(NEW YORK) — The NYPD’s oversight agency has recommended the department discipline 65 officers who are accused of misconduct during last year’s anti-racism protests.
The New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board received over 750 complaints concerning alleged NYPD officer conduct following the Black Lives Matter demonstrations during summer 2020, according to the agency. Only 313 complaints fell within the board’s jurisdiction.
It found 42 substantiated complaints of misconduct concerning 65 officers.
The board recommended serving charges against officers in 37 complaints, Command Discipline B in 11 complaints, and Command Discipline A in 19 complaints.
The recommended disciplinary actions are the most severe forms of punishment against NYPD officers. According to the CCRB website, charges prompt an administrative trial that may lead to lost vacation time, suspension or termination.
Command disciplines are recommended for misconduct that does not rise to the level of charges, but is emblematic of an issue more severe than poor training, according to the board. An officer can lose up to 10 vacation days as a result of a Command Discipline — Schedule B is the more serious of the command disciplines.
CCRB review states that there have been challenges in the investigation “due to the failure to follow proper protocols, officers covering their names and shield, officers wearing protective equipment that did not belong to them, the lack of proper use of body-worn cameras, as well as incomplete and severely delayed paperwork.”
An NYPD spokesperson told ABC News that the department has assisted the CCRB in its investigations by providing body camera footage and “thousands of pages of records.”
“The NYPD has made significant strides and continues to work toward making our discipline processes transparent,” Deputy Commissioner Public Information spokesperson Sergeant Edward Riley said in a statement to ABC News. “Like any citizen, police officers should be afforded a presumption of innocence until and unless proven guilty.”
Any discipline as a result of an NYPD administrative trial will be made public in the NYPD’s online discipline database, according to Riley.
In January, New York Attorney General Letitia James also filed a lawsuit against the NYPD over its handling of anti-racism protests across New York City, accusing the department of failing to address issues of abuse of power against civilians.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller told reporters at the time that the lawsuit “doesn’t seem to meet the standard of a federal monitor. It doesn’t seem to illustrate a pattern of practice, which is required under the law … But we will, as with most civil lawsuits, address those assertions in court.”
(NEW YORK) — The strained supply chain and worldwide shipping crunch has had an impact on everything from holiday shopping to every day goods and services.
Good Morning America assembled an expert panel to explain what’s happening and shopping strategies to know.
ABC News’ chief business correspondent Rebecca Jarvis, ABC News’ consumer correspondent Becky Worley and GMA e-commerce editor Tory Johnson answer questions related to the supply issue and offer shopping tips for the holiday season.
What’s causing the issue?
“This goes back a long time — back to the beginning of the pandemic when everything shut down,” Jarvis said. “Factories all over the world weren’t working, but Americans were sitting on their couches and started shopping and they started buying so much stuff. Suddenly there was this giant backlog because factories hadn’t created items, people weren’t working, there weren’t enough people to bring the items to our homes.”
“Now we find ourselves in the most important season of all — holiday shopping season when we buy more ever and not enough stuff has been created. It’s sitting in those backlogs and you see those cargo ships — it’s waiting to get into stores and there isn’t enough of it as it stands,” she continued.
What should consumers expect moving forward?
Some retailers like Costco and Home Depot have comissioned their own cargo ships, but Jarvis explained that medium and smaller comanies don’t have that same level of control.
“They’re getting cancellations for orders that were supposed to come in November. They’re being told it’s not coming until February,” she said of many orders that consumers hoped to have in time for Christmas.
What can shoppers do as we head into the holidays?
Worley said to “start with how you find it.”
“Many big chains like Best Buy, Target, they may be sold out of an item online, but remember that’s the stock they have in their online warehouse,” she said. “Every store is a mini- warehouse. So the item you want could be sitting on a shelf.”
Worley suggested using website tools like “pickup in store” and change the location to see if it’s available anywhere around you. “But one big caveat before you drive a long distance, call to make sure the item is actually there — trust but verify.”
Any items easier to get than others?
“This time of year it’s all about tech,” she said, and that anything with a computer chip,”has been harder to find.”
Worley also advises using apps that check stock from big stores such as the HotStock app, which is advertised as able to seek out prouct availability in real-time.
Shop small and local
Johnson offered a handful of tips for small business operators to be ready for more business and also protect themselves from the same supply issues.
Communicate with all partners with up to date information
Share up-to-date status reports
Make contingency plans
Try local pop-ups, trunk shows and holiday markets to move merchandise
Partner with complementary brands for cross-promotion and marketing opportunities
Leverage social media and e-commerce tools to sell direct to consumers
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has spoken out about his decision to take paternity leave after the birth of his twins, calling it “important work.”
The comments from Buttigieg come after Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and other prominent conservatives mocked Buttigieg’s decision to take time off to care for his newborn twins.
“Pete Buttigieg has been on leave from his job since August after adopting a child,” Carlson said in a segment last week on Tucker Carlson Tonight. “Paternity leave, they call it, trying to figure out how to breastfeed. No word on how that went.”
Buttigieg, who welcomed twins Joseph and Penelope with his husband Chasten in August, said Sunday he is “not going to apologize” for taking time away from his job for his family.
“As you might imagine, we’re bottle feeding and doing it at all hours of the day and night,” Buttigieg said on CNN when asked about Carlson’s comments. “I’m not going to apologize to Tucker Carlson or anyone else for taking care of my premature newborn infant twins. The work that we are doing is joyful, fulfilling, wonderful work. It’s important work.”
Buttigieg’s paid leave after the birth of his twins came at the same time as the Biden administration’s infrastructure package was being debated in Congress, an absence that sparked Carlson’s criticism.
A Department of Transportation spokesperson told ABC News that for the first four weeks after the birth of his children, Buttigieg was “mostly offline except for major agency decisions and matters that could not be delegated.”
“He has been ramping up activities since then,” said the spokesperson, adding the secretary will “continue to take some time over the coming weeks to support his husband and take care of his new children.”
“The Secretary feels fortunate and grateful to be able to take time to focus on his responsibilities as a father, and believes all American parents deserve the same,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The president’s Build Back Better vision calls for paid family leave for all Americans, and the Secretary now brings new perspective to his efforts to push for the Biden-Harris Administration’s push to ensure every American has access to paid leave.”
The Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act, a $3.5 trillion human infrastructure package, includes a provision that would give all workers up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.
If the provision remains in the bill, which has not yet passed Congress, it would take the U.S. out of the small pool of countries that do not currently guarantee paid leave.
Advocates of paid paternity leave point to research showing its success in not only helping fathers bond with their children, but also in creating long-term economic stability for families and in helping foster an equal balance of parenting duties between partners from the start.
Criticisms of paternity leave, like those Buttigieg faced, show the stigma that still remains in the United States around men taking time off work to care for their children, according to Molly Day, executive director of PL+US (Paid Leave for the United States), an organization advocating for paid family and medical leave by 2022.
“I think that the stigma around paternity leave is to a certain extent, unsurprising, because we’ve really failed to teach men and boys caregiving skills as a society,” said Day. “Now we are finally starting to see through a generation of men who are stepping into roles of dad who are increasingly unwilling to give up that opportunity and responsibility to care for their loved ones.”
Day described the U.S. as currently being at an “inflection point” in that there is overwhelming public support for paid family leave, but there is also a lack of access, which adds to the stigma around men taking paternity leave.
Just 13% of employees in the U.S. work in a job where paid paternity leave is offered to all male workers, according to Day.
Among those who have access to paid leave, the median length of paternity leave for dads in the U.S. is one week, according to Pew Research Center data.
“Caregiving is still dominated disproportionately by women, but at the same time, there are structural things that have reinforced that,” Day said. “We do not have a national paid family and medical leave policy that ensures that people can care for their families without having to worry how they’re going to pay their monthly bills.”
Under current U.S. policy, the Family and Medical Leave Act, employees who qualify can take time off to care for a newborn or loved one or recover from illness without fear of losing their job, but in most cases the leave is unpaid.
Only 27% of private industry workers currently have access to paid family leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Federal employees are now entitled to 12 weeks of paid parental leave per year, but, as a cabinet member, Buttigieg’s leave was approved by the White House.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki described Buttigieg in a tweet as a “role model on the importance of paid leave for new parents.”
Paternity leave advocates said the examples set by Buttigieg and other prominent leaders like Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, a vocal advocate for paternity leave, are important.
“As unfortunate as Tucker Carlson’s comments were, at the end of the day, I hope what people take away from this is that men at the peak of their professional careers can and should take the time to care for their families,” Day said. “I hope this moment is a powerful and poignant call to action for our legislators and wake-up moment to families of what they deserve and what we need.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday against the Jan. 6 select committee and the National Archives as he seeks to block the release of presidential records related to his communications around the insurrection.
In the lawsuit, Trump’s attorney Jesse Binnall argues the committee “has decided to harass President Trump … by sending an illegal, unfounded, and overbroad records request to the Archivist of the United States.”
Binnall also accuses President Joe Biden of engaging in “a political ploy to accommodate his partisan allies” by refusing to block the release of Trump’s records to the Jan. 6 committee.
“The Committee’s request amounts to nothing less than a vexatious, illegal fishing expedition openly endorsed by Biden and designed to unconstitutionally investigate President Trump and his administration. Our laws do not permit such an impulsive, egregious action against a former President and his close advisors,” Binnall writes.
The lawsuit asks that the district court “invalidate the Committee’s requests” and enjoin the National Archives from turning over the records.
“At a bare minimum, the Court should enjoin the Archivist from producing any potentially privileged records until President Trump is able to conduct a full privilege review of all of the requested materials.”
The lawsuit could set up a contentious fight with potentially significant ramifications for both the work of the Jan. 6 committee investigating the Capitol assault and the ability for other former presidents to assert executive privilege over records from their administrations.
Earlier this month, Biden ordered the National Archives to release records identified by the select committee that Trump had sought to classify as privileged communications. In a letter to Archivist David Ferriero, White House counsel Dana Remus said the materials should be handed over within 30 days of notification to Trump, “absent any intervening court order.”
“President Biden has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified as to any of the documents,” Remus wrote. “These are unique and extraordinary circumstances. Congress is examining an assault on our Constitution and democratic institutions provoked and fanned by those sworn to protect them, and the conduct under investigation extends far beyond typical deliberations concerning the proper discharge of the President’s constitutional responsibilities.”
While the Supreme Court following the Nixon administration previously ruled that former presidents should have some role in deciding whether their presidential records should be released, that precedent has so far not been tested when a current administration opts to deny the former president’s privilege assertions.
“The former President’s clear objective is to stop the Select Committee from getting to the facts about January 6th and his lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt to delay and obstruct our probe. Precedent and law are on our side. Executive privilege is not absolute and President Biden has so far declined to invoke that privilege,” Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in a statement Monday night. “Additionally, there’s a long history of the White House accommodating congressional investigative requests when the public interest outweighs other concerns. It’s hard to imagine a more compelling public interest than trying to get answers about an attack on our democracy and an attempt to overturn the results of an election.”
“The Select Committee’s authority to seek these records is clear. We’ll fight the former President’s attempt to obstruct our investigation while we continue to push ahead successfully with our probe on a number of other fronts,” Cheney and Thompson added.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump sat for a deposition Monday at Trump Tower in New York City that lasted “several hours,” said an attorney for the plaintiffs suing him over an alleged assault.
“The deposition of Donald John Trump went not unlike any other deposition, any other employer that I’ve examined under oath,” the attorney, Benjamin Dictor, said.
The lawsuit stems from a 2015 protest outside Trump Tower that followed then-candidate Trump’s comments that Mexican immigrants were criminals and rapists.
A demonstrator, Efrain Galicia, was “violently attacked” by Trump’s security personnel as he attempted to retrieve a sign that security had confiscated, the attorney said.
“Mr. Trump is responsible for those actions,” Dictor said Monday after the deposition. “The public sidewalks are sacred.”
“Rather than protest peacefully, the plaintiffs intentionally sought to rile up a crowd by blocking the entrance to Trump Tower on 5th Avenue, in the middle of the day, wearing Ku Klux Klan robes and hoods,” Trump said in a statement released following the deposition. “When security tried to deescalate the situation, they were unfortunately met with taunts and violence from the plaintiffs themselves. Seeing this for what it is, prior to my deposition today, the Court dismissed almost all of the plaintiffs’ claims — except for a baseless claim for injuries they never suffered, and the temporary loss of a worthless cardboard sign which was soon thereafter returned to them.”
“After years of litigation, I was pleased to have had the opportunity to tell my side of this ridiculous story,” Trump said in his statement.
Monday’s deposition began at 10 a.m. and Trump “answered questions for several hours with his lawyer present,” Dictor said.
Dictor said he looked forward to presenting Trump’s sworn testimony to a jury as soon as possible.
Dictor declined to describe specific answers the former president gave to specific questions. However when asked to describe the deposition, Dictor said, “You all have seen the president for many years on the news, almost every night for five or six years now. The president was exactly as you would expect him to be.”
“He answered questions the way you would expect Mr. Trump to answer questions, and conducted himself in a manner you would expect Mr. Trump to conduct himself,” the attorney said.
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 722,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.8 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 66.5% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Oct 18, 7:19 pm
FDA may allow mixed boosters: Source
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering allowing Americans to receive a booster shots from a different brand than their original shots, a source familiar with the agency’s planning told ABC News Monday.
The New York Times first reported the proposal Monday evening.
The FDA is moving toward recommending people get boosters that match their original doses — from the Pfizer or Moderna or Johnson & Johnson — but the agency may also allow health care providers to give certain patients boosters that do not match their initial doses, the source said.
An advisory committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is slated to discuss boosters this week and could issue recommendations for boosters by the end of the week.
ABC News’ Eric Strauss
Oct 18, 6:11 pm
New Mexico enacts crisis of standard care
New Mexico’s growing coronavirus hospitalization has forced the state to enact a crisis of standard care, the state’s health department announced Monday.
“In particular, the volume of COVID-19 patients – almost all of whom are unvaccinated – have exacerbated existing staffing and other resource shortages,” the health department said in a news release.
Medical facilities statewide must now use a “more standardized and equitable procedure,” before deciding who gets care and temporarily suspend procedures that are not medically necessary, according to the health department.
More details on the crisis of standard care will be revealed later this week, the health department said.
ABC News’ Jennifer Watts
Oct 18, 5:31 pm
99% of Seattle public employees complied with city’s vaccine mandate
Just hours before the midnight deadline for its public employee vaccine mandate, the city of Seattle revealed Monday that 99% of its 11,000 employees have complied with the order.
Approximately 150 public employees had yet to submit documents showing their vaccination status as of Monday evening, according to city officials. About 5% of public employees were granted exemption, the city said.
When it came to specific departments, the city said 91% of Seattle Police Department employees were vaccinated and 7% received exemptions. As of Monday evening, 24 Seattle PD employees (2% of the department) did not submit vaccination documents to the city, according to officials.
The Seattle Fire Department reported 93% of its employees complied with the vaccine mandate and 6% received exemptions, the city said. As of Monday evening, 16 Seattle Fire employees (1% of the department) did not submit their vaccination documents, according to city officials.
ABC News’ Matthew Fuhrman
Oct 18, 3:24 pm
CDC now counts those with AstraZeneca, Novavax shots as ‘fully vaccinated’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its definition of what it means to be “fully vaccinated” to include people who got the AstraZeneca and Novavax doses in clinical trials.
A person also should be considered fully immunized even if they mix their vaccines, the CDC announced Monday.
In general, people are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their second dose in a two-dose series, such as the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after a single-dose vaccine, such as Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine
The new guidance applies to COVID-19 vaccines currently approved or authorized for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson — and can be applied to COVID-19 vaccines that have been listed for emergency use by the World Health Organization, such as AstraZeneca and Oxford.
The CDC is not recommending vaccines that are not FDA-authorized and has not yet made a decision on official guidelines for mixing doses.
The new guidance on interpreting vaccine records does not impact CDC recommendations on primary series vaccination and should not guide clinical practice, according to the CDC.
(GLYNN COUNTY, Ga.) — As the trial of three white Georgia men charged with the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery got underway Monday with jury selection, Arbery’s father said he is “focused on justice.”
The first group of prospective jurors was called to the Glynn County, Georgia, Courthouse to begin the arduous task of selecting a panel to hear evidence in the case.
Arbery’s family and their attorneys said they are not taking anything for granted.
“It is a lived experience for Black people in America that we can never take for granted that a white person will be convicted for killing a Black person, no matter how much evidence we have,” Ben Crump, one of the Arbery family’s attorneys, said during a news conference outside the courthouse in Brunswick, Georgia.
‘I know my son was lynched’
Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery Sr., said he and his family are relying on the prayers of supporters from across the nation to get them through the trial that the lead prosecutor said could take until Nov. 19 to complete.
“I’m focused on justice,” Arbery Sr. said. “I know my son was lynched, lynched by a white mob.”
The three defendants are Gregory McMichael, 65, a retired police officer, his son, Travis McMichael, 35, and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, 52.
All three defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment stemming from the Feb. 23, 2020, fatal shooting of Arbery in the unincorporated Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick.
Prosecutors alleged Arbery was jogging through the neighborhood when Gregory McMichael saw him and thought he resembled a burglary suspect seen on a security video posted online by his neighborhood association. Gregory McMichael and his son allegedly armed themselves and with guns, and with the help of Bryan chased down Arbery in their pickup trucks, prosecutors said.
Travis McMichael allegedly shot Arbery three times with a shotgun after he was cornered and began fighting with Travis McMichael in the street. The fatal encounter was partially video recorded by Bryan on his cellphone and is poised to be the most significant piece of evidence prosecutors plan to present to the jury.
The McMichaels are claiming they were exercising their right to make a citizens’ arrest under a state law that was repealed following Arbery’s death. Travis McMichael is also claiming he shot Arbery in self-defense, according to his attorney.
Bryan claims he was just a witness to the incident, according to his lawyer. But prosecutors allege he was an active participant in the pursuit of Arbery and that he attempted to use his truck to block Arbery’s path.
In addition to state charges, all three men have been indicted on federal hate crime charges.
First 600 prospective jurors questioned
About 600 of the 1,000 prospective jurors who received questionnaires in the case were called to the courthouse on Monday to begin voir dire or the process to whittle down prospective the jury pool to 16 impartial people, including four alternates.
About 20 of the would-be jurors spent Monday afternoon answering general questions as a group before lawyers began questioning individual jurors. While Chatham County Superior Court Judge Timothy R. Walmsley, who was appointed to preside over the Glynn County trial, allowed the media to observe and livestream the general questions of the group, he barred cameras from filming questioning of individual prospective jurors.
During the general questioning of the first batch of prospective jurors, 13 of the 20 said they had already formed an opinion on the guilt or innocence of the accused based on pre-trial publicity.
Before the actual questioning of potential jurors began, a hearing was held on what questions prosecutors and defense attorneys will be allowed to asked candidates.
In addition to how much prospective jurors know about the case and whether they can put that aside and decide the case solely on the evidence presented in court, defense attorneys for the McMichaels proposed 30 additional questions. Many of the defense questions pertained to thoughts on racism, the Black Lives Matter movement and whether would-be jurors believe the Confederate flag — which the McMichaels had on their pickup truck — as a symbol of racism.
Linda Dunikowski, the lead prosecutor in the case, objected to more than half of the defense questions, calling them too broad or unrelated to the evidence, including whether prospective jurors supported the Black Lives Matter movement or participated in any social justice demonstrations before or after Arberry’s death.
“That question has absolutely nothing to do with what the defendants did on Feb. 23, 2020, and participating in a constitutionally allowable peaceful assembly about social justice has absolutely nothing to do with these defendants,” Dunikowski said in court.
Walmsley said he’ll allow some of the defense questions, but ruled most of them, including questions on gun ownership, were too broad or would lead prospective jurors to prejudge the evidence.
Walmsley also said he would not allow the attorneys to ask whether the prospective jurors are “concerned about your safety, your reputation, your livelihood if you were to be a juror on this case.” Robert Rubin, an attorney for Travis McMichael, said that was likely the most important question on the list.
“This is a case that has garnered significant attention in this community as well as around the country, and I have no doubt that the 1,000 or so individuals that were summoned when they received that summons, reacted in some way to that,” Walmsley said. “This is not an easy thing for anybody.”
(NEW YORK) — School routines have been upended amid the COVID-19 pandemic and as a result of recent nationwide supply chain problems, there are new challenges for free lunch programs.
From distribution delays and shortages of fresh foods to cafeteria supplies like trays and tongs, districts across the U.S. have had to rework breakfast and lunch options for students.
In Alabama, Alexander City Schools took to social media earlier this month to warn parents on Facebook that due to a lack of food deliveries from suppliers, their breakfast would be impacted in the coming weeks.
“In previous weeks we have not received our food deliveries due to suppliers who are short on supplies, drivers and even warehouse employees,” the Oct. 9 post said, adding that it opened accounts with outside vendors to get more supplies. “If possible, we ask that you feed your student breakfast prior to school or try to send a snack.”
The schools in Alexander City also had to alter their menus to fit the supplies they were receiving instead and notified parents of the limited menu selections, but confirmed that “at no time were our students not offered or served a meal for lunch or breakfast.”
“This is a situation that is frustrating for you as a parent, and for us as well as our ability to feed our students is being greatly impacted,” the post said.
Tonya Grier, a Child Nutrition Program Director for Dothan City Schools, told GMA its district, which is nearly three hours from Alexander City, has seen similar issues.
“Deliveries from our primary distributor continue to be unpredictable; we’re no longer confident of arrival until we see the truck at the back door. There are still multiple items (food and non-food) that are marked as “out” on our orders, but the vendor is working to find and offer substitutes for items that are in short supply from manufacturers,” Grier told GMA. “We are working to secure products from other distributors, but they too face the same challenges related to supply chain disruptions.”
“Particularly troubling is the shortage of supplies to serve food. We’re used to subbing out food items to make a menu; that happened occasionally even before COVID-19. But if we can’t get trays, cups, and cutlery to serve food to students, that’s a totally different challenge for us,” Grier said. “We serve an average of 9,400 meals a day (breakfast and lunch combined), and the volume of food and supplies needed to do that means going to our local grocery stores and warehouse club is not a viable option for us.”
Dothan Superintendent Dennis Coe told GMA that “the uncertainty of food supplies” has created “an extra layer of stress and anxiety for staff.”
“This exacerbates our existing difficulties in hiring qualified staff,” Coe said of the current issues facing the schools in Dothan.
The school district’s Public Relations Information Officer Megan Dorsey added that with students home for fall break until Oct. 20, they believe “some stress on food shortages” may be alleviated.
In September, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a $1.5 billion investment to provide assistance for schools to respond to supply chain disruptions and feed students.
“Throughout the pandemic, school food professionals have met extraordinary challenges to ensure every child can get the food they need to learn, grow and thrive,” the USDA said in a release. “But circumstances in local communities remain unpredictable, and supply chains for food and labor have been stressed and at times disrupted. These funds will support procurement of agricultural commodities and enable USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to enhance the toolbox for school nutrition professionals working hard to make sure students have reliable access to healthy meals.”
School Nutrition Association President, Beth Wallace, hailed the waiver as “a huge relief for school nutrition professionals who are working so hard to serve our students healthy meals in the face of unprecedented challenges.”
Over the past several months, Wallace said their organization has scrambled “to secure foods and supplies for our students’ meals and re-working our menus when our orders have been canceled or deliveries delayed.”
A survey by the SNA heading into the 2021 school year found that 97% of school meal program directors nationwide were concerned about continued pandemic supply chain disruptions. Of those concerned, the SNA said 65% cited it as a “serious” concern.
Issues reported in the survey included “canceled orders, food and supply shortages, product substitutions, price increases, delayed and canceled deliveries often with little or no advance notice.”
Chalkbeat, a nonprofit organization that focuses on education news, started a self-submission form for parents, administrators and districts to report similar food program situations with respect to the supply chain woes.
In Newark, New Jersey’s largest district, Patrick Wall told GMA that shortages extend beyond just food and lunchroom supplies, but to cafeteria workers creating “horrible” lunch options for kids because it’s “difficult to prepare meals from scratch.”
“In response, the district has begun outsourcing some of its meal production. Last month, it made a $3.9 million ’emergency purchase’ of pre-made meals from a vendor,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 722,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.8 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 66.5% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Oct 18, 3:24 pm
CDC now counts those with AstraZeneca, Novavax shots as ‘fully vaccinated’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its definition of what it means to be “fully vaccinated” to include people who got the AstraZeneca and Novavax doses in clinical trials.
A person also should be considered fully immunized even if they mix their vaccines, the CDC announced Monday.
In general, people are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their second dose in a two-dose series, such as the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after a single-dose vaccine, such as Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine
The new guidance applies to COVID-19 vaccines currently approved or authorized for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson — and can be applied to COVID-19 vaccines that have been listed for emergency use by the World Health Organization, such as AstraZeneca and Oxford.
The CDC is not recommending vaccines that are not FDA-authorized and has not yet made a decision on official guidelines for mixing doses.
The new guidance on interpreting vaccine records does not impact CDC recommendations on primary series vaccination and should not guide clinical practice, according to the CDC.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty
Oct 18, 1:45 pm
US sees 50% drop in daily cases
Coronavirus infections are steadily falling across the country, thanks to significant declines in highly populated states such as Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The number of daily cases in the U.S. has dropped 50% since Sept. 1, with a 43% drop in hospitalizations and a 21% drop in daily deaths.
However, an uptick in cases in Northern states is causing some concern.
In recent weeks, coronavirus infections have been creeping up in several states in the Upper Midwest and the Northeast. Eight states — Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Vermont — have seen notable jumps in their case averages.
Experts have been warning for weeks that Northern states could begin to see upticks in the coming weeks as winter approaches, and people start to head indoors.
Alaska currently has the country’s highest case rate, followed by Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, West Virginia, and North Dakota, which all with case rates above 400 per 100,000 people.
Daily deaths are slowly falling, but remain persistently high. The nation is still reporting an average of 1,250 new deaths each day, and over the last four days alone, the U.S. reported just under 7,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths.
The death average is still about 6.5 times higher than in mid-July, when the national average had dropped to a near pandemic low of 192 deaths reported each day.
Nationally, hospitalization numbers have dropped to under 60,000 patients with COVID-19 currently receiving care, down from 104,000 patients in late August. Hospital admissions have also fallen by about 10.4% in the last week.
Approximately 113.5 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated. Just under 65.2 million of those people are over the age of 12. The other 48 million unvaccinated people are children under the age of 12.
(NEW YORK) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers is accusing Amazon leadership — including former CEO Jeff Bezos — of misleading or lying to Congress in the wake of reports from media outlets that they say “directly contradicts the sworn testimony and representations” from Amazon about its business practices.
In a letter sent to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Monday, lawmakers on the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee are asking the e-commerce giant to correct the record and provide “exculpatory evidence” to corroborate prior testimony and statements made to the committee.
The lawmakers reference investigative journalism pieces from Reuters and The Markup that alleged Amazon used data from individual sellers to create similar items and boost its own products in India, and that Amazon places products from its own brand ahead of those from competitors even on the U.S. site.
“At best, this reporting confirms that Amazon’s representatives misled the Committee,” the letter, signed by Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., David N. Cicilline, D-R.I., Ken Buck, R-Colo., Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., states. “At worst, it demonstrates that they may have lied to Congress in possible violation of federal criminal law.”
“In light of the serious nature of this matter, we are providing you with a final opportunity to provide exculpatory evidence to corroborate the prior testimony and statements on behalf of Amazon to the Committee,” the lawmakers added. “We strongly encourage you to make use of this opportunity to correct the record and provide the Committee with sworn, truthful, and accurate responses to this request as we consider whether a referral of this matter to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation is appropriate.”
An Amazon spokesperson denied the allegations raised in the letter, and called the media articles in question “inaccurate.”
“Amazon and its executives did not mislead the committee, and we have denied and sought to correct the record on the inaccurate media articles in question,” a company spokesperson told ABC News in a statement Monday. “As we have previously stated, we have an internal policy, which goes beyond that of any other retailer’s policy that we’re aware of that prohibits the use of individual seller data to develop Amazon private label products.”
“We investigate any allegations that this policy may have been violated and take appropriate action,” the statement added. “In addition, we design our search experience to feature the items customers will want to purchase, regardless of whether they are offered by Amazon or one of our selling partners.”
The lawmakers, meanwhile, point to the “credible reporting” in Reuters and The Markup. The lawmakers said the claims made in the recent articles are at odds with the July 16, 2019 testimony from Nate Sutton, Amazon’s Associate General Counsel, who told them that Amazon does “not use any seller data for — to compete with them” and that Amazon does not “use any of that specific data in creating our own private brand products.” Moreover, Sutton also testified that Amazon’s search rankings are not designed to favor its own products.
The lawmakers also pointed to a July 29, 2020, testimony from then-CEO Jeff Bezos, who said that Amazon enforces a policy against using seller-specific data to develop competing products, but that Amazon considers seller data from more than a single seller to be “aggregate” for the purpose of this policy. Bezos claimed in response to post-hearing questions that this policy “prohibits the use of anonymized data, if related to a single seller, when making decisions to launch private brand products,” the lawmakers added.
The representatives are asking Amazon to provide a sworn response to clarify the record as to how Amazon uses non-public individual seller data to develop and market its own line of products, as well as a sworn response to clarify how Amazon advantages its own products over products from other sellers in its search rankings. Finally, the lawmakers are seeking all documents and communications relating to its internal inquiry into violations of its Seller Data Protection Policy, as well as documents and responses referred to in the Reuters and Markup reports.
An Amazon spokesperson told the Markup that there is a difference between search results and merchandising placements, but that it does not favor its own brands in the search tool.
“We do not favor our store brand products through search. There is a difference between search results and the placements [the Markup] is referring to – ‘Featured from our brands’ – which are merchandising placements. As [The Markup] notes, these placements are clearly labeled to distinguish them from search results,” a company spokesperson said. “These merchandising placements are optimized for a customer’s experience and are shown based on a variety of signals, starting with relevance to the customer’s shopping query.”
The company spokesperson added that they look at sales and store data to enhance customer experience, “However, we strictly prohibit our employees from using non-public, seller-specific data to determine which store brand products to launch.”
An Amazon spokesperson told Reuters, meanwhile, that “these allegations are incorrect and unsubstantiated” and that it “does not give preferential treatment to any seller” on its marketplace. In addition, the company reiterated that it displays search results “based on relevance to customers, irrespective of whether such products are private brands offered by sellers or not.”
