,000 customers were without power at the height of the storm early Tuesday, according to CenterPoint Energy. About 300,000 customers saw their power return by Tuesday evening.
(NEW ORLEANS) — As Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc in New Orleans, it swept away a historic jazz landmark that Louis Armstrong once considered a second home.
“The message that boosting might soon be needed, if not justified by robust data and analysis, could adversely affect confidence in vaccines and undermine messaging about the value of primary vaccination,” the officials wrote, backed by other worldwide organizations.
For their part, the Biden administration has emphasized that science will lead and federal regulators will have the final say — and that their call to push out booster shots is motivated by wanting to “stay ahead” of the virus.
“You don’t want to find yourself behind playing catch up,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said when announcing the plan. “Better stay ahead of it than chasing after it.”
The Karnofsky Tailor Shop and Residence, which was built in 1913, collapsed after water pooled on its roof. According to the National Park Service, a young Armstrong worked for the family who owned the shop and loaned the future jazz legend money to buy his first cornet — a brass instrument that resembles a small trumpet.
“That is another devastating blow to the community, so much history there [that] once again, a hurricane has come in and just kind of washed away,” Kia Robinson, the director of programs and marketing at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, told ABC News.
Ida destroyed homes and businesses, knocked out power to more than 1 million residents and left at least 82 people dead. It hit Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane on Aug. 29 — almost exactly 16 years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city that is known as the birthplace of jazz.
‘Insult to injury’
Before Ida, the jazz community was already reeling from the ongoing pandemic, which has shut down music venues, canceled shows and left many in the music community without an income or a lifeline.
“New Orleans is very much so a gig town, you know, people work performance to performance, gig to gig, so a lot of our musicians don’t have a safety net,” Robinson said.
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Robin Barnes Casey, known as the Songbird of New Orleans, lost all of her bookings, and all of her international tours as a cultural ambassador to the city were canceled.
At the time, she and her husband, musician Pat Casey, who perform as the duo LoveBirds, had just become new parents to baby Riley.
“All of a sudden, everything we could do financially [to support our family] was just stopped,” Barnes Casey said.
“It was definitely mentally, emotionally an exhausting time and then also being brand new parents, we had a challenge and a blessing,” she added.
As COVID-19 vaccines became widely available this spring, some musicians were able to book some gigs again. But amid a surge in cases in Louisiana and the emergence of the delta variant, the city again had to take a step back.
Gov. John Bel Edwards reinstated the mask mandate in August, and large gatherings like the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which was scheduled to run in October, were canceled again this year.
For New Orleans saxophonist Derek Douget, Ida has added “insult to injury.”
“COVID took away all the gigs, [and] then the hurricane comes in, not only taking the gigs or prospects of gigs away, but it’s destroyed your property,” Douget told ABC News as he helped his parents deal with hurricane damage to their home.
The Jazz Foundation of America deployed teams of volunteers to assess needs and provided financial assistance to thousands of musicians — from direct payments to fulfilling need-based requests, most recently providing those who lost power during Ida with generators and fuel tanks.
“We have a long history, a long and painful one, of working with musicians in Louisiana and throughout the South during these natural disasters,””Jazz Foundation of America executive director Joseph Petrucelli told ABC News.
The Jazz Foundation of America raised over $2 million for its COVID-19 relief fund, while the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation supported more than 2,500 in the Louisiana jazz community through grants.
“During 2020 we assisted more musicians and more families across the country than we did in any year previous,” Petrucelli said. “This was because we’re dealing with such widespread deprivation and devastation and loss of work that the need was really universal.”
‘We celebrate life’
When Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Barnes Casey was 17, and as she left her home in New Orleans amid the destruction, she found hope in music.
“Music has always been my salvation and my therapy and my happiness,” she said. “I survived mentally through Katrina because I listened to music all the time.”
This is why, despite all of the roadblocks before them, the Caseys — along with thousands of other musicians — were determined to keep the music going, despite the pandemic and despite Ida, through uplifting virtual performances.
And according to Petrucelli, many were able to raise relief funds to support the music community through their efforts. “There’s just been so much, so much goodwill and kindness,” he said.
“It was such a blessing for us, because we were able to still do what we loved, we were able to still perform and make people happy,” Barnes Casey said. “[Music] can make people mentally check out and think about the beauty of the world and forget the sorrows of the world.”
And the sorrows for the jazz community amid the pandemic have been immense. The human toll of the virus touched every corner of the jazz world as dozens of jazz musicians and producers died of COVID-19, including New Orleans jazz legend Ellis Marsalis.
For Douget, Marsalis’ death in April 2020 was particularly painful.
Douget was a member of the Ellis Marsalis Quintet for 25 years and first met Marsalis when he was 17. He considered him a mentor and a friend.
“He was a true intellectual, just intellectually curious all the way to the end of his life. Losing him was devastating,” Douget said. “He was like a father figure to me and to a lot of the musicians, particularly the ones that played in his band.”
Just last week, prominent New Orleans musician Bennie Pete, a founding member of the Hot 8 Brass Band, became the latest member of the city’s jazz community to die of COVID-19.
Even amid great loss, Barnes Casey said the resilient spirit of New Orleans and its music community continues to uplift.
“Despite that’s all going on, [New Orleans] is such a unique place, because we celebrate life so much. We even, you know, we celebrate funerals, but it’s more about celebrating the life that we’re sending off,” she said.
And in that spirit, Douget continues to teach the next generation of musicians, carrying on the legacy of greats like Marsalis who dedicated their lives to jazz education.
“They had a profound influence on my life,” Douget said. “They showed me that, of course, learning your instrument and learning the craft, all that is important, but it’s just as important to pass it along to the next generation of young people. And that’s what their lives were about. That’s what they did. And I tried to basically model my life on theirs.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday released new data from Pfizer’s submitted application to approve booster doses of its Covid-19 vaccine. In it, Pfizer demonstrates what it sees as proof that third shot will be both safe and necessary for most Americans to take, arguing that immunity wanes over time — regardless of any new variant of concern.
It comes two days ahead of a critical juncture in the COVID-19 vaccine booster approval process: Friday, the Food and Drug Administration’s independent advisory committee (VRBPAC) is set to convene to review and discuss the latest data on potential booster doses of the Pfizer vaccine. The committee will be asked to vote on whether a booster dose is safe enough for widespread use — and whether it’s necessary and effective at improving protection levels.
In mid-August, the FDA authorized boosters of Moderna and Pfizer for the roughly 7 million immunocompromised Americans who didn’t get an optimal immune response to their initial vaccine doses.
Pfizer/BioNTech, which partnered to develop the nation’s first fully approved vaccine, has said it has early data suggesting a booster dose anywhere from six to 12 months after the second dose will help maintain a high level of protection; Pfizer asked the FDA to approve booster doses of its vaccine in late August by submitting an application and data. On Wednesday morning, the FDA made that data public.
While the independent members of the VRBPAC’s votes are not binding, the agency takes its recommendations under serious advisement in deciding whether to grant vaccines new authorization or approval. If and when a recommendation does come to green light booster shots, several additional steps must follow before it’s time for more Americans to role up their sleeves a third time.
First, the FDA would need to formally amend its current vaccine approval for Pfizer; then the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory committee (ACIP) will weigh to whom, and when, expanded booster shots should begin. Then, the CDC director must formally sign off on whether to recommend the vaccine to the public, including who it will be recommended for and at what time period. It’s expected to be authorized for anyone eight months after their second dose. Authorization for Moderna and Johnson & Johnson may not be far behind.
The new data — and proximate committee vote — also come days before the Sept. 20 date set by the White House as the target to begin deploying booster shots for a wider pool of Americans.
The question of whether America’s immunity is waning has become an urgent question in recent months with the rise of the delta variant and large pockets of the country still unvaccinated.
FDA acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky — both White House appointees — endorsed President Joe Biden’s Sept. 20 plan.
However, it has been getting some pushback, with health experts criticizing the Sept. 20 boosters-for-all timeline as premature and prior to any ruling from their advisory groups.
Two top FDA officials who are leaving the agency later this year publicly waded into the booster debate on Monday, splitting from the agency and arguing in a scientific journal that it was too soon to give booster shots to the general public since the vaccines still offer strong protection against serious disease.
One of them is scheduled to attend Friday’s VRBPAC discussion.
“The message that boosting might soon be needed, if not justified by robust data and analysis, could adversely affect confidence in vaccines and undermine messaging about the value of primary vaccination,” the officials wrote, backed by other worldwide organizations.
For their part, the Biden administration has emphasized that science will lead and federal regulators will have the final say — and that their call to push out booster shots is motivated by wanting to “stay ahead” of the virus.
“You don’t want to find yourself behind playing catch up,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said when announcing the plan. “Better stay ahead of it than chasing after it.”
(NEW YORK) — As companies continue to ramp up vaccine mandates to combat the contagious delta variant, some institutions are giving employees a chance to opt-out of getting the vaccine if they have a medical exemption.
However, medical experts who have been keeping track of COVID-19 vaccines and their effectiveness, say there are very few situations and conditions which would force a patient to put off getting vaccinated.
Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News that the large and growing data on the three coronavirus vaccines shows there are no immediate health issues or side effects for most people with pre-existing medical conditions.
“Other than age, there are no major exemptions that cover large groups of people,” he told ABC News.
The current guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the two-dose mRNA vaccines and the one dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine are safe for almost all patients.
The only major contraindication to the vaccines listed by the CDC is a severe allergic reaction to the first dose. In those cases, the person is advised to consult a physician and hold off on their second dose, according to Dowdy.
“We’re not talking about some people who had pain at the site of injection or a rash, we’re talking about anaphylactic shock,” he said.
Dowdy said the data so far shows this severe allergy is rare, and less than one in 1 million people experience it.
Dr. Jeff Linder, the chief of general internal medicine and geriatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told ABC News that research so far shows that those who have a severe allergic reaction are likely triggered by polyethylene glycol (PEG), a component in the vaccines.
“An allergy to that is pretty rare,” he told ABC News. “It would have to be documented, as a moderate or severe allergy, before I would consider giving a medical exemption.”
Overall, the COVID-19 vaccines are safe for people with “moderate to severe immune compromise,” underlying conditions, pregnant women, women trying to get pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, according to the CDC.
Linder said these populations are most vulnerable to severe illness and death from the coronavirus and it is important that they get their shot.
“Anyone who says, ‘I have a medical condition,’ that is more of a reason to get vaccinated,” he said.
The CDC has some extra precautions in place for people with certain medical conditions. For example, people with a history of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT), are advised to get an mRNA vaccine if they are within 90 days of illness, the CDC said. Women over 50 are also warned about a potential risk of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) if they chose the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, according to the CDC.
The agency currently advises holding off on immediately getting the vaccine under two circumstances.
If a person is currently diagnosed with COVID-19 or under quarantine for a suspected case, they are advised from getting their shots until the quarantine period is over, according to the agency’s guidelines. If a patient is receiving monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma for COVID-19 treatment, they are advised to hold off on their vaccine appointment for 90 days, the CDC said.
Dowdy said neither scenario should stop someone from getting any of the vaccines once they’re eligible.
“People ask, ‘If I’ve gotten COVID in the past can I get the vaccine?’ The answer is yes, getting the vaccine adds additional protection,” he said.
Dr. Jay Bhatt, an internal medicine physician, an instructor at the University of Illinois School of Public Health and an ABC News contributor, added that special care should be taken for patients who are awaiting an organ transplant, recently received an organ transplant or are receiving metastatic cancer treatment. Those patients should talk with their physicians and set up a timetable for the earliest and safest time to get their shots.
“It’s less about not being vaccinated, it’s more about when they want to do it,” he said. “If they’re in the midst of treatment…you want to make sure they’re situated appropriately.”
Researchers say it’s highly unlikely that that list of medical exemptions will change in the near future. Over 178 million Americans over 12 have been fully vaccinated since December and there have been no reports so far of any adverse effects to patients who have medical conditions, according to Linder.
“The idea that we’re missing something that’s even rare or severe seems very unlikely to me,” he said.
Linder recommended that anyone who is still hesitant about getting the vaccine over a medical issue should consult their doctor and review the data that has overwhelmingly shown the vaccines are safe.
“The risk for COVID is still high,” he said. “At the end of the day, we know the COVID vaccines are highly effective at preventing hospitalization and death.”
Anyone who needs help scheduling a free vaccine appointment can go to vaccines.gov.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea fired two ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on Wednesday, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The missiles were launched from central North Korea and soared nearly 500 miles before landing in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. It’s the second time this week that the reclusive country has test-launched missiles.
“North Korea fired two unidentified ballistic missiles off its East Coast,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea told ABC News in a statement Wednesday. “South Korea and the U.S. intelligence are analyzing for details.”
The United States Indo-Pacific Command described the North Korean missile launch as “destabilizing” but said there was no “immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies.”
“We are aware of the missile launch and are consulting closely with our allies and partners,” the command said in a statement Wednesday. “While we have assessed that this event does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies, the missile launch highlights the destabilizing impact of the DPRK’s illicit weapons program. The U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad.”
Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga called the launch “simply outrageous,” condemning it as a “threat to the peace and security” of the region and a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban North Korea from engaging in any ballistic missile activities.
“We will work closely with the U.S., South Korea and other concerned nations to resolutely protect the lives of our citizens and their peaceful lives,” Suga told reporters Wednesday.
The missile launch came just two days after Pyongyang announced that it had fired a newly developed cruise missile twice over the weekend, marking the country’s first weapons test in six months. North Korean state media on Monday described the long-range missile as a “strategic weapon of great significance.”
Analysts in Seoul saw the consecutive ballistic tests as a provocation on the heels of a strongly-worded statement released last month by Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. She criticized South Korea for taking part in an annual joint military drill with the United States and warned that “a dear price will be paid.”
Nevertheless, Koh Yu-hwan, president of the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government-funded think tank in Seoul, said the recent missile tests posed “no real threat to the U.S. mainland.”
“North Korea is walking a tightrope of crossing the promise Kim Jong Un made with former [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump at the Singapore summit to refrain from firing long-range missiles or conducting nuclear experiments,” Koh told ABC News on Wednesday.
Cha Du Hyeogn, a visiting research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, an independent, non-profit think tank in Seoul, said the provocative launches were “not surprising.”
“We could see this as a low-intensity provocation in a short interval to call for the U.S. attention,” Cha told ABC News on Wednesday. “The communist state is trying to show the world that they are keen on developing a weapons system, but at the same time is being careful not to break the nuclear moratorium.”
North Korea has maintained a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests since 2017, but the country’s leader said in 2020 that he will no longer be bound by such restrictions.
Pyongyang’s latest missile launch — the fifth this year — coincided with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Seoul, where he met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and other senior officials to discuss the stalled nuclear talks with the North. When asked by reporters for comment on the ballistic test, Wang emphasized the importance of resuming dialogue and bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula.
China is North Korea’s last major ally and biggest source of aid and trade.
(WASHINGTON) — After announcing their lawsuit last week, the U.S. Department of Justice Tuesday evening filed for an immediate injunction to halt Texas’ enforcement of their restrictive law banning most abortions in the state.
“The State of Texas adopted S.B. 8 to prevent women from exercising their constitutional rights,” the DOJ says in their motion. “This attempt to shield a plainly unconstitutional law from review cannot stand. The United States seeks a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction enjoining the enforcement of S.B. 8.”
Department officials wrote that the order “is necessary to protect the constitutional rights of women in Texas and the sovereign interest of the United States in ensuring that its States respect the terms of the national compact,” adding that “it is also necessary to protect federal agencies, employees, and contractors whose lawful actions S.B. 8 purports to prohibit.”
“The United States has the authority and responsibility to ensure that Texas cannot insulate itself from judicial review for its constitutional violations and to protect the important federal interests that S.B. 8 impair,” the DOJ’s motion says.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last week that the Justice Department had filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas, challenging its abortion law. The move set up a high-stakes legal battle after the Supreme Court allowed the law to go into effect earlier this month. Garland also said at the time that the DOJ was seeking an immediate court order preventing the enforcement of SB8 in Texas.
The lawsuit accuses Texas lawmakers of enacting the law — which bans physicians from providing abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, or as soon as six weeks into a pregnancy, and does not contain exceptions for cases of rape or incest — “in open defiance of the Constitution.”
And in a press conference, Garland said Texas Republicans are crafting a “statutory scheme” through the law “to nullify the Constitution of the United States.”
It’s unclear when the judge might rule on the DOJ’s emergency request.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 663,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.6 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 63% of Americans ages 12 and up are 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:
Sep 15, 3:22 am
Alaska’s largest hospital begins rationing care amid COVID-19 surge
The largest hospital in Alaska is beginning to ration care as COVID-19 patients flood the facility.
“While we are doing our utmost, we are no longer able to provide the standard of care to each and every patient who needs our help,” Dr. Kristen Solana Walkinshaw, chief of staff at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday by The Anchorage Daily News. “The acuity and number of patients now exceeds our resources and our ability to staff beds with skilled caregivers, like nurses and respiratory therapists. We have been forced within our hospital to implement crisis standards of care.”
“What does this mean? In short, we are faced with a situation in which we must prioritize scarce resources and treatments to those patients who have the potential to benefit most,” she continued. “We have been required to develop and enact policies and procedures to ration medical care and treatments, including dialysis and specialized ventilatory support.”
Walkinshaw explained how what happens at Providence Alaska Medical Center and other hospitals in Alaska’s biggest city “impacts our entire state” because “many specialty cares can only be provided in Anchorage.”
“People from all around Alaska depend on Providence to provide medical care for people statewide. Unfortunately, we are unable to continue to meet this need; we no longer have the staff, the space or the beds,” she wrote. “Due to this scarcity, we are unable to provide lifesaving care to everyone who needs it. Our emergency room is overflowing; patients wait in their cars for hours to see a physician for emergency care. On a daily basis, our transfer center is unable to accept patients who sit in emergency rooms and hospitals across the state, people who need care their current facility is unable to provide. If you or your loved one need specialty care at Providence, such as a cardiologist, trauma surgeon or a neurosurgeon, we sadly may not have room now. There are no more staffed beds left.”
Walkinshaw urged people to wear face masks, even if they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and to get the vaccine if they are eligible and have not done so yet.
“We ask that you help us to open our beds again so that we may continue to care for all Alaskans,” she wrote.
Sep 14, 7:07 pm
Regeneron lands $2.94B deal with US government for more monoclonal antibodies
Regeneron has reached a $2.94 billion agreement with the federal government to supply more doses of its monoclonal antibody cocktail to treat COVID-19.
Under the new agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense, Regeneron will furnish another 1.4 million doses of the treatment by the end of January 2022.
The one-dose therapy will be made available to any member of the American public who is eligible to receive it. It currently is authorized to treat COVID-19 patients ages 12 and up who have mild to moderate symptoms and are at high risk of severe illness.
The deal comes as orders of monoclonal antibodies from states have gone up 1,200% in recent weeks during the delta surge, ABC News reported last month.
Last week, the White House outlined plans to boost the average pace of weekly shipments of the treatment by 50%, as part of a new six-part strategy to combat the delta variant.
