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Mom giving birth on front lawn caught on doorbell camera

November 18, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(VACAVILLE, Calif.) — Emily Johnson had planned on giving birth to her second child in a hospital, with an epidural.

Instead, Johnson, 31, of Vacaville, California, gave birth to her son, Thomas Alan, on Nov. 4, on her front lawn, with no pain medication.

Johnson told “Good Morning America” she and her husband, Michael Johnson, announced their son’s birth on Facebook by posting, “Thomas is here and there is Ring footage.”

“He’s a pretty quiet and chill little dude,” Emily Johnson said of her son, noting the contrast with his “chaotic arrival.” “He just stares and watches the world go by or sleeps.”

Thomas’s unconventional birth story began around 6:30 p.m., a week before Emily’s Johnson’s due date, when she started feeling contractions that were around 10 minutes apart.

Remembering the 18-hour labor she’d had with her 3-year-old son, Emily Johnson said she and her husband thought they had plenty of time and kept monitoring the contractions.

When the contractions began to quicken just after 9 p.m., the Johnsons said they called Emily’s mom to come watch Blake, and called the hospital to tell them they were on their way.

“While Mike was getting the car packed up, the contractions went from three minutes to two minutes to one minute very rapidly,” said Emily Johnson. “And then when I was standing at the car door, I just couldn’t get in the car.”

Though the hospital was just five minutes away, Emily Johnson said she knew she wasn’t going to make it.

She moved herself to the front lawn of her home, and her husband and her mother, Kristy Sparks, who had arrived to care for Blake, began to deliver the baby while on the phone with a 911 dispatcher.

“The dispatcher really helped with the process,” said Emily Johnson. “She really guided Mike and my mom through as they were trying to keep me as calm as possible because I was having a baby on the lawn.”

At 10:42 p.m., just two minutes after paramedics arrived, Thomas Alan was born — a healthy 7 pounds, 11 ounces.

“I was right there by her side with one hand on the speakerphone and one hand with a flashlight,” said Michael Johnson. “Her mom was there to catch the baby”

Michael Johnson was able to cut the umbilical cord on the front lawn, and then paramedics transported baby and mom to the hospital.

It was there that the Johnsons said they realized their Ring camera captured Thomas’ birth.

“When Michael got to the hospital, he started looking at the footage and showing it to the nurses,” said Emily Johnson, adding that they were able to figure out how Thomas’s birth took less than 30 minutes.

Though Thomas’s birth didn’t unfold exactly as planned, it did happen on a special day: He was born on the same day as his late paternal great-grandfather, Alan, from whom he gets his middle name. And he was born two days before the 82nd birthday of his maternal great-grandfather, Thomas, from whom he gets his first name.

State health department raises alarm as campus flu outbreak climbs to over 500 cases

November 17, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(ANN ARBOR, Mich.) — Public health officials are investigating an influenza outbreak at a Michigan university that has resulted in more than 500 cases, as several schools have also seen surges in flu activity.

The University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus in Washtenaw County has reported over 525 cases among students since Oct. 6 — about three-quarters of them among people unvaccinated against the flu, school officials said this week.

The university said it is tracking a “large and sudden increase” in cases, with nearly all reported in the past two weeks.

“While we often start to see some flu activity now, the size of this outbreak is unusual,” Juan Luis Marquez, medical director at the Washtenaw County Health Department, said in a statement.

A team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is helping the university and local and state health departments investigate the outbreak, including how the flu is spreading.

Amid the surge, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is calling on people to get the flu vaccine, as vaccine administrations are down by about 26% compared to this time last year and COVID-19 cases are also on the rise.

“This outbreak comes at a time when COVID-19 infections are again surging in Michigan, with case rates, positivity rates, hospitalizations and deaths all increasing,” the department said in a release Wednesday. “State and local public health officials are concerned with the potential for increased strain on health systems if COVID-19 and influenza cases surge at the same time this winter.”

Other campuses are also battling flu outbreaks. Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, has logged 150 flu cases among students since Nov. 1, most of which were last week, Joe Cardona, the vice president of university relations, told ABC News. In response, the school has been holding flu vaccination clinics for students and staff this week.

Spikes in flu cases have also been seen at Florida State University and Florida A&M University, the Associated Press reported earlier this month.

Public health experts have warned that this flu season might be more severe, following last season’s mild flu activity.

Flu cases saw a significant drop during the 2020-2021 season according to the CDC — likely due in part to people wearing masks, practicing frequent hand hygiene and socially distancing to help limit the spread of COVID-19.

“As we head into respiratory virus season, it is important to take every mitigation measure we can to prevent outbreaks of the flu, RSV and COVID-19,” Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement. “Wearing masks, washing hands, social distancing and getting vaccinated for the flu and COVID-19 will help prevent the spread of illness.”

ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik contributed to this report.

Wife of al-Qaida hostage says U.S. effort to free him has failed, pleads with captors

November 17, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The wife of an American held hostage by Islamist militants in Africa broke years of silence on Wednesday to criticize U.S. government efforts and to make a plea to the leader of an al-Qaida-affiliated group to release her husband.

Els Woodke’s husband, Jeffery Woodke, is a Christian humanitarian aid worker who was kidnapped in October 2016 in Niger, where he had worked for decades aiding nomadic peoples in the Sahel region. She has largely avoided public comments other than several pleas to the captor networks, as her family and U.S. officials worked quietly to bring him home — but now she has decided to speak out.

“That situation has changed, and I’m now asking for help from my brothers and sisters in Christ, from the public, and from the governments of Mali and the United States,” said Woodke, a teacher’s assistant in McKinleyville, California.

Els Woodke appears in the new ABC News feature documentary “3212 UN-REDACTED” on Hulu to tell her husband’s story and reflect on an ill-fated U.S. Special Forces mission in 2017, which a former commanding general of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) claimed publicly was tied to finding Woodke.

On Wednesday she said her family has grown deeply frustrated with the U.S. government’s failure to secure her husband’s release. Woodke’s captivity has now spanned three U.S. administrations.

“I have been repeatedly threatened [by U.S. officials] that if I disclosed certain information that came from certain sources that I would no longer receive any information. I have also had so many restrictions imposed by the U.S. government that any meaningful attempt to raise a ransom is effectively prohibited,” Els Woodke said in her prepared remarks.

U.S. officials have shared with Els Woodke details of her husband’s captivity drawn from classified intelligence under condition of strict secrecy, sources involved in hostage recovery have told ABC News in the past.

Els Woodke disclosed that her family now has reason to believe from their own sources in Africa that her husband has been transferred from the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (IS-GS) to an al-Qaida affiliate in northwest Africa known as JNIM — which would offer hope because the JNIM leader in the past has negotiated the release of Western hostages in the Sahel. In August, French forces killed Adnan Abou Walid al-Sahrawi, the ISIS leader in northwest Africa, which Els Woodke said offers hope for a negotiation with JNIM.

“According to multiple sources of information, we believe that at some point prior to the death of Walid, Jeff was moved from the custody of ISIS-GS to the custody of JNIM,” she said in her remarks. “The circumstances of that movement aren’t understood yet.”

Jeffery “was alive this summer,” she said, adding that she was asking fellow Christians to help her raise funds for a ransom because foreign governments have shared that the captors want to be paid “millions.”

Addressing her husband directly, she said, “Jeff, I hope you hear that we are working hard for your release. Do not lose hope. We love you. Stay strong. Stay strong.”

Woodke also released a new video plea in French addressed to JNIM’s leader, Sheik Iyad ag Ghali.

“I believe that you have kept Jeff safe and healthy and I thank you for that. I believe that you also desire that Jeff should be returned to his home and his work on behalf of the Tuareg and other nomadic people of the region,” Els Woodke said in the video. “You are the only one with the power to make that happen. Releasing Jeff will require compassion and mercy, but these are the characteristics of a strong and courageous leader.”

U.S. counterterrorism and hostage recovery officials have disagreed over intelligence about who kidnapped and held Woodke captive, pivoting more than a year ago toward a belief that JNIM had taken custody of the aid worker, officials have told ABC News. JNIM has held most of the Western hostages kidnapped in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger for motives that range from acquiring ransom to using them as political bargaining chips.

In Woodke’s case, years went by without any communication or ransom demands by the captor network, sources involved in the case have told ABC News.

After a Green Beret team was ambushed leaving four U.S. soldiers dead in October 2017, then-AFRICOM commander Gen. Thomas Waldhauser made the startling claim that the team was attacked by ISIS near the village of Tongo Tongo after they had searched an empty ISIS campsite looking for intelligence on Woodke’s whereabouts. The claim shocked officers in the chain of command and in hostage recovery, whistleblowers say in the new documentary.

“I think it’s important to underscore why, then, was that mission undertaken? Why was it so important to send those people up there?” Waldhauser said at a Pentagon press conference in 2018. “We’ve had an American citizen by the name of Jeffery Woodke who has been captured and held hostage somewhere in that area for the last year and a half, and there was a possibility that what they might find at that target would be a piece of the puzzle of the whole-of-government approach, to try to return an American who’s been held hostage.”

“I had never heard that,” former Assistant Secretary of Defense (Acting) for Special Operations Mark Mitchell said in the ABC News film, regarding the Woodke connection to the ill-fated missions of the American team. “So I’m not sure where that characterization came from.”

Intelligence, military, FBI, and Trump White House officials have told ABC News that despite Waldhauser’s statements, the mission was never pegged to or driven by any efforts to find or recover Woodke and his name appears nowhere in AFRICOM’s 268-page investigative report, Mitchell and others have told ABC News.

Els Woodke and her two sons have wondered, however, if efforts to free her husband somehow led to the loss of the four American special operations soldiers.

“If this [mission] was indeed on my husband’s behalf, I would have to say, ‘Thank you so very much.’ Still, I am very sorry it happened,” she said in the documentary. “It’s a terrible burden to know that people [could] die in the attempt to rescue my husband … I don’t take that lightly.”

Lukashenko and Merkel discuss Belarus-Poland border crisis in hopes it can be stopped

November 17, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(BIALYSTOK, Poland) — Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel talked with Belarus’ authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, on Wednesday, as part of a burst of European diplomatic efforts to end the migration crisis on the Belarusian border with Poland that Lukashenko is accused of orchestrating.

Lukashenko’s office claimed that during a call Wednesday, he and Merkel had come to a “certain understanding” over the crisis and agreed to begin immediate negotiations to resolve it. In a statement, the office said the two had agreed the negotiations would also look at resolving the “refugees’ wish to get to Germany.”

But Merkel’s spokesperson did not confirm the same, saying only that during her call she had “underlined the need to provide humanitarian care and opportunities of return” for the migrants trapped at Belarus’ border.

The call with Merkel — the second in three days — nonetheless raised hopes the crisis at the border may be easing, as at least 2,000 migrants remained trapped in a camp near it on Wednesday night and likely hundreds more in the surrounding forests.

Videos aired by Belarusian state media shows groups of migrants in the camp near the border dancing and cheering, supposedly following the call between Lukashenko and Merkel.

Over 2,000 migrants, mostly from the Middle East, have been stranded in a makeshift camp at the border with Poland in freezing temperatures for over a week, since Belarusian forces escorted them there in what European countries say was an escalation of a months-long campaign to use migrants weapons.

Lukashenko is accused of luring thousands of migrants to Belarus and funneling them to neighboring Poland and Lithuania to create a crisis on the European Union’s eastern border as retaliation for its support of the pro-democracy movement that came close to toppling him last year.

Poland and Lithuania have blocked the migrants, and Belarusian border troops have prevented them from retreating, resulting in hundreds of people finding themselves trapped in the forests along the border without food or shelter, often for weeks. Several thousand are estimated to be in Belarus currently. At least 10 people have died, though activists believe the true toll is likely higher. Hundreds of migrants have been filmed in recent days in central Minsk.

Merkel’s call with Lukashenko followed violent clashes on Tuesday, when Polish border guards fired water cannons into some migrants who were throwing stones and missiles at them at a crossing point near the town of Kuznica. Poland’s government, as well as some migrants in the camp, have accused Belarusian authorities of inciting the violence.

In recent days there has been a flurry of European diplomatic activity to try to resolve the crisis. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has called on Belarus’ foreign minister, while Merkel and France’s President Emmanuel Macron have called Lukashenko’s chief backer: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Lukashenko’s office said on Wednesday Merkel had conveyed a demand from the European Union’s president Ursula Von Der Leyen to allow international humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, to begin working with the migrants.

Von Der Leyen wrote on Twitter on Wednesday: “People trapped at the border have to be repatriated.” The European Commission also said that it had allocated 700,000 euros in assistance to the people trapped at the border.

Following the violence on Tuesday, Belarus has moved hundreds of migrants to a warehouse near the border. But the vast majority of the migrants remained in the makeshift camp, according to Polish authorities, living largely in the open air and huddled around camp fires.

Migrants and Polish refugee charities have accused Belarusian authorities recently of manipulating migrants and spreading disinformation that they would soon be resettled to Germany and Poland.

Poland’s government has said it is strongly opposed to Germany and the EU’s outreach to Lukashenko over its head. Belarus’ democratic opposition has also cautioned against it.

“Dancing with the dictator is dangerous,” said Franak Viacorka, an aide to Belarus’ main opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, after the call with Merkel was announced. “Appeasement leads to impunity. When he feels that blackmail works, and can give him what he wants, he will escalate and lead to more victims if needed. Your humanity is just a weakness for him.”

Estonia’s foreign minister, Eva-Maria Liimets, said on Tuesday that during the call with Merkel on Monday, Lukashenko had demanded Europe recognize him as Belarus’ legitimate president and lift sanctions as conditions for ending the migrant crisis.

There was no sign on Wednesday of such a concession. Lukashenko’s press office said during his call with Merkel he had not raised the issue of his legitimacy and sanctions because they were “beneath him.”

Activist groups and volunteer medics have been continuing to try to reach migrants that are ill and who find themselves trapped in the forest on the Polish side. Poland’s border guard released a video on Wednesday showing a large number of migrants packing up at the Kuznica camp and being marched somewhere, escorted by Belarusian border guards. It was not clear where they were being taken.

Drug overdose deaths hit new high in US during the pandemic

November 17, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — More than 100,000 people in the U.S. died of a drug overdose during the first year of the pandemic, a nearly 29% increase from the same time period in 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday. The vast majority of those deaths were due to opioids, particularly synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

“An American dying every five minutes — that’s game-changing,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said at a media briefing.

The new data has prompted concern among officials about the worsening overdose epidemic.

In response to the findings, the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and other government health officials outlined new initiatives aimed at combating the overdose epidemic, including expanding access to naloxone — a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses, allowing federal dollars to be used to purchase fentanyl test strips to detect the presence of fentanyl in any drug batch and increasing funding toward addiction prevention efforts.

The CDC previously warned that the rate of overdose deaths accelerated during the pandemic — driven largely by synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, according to the National Institutes of Health.

It can also be manufactured to look like real prescription pills and be illegally imported and sold throughout the U.S., contributing to this crisis.

“We have already seized 12,000 pounds of fentanyl,” said Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. “This year alone, the DEA has seized enough fentanyl to provide every member of the United States population with a lethal dose.”

The increased number of deaths from overdoses is also concerning for public health experts.

“This alarming data indicates a crisis in the mental health community caused by both the ongoing pandemic and fentanyl’s explosion on the illegal drug scene,” said Dr. Akhil Anand, a psychiatrist with Cleveland Clinic. “This new report should be another continued wake-up call to the overdose deaths happening every day, and people often don’t even know what they are taking. This is a public health crisis, and it is crucial we continue to get people into treatment quickly.”

The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics launched a new interactive dashboard with an overview of the new data, featuring a U.S. map showing the increase in deaths.

Lauren Joseph, a student at Stanford Medical School, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit. Alexis E. Carrington, M.D., is an ABC News Medical Unit associate producer and a rising dermatology resident at The George Washington University.

2 arrested during Kyle Rittenhouse trial protests

November 17, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(KENOSHA COUNTY, Wis.) — Two people were arrested Wednesday outside the Kenosha County Courthouse, where protesters have gathered while awaiting a verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse homicide trial, authorities said.

A 20-year-old man was arrested for battery, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, while a 34-year-old female was arrested for disorderly conduct, according to the Kenosha Police Department.

“During the arrests law enforcement needed to deploy several officers to keep crowds of citizens and media from interfering,” the department said in a statement.

After hearing two weeks of testimony and closing arguments, the Kenosha County Circuit Court jury started deliberating Tuesday in the closely watched trial. After two full days, deliberations will resume Thursday.

Amid the wait for a verdict, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers had made a plea for peace Tuesday, calling for people to assemble “safely and peacefully” in Kenosha.

“Kenoshans are strong, resilient, and have worked hard to heal and rebuild together over the past year,” he tweeted Tuesday. “Any efforts to sow division and hinder that healing are unwelcome in Kenosha and Wisconsin. Regardless of the outcome in this case, I urge peace in Kenosha and across our state.”

Ahead of the verdict, Evers had previously authorized about 500 National Guard troops to be on standby to support public safety efforts if needed.

Local authorities said they “recognize the anxiety” surrounding the trial, but are not issuing a curfew or road closures at this time.

“Our departments have worked together and made coordinated efforts over the last year to improve response capabilities to large scale events. We have also strengthened our existing relationships with State and Federal resources,” the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department and Kenosha Police Department said in a joint statement Tuesday. “At this time, we have no reason to facilitate road closures, enact curfews or ask our communities to modify their daily routines.”

Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide and two felony counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety.

The charges stem from the fatal shootings of Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and a shooting that left 27-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz wounded during riots that erupted in Kenosha last year over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Those gathering outside the courthouse have included members of Blake’s family and Black Lives Matter activists, calling for justice for the three men shot, as well as Rittenhouse supporters — among them Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a St. Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home last year.

ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson and Whitney Lloyd contributed to this report.

House votes to censure GOP Rep. Gosar, remove him from committees over violent video

November 17, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The House voted for a resolution on Wednesday that both censures Republican Rep. Paul Gosar and removes him from his committee assignments after the Arizona congressman tweeted an edited Japanese anime cartoon last week showing him stabbing President Joe Biden and killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., before he deleted it.

The vote was 223-207, largely along party lines. GOP Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming voted with all Democrats to censure Gosar. Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, voted “present.”

Gosar, flanked by nearly two dozen colleagues in the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, stood in the well of the House as the censure resolution was read aloud.

Democrats spent hours on the House floor Wednesday excoriating GOP leaders for not publicly condemning the Twitter post from Gosar, an ardent Trump supporter who has espoused conspiracy theories and associated with white nationalist groups in the past.

“This is not about me,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an impassioned floor speech. “This is not about representative Gosar. This is about what we’re willing to accept. “

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the first to kick off debate on Gosar’s actions which, she said, “demand a response.”

“We cannot have members joking about murdering each other or threatening the president of the United States. This is both an indictment of our elected officials and an insult to the institution of the House of Representatives. It’s not just about us as members of Congress. It is a danger that it represents to everyone in the country,” Pelosi said.

“When a member uses his or her national platform to encourage violence, tragically, people listen to those words,” Pelosi added, before condemning House GOP leadership for, in her view, not holding their colleague accountable. “It is sad that this entire House must take this step because of the refusal of the leadership of the other party.”

She said it took nine days for Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy to speak out publicly about the incident and that when he did, he “merely” said there was no harm intended.

Sources confirmed to ABC News on Tuesday that Gosar apologized for the tweet behind closed doors during a GOP conference meeting. McCarthy said he had also spoken privately with Gosar about the tweet, but he did not appear to take further action against him.

McCarthy opposes the Democratic move to censure Gosar and remove him from his committee assignments, but instead of defending Gosar’s actions ahead of the vote, he blasted Democrats for what he deemed was an overreach of power.

“The speaker is burning down the House on her way out the door,” McCarthy said. “Let me be clear. I do not condone violence, and representative Gosar has echoed that sentiment.”

Gosar, speaking publicly about the video for the first time, which he said in an earlier statement was an attempt by his staff to reach a younger audience, said he doesn’t condone violence but appeared to accept his fate as Democrats barrel towards the vote.

“I do not espouse violence or harm towards any member of Congress or Mr. Biden,” Gosar said, notably not calling Biden “president.”

“If I must join Alexander Hamilton, the first person attempted to be censored by this House, so be it. It is done,” he added.

Ocasio-Cortez urged her colleagues to vote “yes” and said the depictions are part of a larger trend of misogyny and racism in America.

“Can you find anyone in the chamber that finds this behavior acceptable?” she asked her colleagues. “Would you allow that in your home? Do you think this should happen on a school board…a church?”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said to reporters during a press call on Tuesday, “I have never in 40 years seen such a vile, hateful, outrageous, dangerous, and inciting to violence against a colleague, ever.”

“The fact that they would not take some action themselves or make some comments themselves, which I have not seen, is a testament that perhaps they are rationalizing, as they rationalize other items of criminal behavior, this particular action,” Hoyer said of Republicans.

The resolution would boot Gosar from the Oversight and Reform Committee, which he serves on alongside Ocasio-Cortez. It would also remove him from the Committee on Natural Resources.

Late Monday night, Pelosi told reporters it was up to McCarthy to rein in and reprimand his conference members — but Democrats, outraged over Gosar’s behavior, insisted on a floor vote. On Tuesday, she deemed the resolution as an appropriate measure.

“Why go after [Gosar]? Because he made threats, suggestions about harming a member of Congress…We cannot have members joking about murdering each other as well as threatening the president of the United States,” Pelosi said.

A censure resolution requires a simple majority of lawmakers present and voting. If it is approved, Gosar could be forced to stand in the center of the House chamber as the resolution condemning his actions is read aloud.

Later on, Gosar tweeted out a meme that says, “God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers.”

Twenty-three members of Congress have been censured for misconduct, according to a 2016 Congressional Research Service Report.

Former Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., was the last member of Congress to be censured — in December 2010 — accused of nearly a dozen ethics violations.

Travis McMichael testifies in his own defense in Ahmaud Arbery case

November 17, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — In a high-stakes move, Travis McMichael, the man who fatally shot Ahmaud Arbery, took the witness stand in his own defense Tuesday afternoon.

The 35-year-old McMichael was the first defense witness called to testify a day after the prosecution rested its murder case against him, his 65-year-old father, Gregory McMichael, and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, 53.

Under questioning from his attorney, Jason Sheffield, Travis McMichael began his testimony by saying he was aware he had no obligation to testify.

“Do you want to testify?” Sheffield asked.

Travis McMichael responded, “I want to give my side of the story. I want to explain what happened and to be able to say what happened from the way I see.”

The McMichaels and Bryan have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, aggravated assault and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.

The defense began putting on its case after Judge Timothy Walmsley rejected each defendant’s request to acquit them after their lawyers argued the state had not met its burden of proof.

Crime spike in Satilla Shores

Travis McMichael testified that when he first moved into his parents’ home in the Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick, Georgia, the waterfront community was mostly peaceful, full of retirees and young families with children.

“It’s one of the typical small-town neighborhoods,” he said. “You’d have people ride around golf carts, people walking dogs, people with their kids, the little power wheels… And it’s just a real quiet community.”

But Travis McMichael testified that after moving to Satilla Shores, he and his neighbors began to experience a crime wave with frequent burglaries and “more suspicious persons lurking around.”

“It was rare at first, but it started building up,” he said of crime in Satilla Shores.

He said his own car was burglarized multiple times to the point he would just leave it unlocked. He also said a Smith & Wesson pistol was stolen from his truck parked outside his parents’ house on Jan. 1, 2020.

Travis McMichael said the crime spike was the talk of his household and became a major topic of discussion among his neighbors and on a community watch Facebook page.

Coast Guard training

Sheffield then asked Travis McMichael about his background as a member of the U.S. Coast Guard between 2007 and 2016. He said he had extensive training in law enforcement, including the use of deadly force and de-escalation, while in the Coast Guard and that besides his primary job as a mechanic, he also participated in search-and-rescue operations, and immigration and drug enforcement operations.

He said one de-escalation technique he was trained to do was to use a firearm as a deterrent.

“You pull a weapon on someone from what I’ve learned in my training that usually causes people to back off or to realize what’s happening,” McMichael testified.

He added that on two occasions as a civilian he once scared off would-be robbers at an ATM machine and on another occasion deterred a potential carjacker.

He said that as part of his training in the military he also learned never to let someone take his gun in a confrontation because if that occurs they could use it to harm him and others.

Encounter with prowler

Sheffield directed Travis McMichael’s attention to an incident that occurred on Feb. 11, 2020, twelve days before the fatal encounter with Arbery.

He testified that he was driving to get gas when he saw a man dart across the road in front of him and start “creeping through the shadows” outside a home under construction down the street from his parent’s house.

“I got out of the vehicle to ask him what he was doing, maybe run him off,” Travis McMichael said.

He said the man came out of the shadows toward him.

“He pulls up his shirt and goes to reach for his pocket or his waistband area,” he testified. “It startled me. It freaked me out.”

He testified that he went home and called 911, armed himself and returned to the house with his father, but the prowler had vanished.

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

Two men found guilty in the Malcolm X assassination expected to have convictions thrown out

November 17, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Nearly 57 years after the assassination of Malcolm X in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance is moving to vacate the convictions of two of the men convicted as accomplices, his office said Wednesday.

Muhammad Aziz, now 83 and previously known as Norman Butler, spent 22 years in prison before he was paroled in 1985. A co-defendant who also maintained his innocence, Khalil Islam, died in 2009. Confessed assassin Thomas Hagan had long said neither man participated in killing Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965.

Vance’s office, along with the Innocence Project and civil rights attorney David Shanies, began reexamining the investigation last year.

“The assassination of Malcolm X was a historic event that demanded a scrupulous investigation and prosecution but, instead, produced one of the most blatant miscarriages of justice that I have ever seen,” Barry Scheck with the Innocence Project said in a statement Wednesday.

A spokesman said the FBI cooperated with the district attorney’s review.

Vance, Shanies Law and Innocence Project will file a joint motion on Thursday to vacate the 1966 convictions.

“The joint motion is the culmination of a collaborative reinvestigation of the case which began in January 2020 and unearthed new evidence of Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam’s innocence, including FBI documents that had been available at the time of trial but were withheld from both the defense and prosecution,” the lawyers for Aziz and Islam said in a statement Wednesday.

This past February new questions were raised about the NYPD’s handling of the investigation after a letter surfaced that had been written by a former New York City Police Department officer on his death bed.

On Jan. 25, 2011, Ray Wood, who was serving as an undercover police officer on the day of Malcolm X’s death, wrote a letter in which he admitted he “participated in actions that in hindsight were deplorable and detrimental to the advancement of my own black people.”

When Wood was hired by the NYPD in 1964, his job was to “infiltrate civil rights organizations” to find evidence of criminal activity so the FBI could discredit the subjects and arrest its leaders, Wood wrote in the letter obtained by ABC News.

Wood’s handler devised the arrest of two of Malcolm X’s “key” security detail members in a plot to bomb the Statue of Liberty days before his 1965 assassination, Wood wrote.

“It was my assignment to draw the two men into a felonious federal crime, so that they could be arrested by the FBI and kept away from managing Malcolm X’s door security on February 21, 1965,” Wood wrote. “… At that time I was not aware that Malcolm X was the target.”

Wood wrote that, as he faced failing health, he was concerned that the family of Thomas Johnson, one of the men convicted of killing Malcolm X, would not be able to exonerate him after Wood died. Johnson was arrested at the Audubon Ballroom the night Malcolm X was killed to protect Wood’s cover and “the secrets of the FBI and NYPD,” Wood wrote.

Wood placed his full confession into the care of his cousin, Reginald Wood Jr., and requested that the information be held until after his death.

“Muhammad’s and Khalil’s convictions were the product of gross official misconduct and a criminal justice system weighed against people of color,” Their exoneration was decades in the making and is proof that we need—and are able—to do better.” Deborah Francois, Shanies Law, said in a statement Wednesday.

COVID-19 live updates: Moderna asks FDA to authorize booster for all adults

November 17, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 766,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Just 68.9% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Latest headlines:
-Moderna asks FDA to authorize booster for all adults
-27 states see at least 10% jump in daily cases
-FDA may issue guidance on boosters for adults as soon as this week
-Pfizer asks FDA for COVID-19 pill authorization

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.

Nov 17, 2:26 pm
Moderna asks FDA to authorize booster for all adults

Moderna has now asked the FDA to authorize its COVID-19 booster for all adults.

Pfizer has already asked the FDA to amend its booster authorization to all adults.

The FDA could make an authorization decision by Friday. The CDC also needs to sign off. The CDC’s advisory committee will meet on Friday to discuss new booster recommendations.

Johnson & Johnson boosters are already authorized for everyone 18 and older.

ABC News’ Sony Salzman

Nov 17, 1:24 pm
2.6 million kids to be vaccinated by end of day: White House

Nearly 10% of the 28 million eligible 5- to 11-year-olds will be partially vaccinated by the end of Wednesday, White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said at a White House briefing.

The kids vaccine program has been operational for about 10 days.

ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett

Nov 17, 12:43 pm
27 states see at least 10% jump in daily cases

The Northeast and Midwest have seen the greatest increase in cases and hospitalizations as the weather gets colder and people head indoors, according to federal data.

Twenty states have reported at least a 10% increase in hospital admissions over the last week: Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin.

Twenty-seven states have seen at least a 10% jump in daily cases over the last two weeks: Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, New York City, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin.

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Nov 17, 12:28 pm
Kansas, Maine offering boosters to all adults

All fully vaccinated adults in Kansas and Maine can now get a booster if it’s been six months since their Pfizer or Moderna dose or two months since their Johnson & Johnson shot, the governors said.

“Expanding access to booster shots will help us put an end to this deadly pandemic,” Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said in a statement.

Nirav D. Shah, director of the Maine CDC, said, “Given the high level of COVID-19 transmission occurring in Maine, we want Maine people to be clear that all adults are now eligible for a booster.”

Booster eligibility has been expanded to all adults in several other states, including New York, New Jersey, Arkansas and Colorado.

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