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Family of Casey Goodson react to former sheriff deputy’s murder charges

December 2, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Former Ohio sheriff’s deputy Jason Meade was charged with murder on Thursday in the fatal shooting of a Black man who was shot and killed while entering his grandmother’s house last December.

In March, the Franklin County Coroner said that Casey Goodson was shot in his back five times, according to ABC affiliate WSYX in Columbus, Ohio. Meade was charged with two counts of murder and one count of reckless homicide.

Goodson’s mother, Tamala Payne, said it had been “a year of grief and a year of pain” at a press conference Thursday morning.

“I’m overwhelmed with joy,” she said in response to the charges. “My emotions are everywhere. We did it y’all. We did it.”

Meade’s attorney, Mark C. Collins, said in a statement that his client “acted within his lawful duties as an officer of the law when he pursued Mr. Goodson,” and said Meade fired his weapon at Goodson in “fear for his life as well as those inside the house.”

Meade turned himself in Thursday and plans to plead not guilty, Collins said.

The attorney for Goodson’s family, Sean Walton, announced that they also filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Meade and Franklin County on Thursday. The lawsuit alleges excessive force, wrongful death and that the practices of the Franklin County Sheriff’s office contributed to Goodson’s death.

Franklin County has declined to comment on the civil lawsuit, citing pending litigation, WSYX reported.

Payne said she ultimately wants Meade convicted and given a life sentence for her son’s killing.

“We are fully aware that this is only the beginning of the fight,” she said at the press conference. “This was the first part of the fight. The ultimate fight is the conviction and I want a life sentence, that’s what I’m fighting for.”

Payne also said that Thursday’s indictment showed that her family’s portrayal of Goodson was accurate.

“Casey is exactly who we say he is,” she said. “Casey was a good son. He was a loving son. Casey was a good grandson. Casey was a good brother, a good role model. Casey was exactly who we portrayed Casey to be.”

Initially, U.S. Marshal Peter Tobin said Meade confronted Goodson after Goodson waved a gun at him. According to the Associated Press, he later withdrew those remarks, saying they were based on “insufficient information.”

Payne argued that the indictment showed that the claim Goodson was waving a gun is a lie, though Collins, Meade’s attorney, pushed back on that claim in a statement, alleging that Goodson was “waving the firearm erratically and tracked Meade with the weapon,” as he drove by Meade’s vehicle.

Following Meade’s indictment, Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin said in a statement that he asked his staff to review the investigation so the agency could learn from this situation.

“This office has a professional obligation to do everything in its power to ensure the community and our deputies are kept safe,” he said. “As I’ve said from the very beginning, I pray for everyone involved in this tragedy.”

Walton said that the family’s lawsuit would bring some level of accountability to Goodson’s family, who he said had been traumatized by the shooting.

“Since that day, they’ve had to deal with this daily sadness and grief for nearly a year,” he said. “So this day could not come soon enough. But they stayed strong, they never wavered, and they told the truth. And the truth will prevail in this case.”

Nine members of Goodson’s family, including four children, were in his grandmother’s home when he was shot, Walton said.

Florida teen stabbed to death by ‘homeless drifter,’ police say

December 2, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(MIAMI) — Investigators arrested a homeless man in Miami, who, they said, was responsible for the homicide of a 14-year-old boy in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Police said they took Semmie Lee Williams Jr., a 39-year-old “homeless drifter,” into custody on Wednesday night on the charge of stabbing Ryan Rogers to death on Nov. 15.

According to an affidavit, Rogers’ autopsy revealed that he had been stabbed numerous times in the head and face and his cause of death was stab wounds.

DNA evidence from a pair of headphones found near Rogers’ body was entered into a database and provided a positive match to Williams, police said.

Police said they located Williams in Miami and found DNA belonging to Rogers on a bloody bandana.

The homicide was a “completely random act,” Palm Beach Gardens Police Chief Clint Shannon said in a press conference Tuesday morning.

He described the incident as an “innocent child victim having a chance encounter with a very violent criminal.”

Rogers left his house on his bike on Nov. 15 around 6:40 p.m. local time and was reported missing later that night by his mother when he didn’t return home. His body was found the next day on Central Boulevard near an I-95 overpass, police said.

On Nov. 25, police ruled Rogers’ death a homicide and announced a reward for information linked to it.

Williams has been charged with first-degree murder with a weapon and was presented in court Tuesday morning, where his bond was denied. He holds a criminal record and has been previously convicted for domestic violence, battery and aggravated assault.

Shannon called Williams “an animal who probably shouldn’t be out on our streets” and thanked the public officers and investigators who “removed a very dangerous monster from our street” in the Tuesday morning press conference.

Williams’ next court date is set for Jan. 3, 2022, according to local ABC affiliate WPBF.

Texas law restricting access to abortion pills goes into effect: What to know

December 2, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As the U.S. Supreme Court continues to weigh whether to leave Texas’s unprecedented six-week abortion ban, SB8, in place, a new law that also restricts abortion access is going into effect in the state.

Starting Thursday, people in Texas will have a narrower window in which they can receive abortion-inducing medication, including the two most commonly used medications, mifepristone and misoprostol.

Senate Bill 4, or SB4, cuts the window in which physicians are allowed to give the medication from 10 weeks of pregnancy to seven weeks.

The new law also prohibits mailing abortion-inducing drugs, a restriction that contrasts with a federal regulation enacted in April by the Biden administration that temporarily allows the medication to be mailed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Current Texas law already bans providers from administering medication abortion using telemedicine, according to Abigail R.A. Aiken, MD, MPH, PhD, associate professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and principal investigator with Project SANA, a research project focused on self-managed abortion in the U.S.

“We’ve seen many states be able to open up new models of care where clinic-based providers can now do medication abortion by telemedicine,” said Aiken. “I think Texas is very clear that they don’t want providers here to follow suit and be able to start doing those kinds of new models where you would do a phone consultation with a provider and then have the pills mailed to your house for use at home.”

The bill, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on Sept. 24, also adds new requirements around medication abortions, including an in-person examination by a physician, a mandatory follow-up visit within 14 days and new reporting requirements for providers.

The bill also creates a state jail felony offense for “a person who intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly violates provisions relating to abortion-inducing drugs,” but exempts pregnant people on whom a medication abortion is “attempted, induced or performed,” according to the bill summary.

Though SB4 is being enacted in Texas, medication abortion is now a very common method used for abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. In 2019, 42% of all abortions in the U.S. were early medical abortions, meaning medications were taken at nine weeks or earlier after conception, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Medication abortions were first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000. FDA guidelines advise that abortion-inducing pills are safe to use up to 70 days, or 10 weeks, after conception, though evidence shows it can be safe even later in pregnancy, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

In most cases in a medication abortion, mifepristone is taken first to stop the pregnancy from growing. Then, a second pill, misoprostol, is then taken to empty the uterus.

Of the two medications, mifepristone is more restricted by the FDA. Since 2011, the agency has applied a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy to mifepristone, preventing it from being distributed at pharmacies or delivered by mail like other prescription drugs.

It must be ordered, prescribed and dispensed by a health care provider who meets certain qualifications, and may only be distributed in clinics, medical offices, and hospitals by a certified health care provider, according to FDA guidelines.

The FDA’s rules, combined with state restrictions like the one in Texas, have the effect of not only limiting when, where and how people can get abortions, but also potentially misguiding people on the safety of medication abortion, according to Dr. Bhavik Kumar, a staff physician at Planned Parenthood Center for Choice in Houston.

“What’s important to note is that the medication used in medication abortion has been used in this country for 21 years and it is extremely safe,” said Kumar. “We’ve learned a lot since it was first introduced and can use it in different ways that are more patient-centered, more evidence-informed and really optimizes science and medicine so that patients get the care that they need.”

Speaking of the new law now in effect in Texas, he added, “What Senate Bill 4 is doing is inserting itself squarely into my relationship with my patients and telling me how to practice medicine, and it’s not in the best interest of my patients. It’s actually causing more harm to my patients and it’s taking options away from them.”

Abortion rights advocates say SB4 also has the likelihood of signaling to other states that further restrictions on medication abortion can be put in place.

In South Dakota in September — the same month SB4 was signed into law in Texas — Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, issued an executive order directing the state’s Department of Health to establish rules requiring that abortion-inducing drugs only be prescribed and dispensed by a state-licensed physician after an in-person examination. Noem said she also plans to pass legislation next year that makes “these and other protocols permanent.”

Across the country, more than 30 states require clinicians who administer medication abortion to be physicians, while 19 states require the clinician providing a medication abortion to be physically present when the medication is administered, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

“I think we have to see this is another continuation of the trajectory of trying to really make abortion a right on paper only in the United States,” said Aiken. “It’s another way of placing barriers in the way of people.”

She continued, speaking of restrictive abortion laws in some states, “I think what it’s doing in reality is creating this really uneven picture where you have some states that are moving in the direction of more and more and more accessible care, but the reality in other states is completely the reverse, so we’re looking at that uneven picture where your access really depends on your zip code.”

Both Aiken and Kumar mentioned the affect laws like SB4 in Texas have on the most vulnerable populations.

Around 75% of abortion patients are low-income residents, and nearly 60% of U.S. women of reproductive age live in states where access to abortion is restricted, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization.

“It has been the case in Texas now for decades that we have seen low-income people and communities of color just bear this disproportionate brunt of negative impacts of these laws,” said Aiken. “So this is an equity issue and it’s a justice issue as well as a health care issue.”

What’s behind the ‘dire’ COVID-19 surge in Michigan?

December 2, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(OKEMOS, Mich.) — Michigan is in the midst of its fourth COVID-19 wave — and there is no end in sight, hospital officials said.

Cases and hospitalizations are rivaling levels seen in earlier parts of the pandemic, when vaccines weren’t widely available. The surge also comes at a time when non-COVID-19-related patients are being admitted, flu cases are emerging and health systems are understaffed, Brian Peters, CEO of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, told ABC News.

Unvaccinated people continue to make up the majority of those infected with COVID-19, including severe cases of the infection. Roughly around three-quarters of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths were in unvaccinated people from Oct. 21 to Nov. 19, according to state data.

Around 45% of the state remains unvaccinated, according to federal data.

“The situation right here in Michigan is as dire as it has ever been since the start of this pandemic,” Peters said.

Michigan reported a nearly 20% positivity rate in the past week, and every county is currently at the state’s highest risk level for transmission.

Michigan is not alone in seeing COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations increase due to the delta variant, especially as colder weather has approached, people have gathered indoors more and pandemic fatigue has long set in. Though the duration of this surge, and the speed with which cases have “skyrocketed” in the past three weeks, is alarming, Dr. Darryl Elmouchi, president of Spectrum Health West Michigan, which operates 14 hospitals, told ABC News.

“If you look at most other states, and all the surges we’ve had, usually you start at a low point and you go up really quickly, and then you come down pretty quickly,” he said. “What happened for us is we went up gradually enough, but we went up high enough, with [positivity rates] in the teens, that when we shot up, we shot up from that baseline.”

“This has far surpassed anything we’ve seen before — both in how long it’s been going on, and now its seemingly never-ending peak,” he added. “We just don’t know when the end will be, and we’re very worried it will have a very long tail.”

Michigan reported its second-highest number of COVID-19 cases and case rates in the past week, according to the state’s latest weekly coronavirus report, released Tuesday. That follows records set in both cases and case rates the previous week. Hospitalized COVID-19 patients also increased 13% during the past week, the report found.

“I felt like probably the surge we had last fall was going to be the worst we’ve ever seen. I never would have guessed that we would be in yet another surge and that it would be the worst surge yet,” Sandra Gilman, a nurse and hospital supervisor for Spectrum Health, told ABC News.

At Spectrum Health West Michigan, unvaccinated COVID-19 patients are generally about nine years younger and only have two comorbidities, as opposed to four, when compared to vaccinated patients, “meaning that they’re younger and healthier when they’re coming in,” Elmouchi said.

“That tells us the importance of being vaccinated,” he said. “And that’s what’s so heartbreaking for our teams, is that they see all these people that are so sick, being on the ventilator and even dying, and they know it’s preventable. It’s heart-wrenching.”

Due to a mix of early nursing retirements, pandemic burnout and a “rising tide of violence” against health care staff, Michigan hospitals are treating the latest surge in COVID-19 patients amid a staffing shortage, according to Peters. There are approximately 875 fewer staffed hospital beds in Michigan than in November 2020, he said.

“That is incredibly concerning, because there’s not a rapid or easy solution to that problem,” Peters said.

Amid the staffing strain, this week, the Department of Defense temporarily deployed nearly four dozen medical personnel, including registered nurses, doctors and respiratory therapists, to two hospital systems in the state.

The help is welcome, though more is needed, Peters said, especially as the pandemic only worsened an existing health care workforce shortage. Among other measures, his organization is advocating for a $650 million special appropriation in the state legislature that would provide payments to health care staff to encourage them to stay in their jobs, as well as offer incentives for training programs to increase the number of workers in the pipeline, he said.

For now, hospital capacity remains a concern throughout the state, where every region, from urban to rural, is a “hotspot,” Peters said.

At Spectrum Health West Michigan, the intensive care units are operating at 147% of their traditional capacity, Elmouchi said.

Statewide, hospitals are operating at almost 85% occupancy, according to state data.

In recent weeks, some hospitals have had to divert patients to other hospitals and delay elective procedures, Peters said.

“That doesn’t necessarily create a quality-of-care problem as much as it can be a convenience problem,” he said. “But what we’re very fearful of, is that if these COVID numbers don’t level off and decline, you’re going to start seeing real access challenges, where literally there’s no more capacity to care for patients, COVID or otherwise, in certain communities.”

“We’re doing everything we possibly can to avoid that outcome, but without the public’s help, that’s our future,” he added.

Health officials are urging residents to get vaccinated and receive booster shots and to mask up indoors in public settings to help alleviate the surge — especially amid concerns and questions around the transmissibility and mutations of the new omicron variant, which was first detected in the U.S. Wednesday in California.

“Ensuring that as many Michiganders as possible are vaccinated remains the best protection we have against COVID-19 — including variants of concern,” Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Michigan’s chief medical executive, said in a statement this week.

Peters said he has been encouraged by the continued increase in vaccinations in the state, including among newly eligible pediatric populations, but “those numbers aren’t growing rapidly enough.”

“[Omicron] is yet another reason for the public to get vaccinated now without waiting any longer,” he said. “I fear that there are so many Michiganders, and I’m sure it’s true outside of Michigan as well, but who believe that the pandemic is largely over. And nothing could be further from the truth.”

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.

COVID-19 live updates: First omicron case in US identified in California

December 2, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.2 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 780,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Just 59.4% of the population in the United States is 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:

Dec 02, 9:33 am
Unvaccinated people will be barred from most businesses in Germany

Unvaccinated people in Germany will be barred from most businesses, except for grocery stores and pharmacies, officials announced Thursday.

In Germany, shops and restaurants check vaccination status at entrances.

Nearly 69% of Germans are fully vaccinated. The country has reported several cases of the omicron variant.

-ABC News’ Joe Simonetti

Dec 02, 8:33 am
Mask mandate on public transportation extended through March 18

Required masks on public transportation, including airplanes, rails and buses, will be extended through March 18, according to a new plan from the Biden administration.

Tighter requirements for travel into the U.S. will go into place early next week, the administration said. The rule calls for proof of a negative test within one day of travel to the U.S. for all passengers, regardless of their vaccination status or nationality.

President Joe Biden also announced a plan Thursday allowing for free rapid tests.

Senior administration officials say the more than 150 million Americans with private insurance will be able to submit for reimbursement to their insurance companies through the same rule that allows tests on site to be covered by insurance. To reach uninsured Americans and those on Medicare or Medicaid, the Biden administration will send 50 million at-home tests to 20,000 federal sites around the country to be handed out for free.

The Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Labor and Treasury Department will put out guidance by Jan. 15 to determine exactly how many tests will be covered and at what frequency, the plan said, and it will not retroactively cover tests already purchased.

-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett, Justin Gomez

Dec 01, 5:32 pm
CDC orders airlines to share contact info for travelers from southern Africa

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is directing airlines to provide the agency with the names and contact information of passengers who have entered the United States since Nov. 29 and had been in southern Africa the prior two weeks. Airlines must turn the information over within 24 hours of the flight’s arrival into the U.S.

The directive, in effect indefinitely, applies to travelers from the Republic of Botswana, the Kingdom of Eswatini, the Kingdom of Lesotho, the Republic of Malawi, the Republic of Mozambique, the Republic of Namibia, the Republic of South Africa and the Republic of Zimbabwe.

The order, which does not mention the omicron variant specifically, is to “prevent the importation and spread of a communicable disease of public health importance.”

Delta and United are currently the only two carriers that offer flights between the U.S. and countries covered by the CDC order.

ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett, Sam Sweeney and Mina Kaji

Dec 01, 3:23 pm
California governor on omicron case: ‘This is not surprising’

Gov. Gavin Newsom said the first detected case of the omicron variant in the U.S. being found in California “is not surprising” due to the state’s “aggressive testing protocols” and genomic sequencing.

During a previously scheduled press briefing Wednesday afternoon, he shared a timeline on the San Francisco resident who tested positive for the case. The person left South Africa on Nov. 21 and landed in the U.S. on Nov. 22, developed symptoms a few days later around Nov. 25 and got tested on Nov. 28, he said. The test came back positive on Nov. 29, he said.

On Nov. 30, initial lab testing determined the sample could be omicron, and a full sequencing confirmed it was early Wednesday morning, San Francisco health officials said.

Newsom encouraged Californians to get vaccinated and receive a booster shot as the winter approaches.

Dec 01, 3:02 pm
California omicron case ‘not a cause for us to panic,’ health director says

The individual who tested positive for the first case of the omicron variant detected in the U.S. had received a full dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine but was not yet eligible for a booster dose, according to San Francisco Department of Public Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax.

The person developed symptoms upon returning from South Africa, got tested in San Francisco and has since recovered, Colfax told reporters during a briefing Wednesday.

“They did the right thing and got tested and reported their travel history,” he said.

Colfax said the case is “not a cause for us to panic,” and that San Francisco “is prepared” for this.

The health department has no plans at this time to change its current COVID-19 health orders, Colfax said.

New York scientists double down on efforts to track new omicron variant

December 2, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(ALBANY, N.Y.) — With mounting concerns over the potential threat of the newly discovered omicron variant, U.S. scientists are racing to try to determine whether there are any confirmed cases of the new variant circulating around the country.

Among those is the New York State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center Labs in Albany, New York, where for months, scientists have been on the lookout for dangerous variants, while monitoring the genetic changes in the COVID-19 virus.

In order to track new variants, the team sequences the virus’s genetic material to identify its lineage, strain and mutations, as well as to see how the virus is evolving, and which viruses are entering the state of New York.

The lab has been on high alert since the discovery of the omicron variant, analyzing positive COVID-19 samples from across the state to see if the variant is already present within the community.

On Wednesday, scientists in California confirmed the first known case of omicron in the U.S.

It is “absolutely, entirely possible,” that the omicron variant is already circulating in many other communities across the country, Dr. Kirsten St. George, director of virology and chief of the Laboratory of Viral Diseases at the Wadsworth Center, told ABC News on Tuesday.

“We only sequence a subset of samples in New York and elsewhere in the country. We’re not sequencing 100% of positive specimens. It is entirely possible that it is already here, and we have yet to sequence the specimen that it’s in,” St. George said on Tuesday, prior to the news of the U.S.’ first confirmed case.

St. George said she was taken aback when she first saw a 3D image, shared by South Africa, of omicron’s mutations.

“You could see the individual mutations marked on that protein, and it was really pretty jaw dropping, because it had so many more mutations than anything we’ve ever seen. It was a fairly startling thing to look at,” St. George said, adding that “the evolutionary change on that protein was more extensive than anything we had seen.”

Omicron is concerning because it has mutations not seen before, and scientists still do not know how it will clinically affect those it infects, St. George said, adding that “there are mutations that we unfortunately know can be associated with reduced efficacy of immunity.”

The lab has been sequencing over 800 COVID-19 samples per week, researchers explained, a number that has been greatly enhanced with the establishment of a sequencing consortium, which comprises four other sequencing laboratories around the state, and also by collaboration with other labs across the state.

“These are known positive COVID samples that have been collected from throughout New York state and they’re sent to us and we’re preparing them for whole genome sequencing,” Alexis Russell, a research scientist for the lab, told ABC News.

With multiple labs, throughout the country, sequencing different percentages of the positive specimens, and sharing data as soon as it is available, “we will know immediately when we see it, when it comes through the pipeline,” St. George said

Following the discovery of the omicron variant, South Africa, one of the first countries where the newest variant was first discovered, has begun to experience an uptick in coronavirus infections. According to St. George, it is possible that omicron is behind South Africa’s latest surge.

“The correlation of the emergence of that variant in South Africa, combined with the rapid increase in positivity and increase in case count, is quite suspicious,” St. George said. “I think it’s quite possible that it correlates with that variant and that it is probably a rapidly transmissible variant.”

However, it is “very unlikely” that the increase in COVID-19 cases seen in the U.S., in recent weeks, is the result of the omicron. St. George said, “I think if that were the case, we would have seen it already in our sequencing pipeline.”

It is still too early to know whether omicron will turn out to be more transmissible than delta, St. George said, though some of the existing PCR tests just happen to pick up an omicron marker, making it easier to detect than delta.

Positive samples for omicron have shown a phenomenon called “S-gene-dropout,” which means that a target gene, linked to COVID-19 variants, appears to be missing from the new variant, allowing it to be distinguished easily from the dominant delta variant.

“It is a very suspicious indicator when you see it, a convenient indicator,” St. George explained, making it potentially easier to detect omicron as compared to delta.

The discovery of new variants is not unexpected, St. George said, but it becomes particularly worrisome when it replicates at high numbers, increasing the chances of a mutation emerging.

“The more virus that it’s producing, the more chance it has of producing a virus with a mutant. And then the more people who are infected, the higher the risk again, the higher the chance of producing it,” St. George added.

It is possible that omicron could prove to be stronger than the delta variant, which has been shown to be far more transmissible than prior variants.

“The competition against delta is quite dramatic. It certainly looks as if it’s got a very good fitness advantage against it, at this point,” St. George said.

However, researchers cautioned that there are also times when viruses do develop mutations that seem to give them fitness advantages over dominant variants, but they ultimately “sort of burn out,” and subside.

The protective measures that should be taken against omicron remain the same as with the other variants, wear masks, especially inside, and in crowds, wash your hands and get vaccinated.

“Even though we know that this virus has mutations that can be associated with evading immunity, be it prior infection, immunity or vaccine associated immunity. You have a better chance of not getting sick and having a decreased amount of viral replication in your system if your immune system is already primed with a vaccine,” St. George said.

How your ZIP code determines your lung health

December 2, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — This is the fourth and final episode of ABC News Digital’s four-part series “Green New Future,” which highlights innovators and environmental solutions.

While climate change and poor air quality are global issues concerning all people, 29-year-old Darren Riley has found that the ZIP code people are born into can disproportionately put them in harm’s way.

Riley’s father ended up in a coma in the ICU due to asthma-related illnesses in 2014, Riley told ABC News. It was his father’s words from seven years before that made him realize the connection between a person and where they live.

“I was a product of my environment,” Riley’s father had told him.

Riley, who also developed asthma himself, said he set out to find a way to alleviate systemic issues and allow people from all areas an equal opportunity in quality of life. He is now the CEO and co-founder of JustAir Solutions, a company that creates air quality monitoring networks to provide cities and individuals data on their breathing environment.

“I think air quality is a sliver of all of many injustices that we see in the world that we can really focus on,” Riley told ABC News.

The disproportionate impact of pollution is one example of a host of systemic issues that people of color, lower wealth communities and indigenous populations are facing, advocates say.

These issues are “fueled by environmental racism,” Mustafa Ali, vice president of environmental justice, climate and community revitalization at the National Wildlife Federation, told ABC News.

Through discriminatory practices such as redlining, cities in the U.S. have been divided and designed with toxic industries disproportionately running through areas inhabited by communities of color, according to Ali.

This affects the quality of the air people breathe, which research has found can determine the long-term health of their lungs and subsequently, their life expectancy.

“We have 100,000 people who die prematurely from air pollution in our country,” Ali said.

This issue came to the forefront over 50 years ago when Congress passed the Clean Air Act, which set out to control and reduce air pollution across the nation by keeping track of the quality of air that citizens were inhaling.

The U.S Environmental Protection Agency mandates that cities track their air quality levels using a monitor that tracks dust, metals and other matter that could affect the lungs.

The EPA regulations state there must be a minimum of one monitor per city, but community advocates argue there must be more. Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Riley piloted his project, has just one monitor that reports on the city’s air quality level.

Data from that monitor is used to approximate the air quality level for the entire city and its suburbs, Jim Meeks, the chairman of JustAir, told ABC News.

But Riley was curious about the difference in air quality levels across neighborhoods, which the lone monitor set up by the EPA could not capture. He deployed 11 sensors across Grands Rapids — five in the downtown area, five in the Roosevelt Park neighborhood and one adjacent to the EPA monitor.

When comparing data from his sensors in the metro downtown area of Grand Rapids versus Roosevelt Park, the neighborhood with the highest non-white population, Riley found stark differences in the air quality levels.

The Roosevelt Park sensors recorded far more unhealthy days than the one near the EPA monitor, Riley said.

“There are disparities between sensors within a city,” Riley told ABC News. “And one sensor doesn’t detect that.”

JustAir’s sensors are currently only used in Grand Rapids, but Riley hopes to expand his company to other cities such as Detroit and Chicago, believing that the data could inform governments and individuals to take action.

He said he hopes his company will bring change to the nation’s struggle with poor air quality and its health impacts.

The key to fighting air pollution-related health disparities lies in the re-prioritization of resources and budgets and breaking through the existing political polarization, according to Ronda Chapman, equity director at The Trust for Public Land.

“This is a non-partisan concern when we’re talking about the health and well-being of individuals,” Chapman told ABC News. “And so when we have the data to back it up, that’s how we’re able to better make the case for investing in green infrastructure, investing in neighborhoods and investing in communities.”

President Biden to make at-home rapid tests free in new COVID plan

December 2, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)(WASHINGTON) — As cases rise in the colder months and amid concerns of a new COVID-19 variant, President Joe Biden announced a plan Thursday for a winter coronavirus strategy that includes making at-home rapid tests free, extending the mask requirement on public transit and requiring more stringent testing protocols for all international travelers.

The latest plan does not include more aggressive measures like requiring testing for domestic flights or mandating testing for passengers after their arrival in the U.S.

To allow for free rapid tests, senior administration officials say the more than 150 million Americans with private insurance will be able to submit for reimbursement to their insurance companies through the same rule that allows tests on site to be covered by insurance.

To reach uninsured Americans and those on Medicare or Medicaid, the Biden administration will send 50 million at-home tests to 20,000 federal sites around the country to be handed out for free.

Senior administration officials said they are confident in the supply of rapid tests to meet the possible demand of Americans who will now be able to get them at no cost.

“Supply will quadruple this month from where it was at the end of summer, so we’re doing a ton to ramp up all tests, but specifically a big focus on ramping up these at-home tests,” a senior administration official said on a call with reporters Wednesday night.

The extension of mask mandates on public transportation, including airplanes, rails and buses, will now go through March 18, per the plan, and tighter requirements for travel into the United States will go into place early next week.

The new travel rules call for proof of a negative COVID test within one day of travel to the U.S. for all passengers, regardless of their vaccination status or nationality.

The plan also puts a heavy emphasis on booster shots, which have had a sluggish uptake in the U.S. but experts urge for added protection in the face of the new omicron variant and its many unknowns.

Pharmacies will expand locations and hours to administer booster shots through December, according to the plan, and the Biden administration will up its outreach efforts through a public education campaign aimed at seniors and new family vaccination clinics that can be a one-stop shop for kids vaccines, adult vaccines and booster shots.

Biden also raises the possibility that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer suggest that schoolchildren quarantine for 14 days after exposure, instead relying on the popular “test-to-stay” policy that allows kids to keep attending school so long as they test negative each day.

“The CDC has been studying approaches to quarantine and testing, including looking at the science and data of how they may keep school communities safe. CDC will release their findings on these approaches in the coming weeks,” according to the plan.

In all, the new strategy comes as cases continue to rise, a combination of colder weather pushing people indoors together and vaccine immunity waning among people who got the shot more than six months ago and haven’t yet gotten a booster.

There are also new concerns about omicron, which has more mutations than previous variants but is still mostly a mystery — from how transmissible it is to its capability to cause more severe disease or evade vaccines.

On Monday, Biden reassured Americans that his administration is taking every precaution to protect the public from the omicron variant and that he doesn’t expect this to be the “new normal.”

“It’s a new variant that’s cause for concern, but not a cause for panic,” the president said. “And we’re gonna fight this with science and speed. We’re not going to fight it with chaos and confusion, and we believe we can deal with it.”

The administration’s ban on incoming travel from eight countries in southern Africa went into effect this week after the variant was first detected in Botswana. It has since been found in nearly 30 countries, including in the U.S. on Wednesday.

Over the past year, Biden has focused his efforts to defeat COVID on increasing vaccinations and testing.

When the country didn’t meet his goal of 70% of all adults vaccinated with at least one shot by July, and as cases spiked again from the delta variant’s arrival over the summer, Biden moved forward on vaccine mandates.

Though the mandates were supposed to apply to all federal government employees, health care workers and employees of large private companies, the rollout has been met with lawsuits and lax deadlines.

The mandate for government employees initially was supposed to be implemented in late November, but the government has delayed firing employees who refused to comply until after the holidays.

Still, 92% of federal employees had their first dose as of last week.

The mandates on health care workers and employees of large companies have faced legal challenges that halted them until a decision in higher courts later this winter.

But many hospitals and companies have gone ahead with mandates on their own, often successfully.

The nation’s public health experts have continued to push vaccines and boosters as the best defense against the variant, even as they wait for more data.

“We don’t know everything we need to know about the omicron variants, but we know that vaccination is a safe and effective way to protect yourself from severe illness and complications from all known SARS-CoV-2 variants to date,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters on Tuesday.

As of Wednesday, 71% of adults over 18 and almost 60% of the entire American population are currently fully vaccinated. Nearly 100 million adults who are eligible for boosters have yet to get them.

Reflecting on the past year, Biden on Monday said, “we’re in a very different place” as we enter December, noting that vaccinations were just being rolled out and the majority of schools were still closed in 2020.

“Last Christmas, our children were at risk without a vaccine. This Christmas, we have safe and effective vaccines for children ages 5 and older, with more than 19 million children and counting now vaccinated,” Biden said.

Daunte Wright’s family honors his memory as Kim Potter trial begins

December 2, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The family of Daunte Wright is spending their first holiday season without him.

“On Thanksgiving, we sat there and we watched so many videos of my nephew,” Wright’s aunt Naisha Wright said tearfully in an interview with ABC News. “It was just such a beautiful thing, because everybody had a memory of him either cracking jokes or trying to dance — because he could not dance, but he tried.”

The 20-year-old Black man was fatally shot in Minnesota during a traffic stop in April by then-police officer Kim Potter.

Potter, who resigned from the Brooklyn Center Police Department two days later, is now headed to trial. She is charged with first-degree and second-degree manslaughter. She has pleaded not guilty to both charges.

Officers initially pulled Wright over for an expired registration tag on his car but determined that he had an outstanding warrant for a gross misdemeanor weapons charge and tried to detain him, according to former Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon, who also resigned after the incident.

As officers tried to arrest him, Wright freed himself and tried to get back in his vehicle.

During the struggle, the defense says Potter accidentally grabbed her firearm instead of her stun gun when she shot him. After he was shot, he drove off and crashed the car a few blocks away.

Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, told ABC News in an interview two days after the shooting that her son had called her during the traffic stop.

“I know my son was scared. He’s afraid of the police, and I just seen and heard the fear in his voice,” his mother said. “But I don’t know why, and it should have never escalated the way it did.”

She described her son as “an amazing, loving kid” who “had a big heart,” “bright” smile and “loved basketball.”

Naisha Wright said she wants the world to remember her nephew as a popular young man with a knack for humor — earning himself a large group of close friends and being coined as an “honorary nephew” to those who knew the family. She also said he had a bright outlook toward a future of taking care of his family, particularly his 2-year-old son.

“He had a 2-year-old son that’s not going to be able to play basketball with him. He had sisters and brothers that he loved so much,” his mother said in April. “He just had his whole life taken away from him. We had our hearts pulled out of our chests. He was my baby.”

“I’m just remembering that smile on that boy’s face,” his aunt said. “The memory of this young man trying to live his life … trying to be a father, becoming a father at a young age and trying to do something for his son.”

Naisha Wright said he had hoped to “take care of his son, giving and doing whatever it was that he needed to do for his son.”

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump has been retained by the family and has slammed the defense’s argument that Wright may still be alive if he had not tried to escape police custody.

“We must look past the shameless victim blaming that has been and will be directed toward Daunte,” Crump said. “Daunte Wright should not have been stopped or shot. He should be here with us, hugging his parents, siblings and young son during this holiday season.”

ABC News’ Stephanie Wash and Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.

Hundreds of migrants living in squalor in warehouse in Belarus amid ongoing border crisis

December 2, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(BRUZGI, Belarus) — Parsa Akram now lives with her mother, father and brother under a warehouse shelf. The space is about 2 meters wide. The 18-year-old and her mother sleep in a tent, her brother and father on the ground.

They are among hundreds of people — mostly from Iraqi Kurdistan — now living in a warehouse about a mile from Belarus’ border with Poland, caught up in the migration crisis that, although eased, has not ended.

The warehouse in Bruzgi is not a refugee center; it is just a packing warehouse, the kind Amazon or FedEx would use to store goods. People are now living on the stacks of shelves that would normally hold packages. Whole families like the Akrams are packed into the spaces under the shelving; others have clambered up to make nest-like beds in the higher levels.

“It’s not a camp,” Parsa said. “[It’s] a chicken house!”

For months, thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, have found themselves trapped between Belarus and Poland amid a crisis allegedly engineered by Belarus’ authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, who is accused of luring them to Europe’s border in an effort to retaliate against the European Union for its support for Belarus’ pro-democracy movement.

The migrants, mainly trying to reach western Europe, have been blocked by Poland and neighboring Lithuania, stranding them in forests along the border often for weeks, without food or shelter.

The crisis came to a head three weeks ago, when Belarus marched hundreds of migrants to a crossing point with Poland. Scenes of migrants sleeping in the open air in freezing temperatures and then violent clashes with Polish border guards, that Belarus was accused of inciting, attracted global attention.

Following the clashes, Belarus moved about 2,000 of the migrants to the warehouse, raising hopes the crisis might be easing.

Although better than the forest, the warehouse is not set up to house hundreds of people and after two weeks, conditions inside have rapidly deteriorated. When ABC News reporters visited this weekend, people were sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags and sometimes thin tents, huddled together in dirty clothes. There is almost no sanitation, just a few chemical toilets. People wash themselves from two portable water tanks set up in a yard slick with mud and slush.

There are dozens of children, including some a few months old, and pregnant women.

This week, Belarus’ military brought a mobile sauna in a tent to allow people to wash, for many, the first time in a month. Belarus is also feeding people, giving them portions of buckwheat porridge twice a day. Food trucks, selling bread and snacks, are also set up.

Many people in the camp said they were sick. Several told ABC News they were suffering from food poisoning that they blamed on expired tinned food they said Belarusian authorities had given them.

There are also fears COVID-19 is in the camp. Belarusian authorities — who have been accused of undercounting COVID cases more generally — claim only two cases have been recorded in the warehouse. But the sound of coughing there is constant and ABC News reporters met a man being hospitalized with pneumonia on Sunday.

“People cannot wait any longer because the weather is getting really really cold. And all the people in here, they’re all sick, they’re getting sick so bad,” said Zanyar Dishad, an 18-year-old from Kurdistan who was with his family.

Lukashenko visited the camp last Friday, accompanied by state television cameras. In a speech, he told the migrants he would not force them to go home and would do everything to help them reach Europe. He also demanded Poland and Germany take them in.

Belarusian authorities told the migrants European countries will soon take them, though there is no indication when or if this will happen. Several migrants said they believed Lukashenko was holding talks with the EU to get them across the border and many were unaware of the reasons behind his conflict with Europe.

“He’s a very good man,” said Karwan Jamal, 26, who is living now in a tent with his wife and 7-year-old son.

“He’s very kind,” his wife Narin added. “Because Belarus all the time helps all people in here.”

In reality, Belarusian authorities refused to allow migrants out of the forests for weeks. Migrants in recent weeks have told ABC News that Belarusian border guards beat and robbed them, forcing them to cross back into Poland after being pushed back.

But EU efforts to cut off the flow of migrants to Belarus seem to be having an effect. The number of new arrivals has sharply and visibly dropped off. Belarus also appears to now be allowing people to leave the border area.

Hundreds of Iraqi citizens have also returned home in the last week on voluntary repatriation flights organized by Iraq’s government, which said 1,800 people have returned already.

Among them was Balsam Khalaf, 51, who said he had given up after five months of being pushed back and forth across the border, saying he had been roughed up by Belarusian, Polish and Lithuanian guards.

“We turned to a bouncing ball between both sides,” he said in an interview in Baghdad this week.

It is unclear how many migrants are still in Belarus, but it estimated to be at least a few thousand, including in the forests. Polish authorities accuse Belarus’ security forces of continuing to try to push dozens of people across the border each night.

Iraq’s government said it would hold a final repatriation flight this week because it said no one else wished to return. It said 3,000 people in total had expressed a desire to return.

At the camp, most people said they would not go back, despite the wretched conditions.

“Never ever,” said Narin.

ABC News’ Bader Katy contributed to this report from Baghdad and Tanya Stukalova contributed from Bruzgi, Belarus.

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