(WASHINGTON) — A former senior Department of Homeland Security official who once accused the Trump administration of politicizing intelligence said Sunday that a return of President Donald Trump to the White House in 2024 “would be a disaster” for the U.S. intelligence community.
“(Former President Trump) has denigrated the intelligence community, he puts out disinformation — and that’s an existential threat to democracy and he is one of the best at putting it out and hurting this country,” Brian Murphy, who once led the DHS intelligence branch, said Sunday in an exclusive interview on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.
Murphy, a long-time federal law enforcement official, made headlines last year after filing a whistleblower complaint accusing Trump-appointed leaders of politicizing intelligence by withholding or downplaying threats that ran counter to Trump’s political messages.
The 24-page complaint, filed in September 2020, named former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and former acting Secretary Chad Wolf as trying to “censor or manipulate” intelligence bulletins related to Russian meddling in the presidential election and the threat of domestic white supremacist groups.
“I became a whistleblower because when I arrived at DHS in 2018, from the outset, everything that I had stood for — you know, finding objective truth when I was in the FBI and serving in the Marines and serving the American public — was quickly told to me that’s no longer acceptable,” Murphy said Sunday.
In his complaint, Murphy further accused Nielsen, Wolf and other top officials of scrambling to gather and prepare intelligence reports that aligned with Trump’s public remarks in the months leading up to the 2020 election.
“There was intense pressure to try to take intelligence and fit a political narrative,” Murphy said Sunday. “When I got to DHS, it was all about politics.”
In one instance, Murphy wrote in his complaint that he was “instructed” by Wolf “to cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States, and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran.”
On Sunday, Murphy said “there was a push-on across government at the senior levels — cabinet officials — to do everything possible to stifle anything” about Russia’s interference.
“They did not want the American public to know that the Russians were supporting Trump and denigrating what would soon be President Biden,” Murphy added.
Murphy also claimed Sunday that discussing white supremacy as a national security threat became a “third-rail issue” within the department after the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“I disagreed with that, I made that known to my superiors,” Murphy said Sunday.
A DHS spokesperson said last year that the agency “flatly denies that there is any truth to the merits of Mr. Murphy’s claim.”
Wolf responded last September during a speech that any effort to “paint recent DHS actions as examples of mission drift or politicization … could not be more wrong.” James Wareham, Nielsen’s attorney, told ABC News at the time that Murphy’s allegations “would be laughable if they were not so defamatory.”
Murphy’s explosive claims nonetheless fueled concerns that Trump and his appointees had sought to politicize the intelligence process to more closely support the administration’s legislative and political agenda.
Shortly before filing his whistleblower complaint, Murphy was reassigned within the department after it was revealed that his intelligence unit had included reporters’ tweets in bulletins disseminated to law enforcement networks across the U.S. — a practice that experts said was out of the agency’s purview.
Questioned by Stephanopoulos about that, Murphy said Sunday he “understands why, at the time, the media reacted the way they did” to reports his branch collated public-source information about reporters, citing the alleged credibility gap between the White House and the American people.
Murphy added that “at no time was I aware or direct anybody in my organization to collect information on journalists.”
“People did not trust (the Trump administration). There was a war against the media and I wasn’t going to be a part of that,” Murphy said.
(WASHINGTON) — Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday it’s possible to provide both COVID-19 booster shots as well as doses for people who have not yet been vaccinated.
“I think it is also not the right thing to try to resolve it with an ‘or’ when you can resolve it with an ‘and,'” Bourla told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “It’s not, ‘Shall we give boosters or give primary doses to other people.’ I think the answer should be, ‘Let’s give both boosters and doses for other people.’”
With millions more Americans now newly eligible for a booster COVID-19 shot from Pfizer, Bourla’s optimism punctuates what’s become a protracted, hot-button issue amongst the scientific community over who needs the boost and when.
Just after midnight Friday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky endorsed her independent advisory panel’s recommendation for seniors and other medically vulnerable Americans to get a booster shot of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine six months after their second dose.
In a notable departure, Walensky partially overruled the panel by adding a recommendation for a third dose for people who are considered high risk due to where they work, such as nurses and teachers — a group the panel rejected in its recommendation.
The CDC’s final sign-off marked the starting gun for sleeves to start rolling up for a third shot at retail pharmacies and doctors’ offices across the country.
It also in part buttoned up what has become a seething scientific debate after the Biden administration announced there would be “boosters-for-all” before any review from the regulatory bodies or their independent groups. While the White House’s political appointees had endorsed President Joe Biden’s timeline, some of their career scientists and advisers vehemently objected to the incomplete data they were being asked to assess.
The booster debate has played out as the delta variant sweeps across states and threatens hard-fought gains against the virus here at home and as the World Health Organization continues to call for a moratorium on booster shots in the interest of more equitable distribution of primary vaccinations, as many still countries struggle with providing first and second doses.
Gathering world leaders virtually Wednesday on the U.N. General Assembly’s sidelines, Biden announced the U.S. would donate another half billion doses of Pfizer vaccine to lower-income nations.
Pfizer, the first vaccine maker to administer shots in the U.S. more than nine months ago, had cited data from Israel and elsewhere showing the vaccine’s robust protection began to wane with time. In April, Bourla predicted a third coronavirus dose was “likely” to be needed within a year of the primary two-dose course. In July, the company announced plans to ask the FDA to authorize a booster shot of the original vaccine six months after the second dose.
Earlier this month, Pfizer’s submitted brief to the FDA made the case that it’s time to “restore” full protection from the COVID-19 vaccines, even though they are still protecting most vaccinated people from being hospitalized.
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., may not bring the bipartisan infrastructure bill to the House floor Monday as she previously committed to, she said Sunday.
“I’m never bringing to the floor a bill that doesn’t have the votes,” Pelosi told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos.
“You cannot choose the date,” Pelosi said. “You have to go when you have the votes in a reasonable time, and we will.”
Pelosi had previously agreed to put the bipartisan infrastructure bill on the floor to be considered by Sept. 27, after moderates in her caucus demanded a vote.
“It may be tomorrow,” Pelosi added Sunday.
On Saturday, the House Budget Committee approved a $3.5 trillion budget resolution that calls for investments in climate change policy, childcare and other social programs.
Pelosi told her colleagues in a letter on Saturday they “must” pass the bill this week along with a separate bipartisan infrastructure bill.
“The next few days will be a time of intensity,” she wrote.
Pelosi also said on Sunday’s “This Week” that the price tag for the bill could drop in negotiations.
“That seems self-evident,” Pelosi said, acknowledging the $3.5 trillion topline number could be lowered.
This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.
(DENVER) — The 6-year-old girl who died on a ride at a Colorado amusement park earlier this month was never strapped into her seat — and two operators failed to notice even after a monitor alerted them to a seatbelt safety issue — before the ride plunged 110 feet, according to a state investigation.
Wongel Estifanos was visiting Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, located atop Iron Mountain in Glenwood Springs, with her family on Sept. 5 when she went on the Haunted Mine Drop ride, a free-fall drop down a pitch-black shaft.
After reviewing video surveillance and operating manuals, investigators with the Colorado Division of Oil and Public Safety determined that when Wongel got on the ride, she sat in a previously unoccupied seat on top of two already-locked seatbelts, and that “multiple operator errors” and “inadequate training” contributed to the fatal accident, according to a report released Friday.
The girl was only holding the tail of one seatbelt across her lap, but when checking her seat, a ride operator “did not notice that the seatbelts were not positioned across her lap,” according to the report.
The ride’s control panel alerted the operator to an error with one of the seatbelts on Wongel’s seat, indicating that that seatbelt had not been properly unlocked after the previous ride cycle, according to the report. The operator returned “multiple times” to check the seatbelt and buckle it to no avail, but “did not believe the error because they were convinced the restraint had been cycled,” the report stated.
A second ride operator then unlocked the seatbelts using a manual switch, clearing the error on the ride’s control system, “without unloading passengers to determine what the issue was,” the report stated. This decision did not resolve the problem — that Wongel was not wearing the seatbelts — and demonstrated that the operator “did not have a complete understanding” of the control system’s safety indicators, according to the report.
The second operator also checked the girl’s seatbelts but “did not notice that neither of the seatbelts were positioned across her lap,” according to the report.
With no error on the control panel, the second operator was then able to dispatch the ride.
“Because Ms. Estifanos was not restrained in the seat she became separated from her seat and fell to the bottom of the [Haunted Mine Drop] shaft, resulting in her death,” the report stated.
Operators were not formally trained to unbuckle all seatbelts following each ride, though it was common practice and one that the first operator performed “inconsistently” on earlier rides, according to the report.
The operators are supposed to buckle the seatbelts for each of the ride’s six passengers and confirm the restraints are over their laps, per the manufacturer’s operating manual, as “passengers cannot be expected to know or correctly execute the safety procedures for this ride,” the report stated. Both operators failed to follow these procedures, according to the report.
The report also determined that the operators’ training “did not appear to emphasize the inherent risks of the ride,” and that the manufacturer’s operating manual “does not instruct operators on how to properly address errors.”
The Haunted Mine Drop is currently closed, and future plans for the ride are “undetermined,” the amusement park said.
“Safety is, and always has been, our top priority,” Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park founder Steve Beckley said in a statement following the release of the report. “Since opening our first ride just over 15 years ago, Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park has delivered more than 10 million safe and enjoyable rides.”
“We have been working closely with the Colorado Division of Oil and Public Safety and independent safety experts to review this incident,” he continued, noting that the amusement park will review the report “carefully for recommendations.”
“More than anything, we want the Estifanos family to know how deeply sorry we are for their loss and how committed we are to making sure it never happens again,” he added.
In a statement to Denver ABC affiliate KMGH-TV, Dan Caplis, an attorney for the Estifanos family, said that Wongel’s parents had received the report and called on people who have “experienced problems” with the Haunted Mine Drop to come forward.
“Wongel’s parents are determined to do everything in their power to make sure that no one ever dies this way again,” said Caplis, who told the station he intends to file a lawsuit against the park on behalf of the family.
ABC News’ Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — At least three people are dead after an Amtrak train derailed in remote northern Montana on Saturday.
Seven cars on the train, Empire Builder 7/27, derailed at about 4 p.m. local time near Joplin, according to Amtrak. The rail line confirmed there were injuries in the accident, but offered no more details.
The three deaths were confirmed by the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department. Officials did not say how many total were injured.
There were approximately 146 passengers and 16 crew members on board the train, Amtrak said. The train was traveling from Chicago to Seattle.
Several passengers on the train shared images of the front cars off the track, with some tipped on their sides.
Amtrak said in a statement that anyone with questions about friends or family who were traveling on the derailed train should call 800-523-9101.
It was not immediately clear what caused the derailment.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it is launching a “go team” to investigate the derailment.
Liberty County is an extremely rural part of northern Montana, with only a few thousand residents despite being larger than the entire state of Rhode Island.
Great Falls is the largest nearby city, about 100 miles south of Joplin. The state capital of Helena is about three hours south of Joplin by car.
ABC News’ Stefan Joyce and Matt Foster contributed to this report.
The Toyota Avalon, Mazda 6 and Volkswagen Passat will soon join the fast-growing list of sedans sent to automotive exile. Americans’ unyielding appetite for sport utility vehicles and trucks are certainly one reason. Another? Electric vehicles, some experts say.
“Sports cars and sedans were already on the edge of the cliff,” Joe Wiesenfelder, executive editor at Cars.com, told ABC News. “EVs may be responsible for giving them the final shove.”
Ford, Lincoln and Chrysler abandoned the sedan segment long ago. More automakers will likely follow.
“When automakers put their attention elsewhere, something is going to lose and it’s usually the products that were already endangered,” Wiesenfelder said. “Automakers are abandoning a shape — not a need. Mid-size cars are now a subcompact SUV.”
Stephanie Brinley, an analyst at IHS Markit, argued EVs are now the reason automakers are shunning sedans and canceling production of longtime models.
“Sedans and sports cars will continue to fall away for a bit longer,” she wrote in a recent LinkedIn post. “It’s sad to me that these types are both being squeezed by the need to invest in EVs and electrification.”
Sales of SUVs and crossovers accounted for 51% of the U.S. market in 2020, up from 30.2% in 2020, according to Brinley. Sedan sales are in reverse: 22.6% in 2020 versus 46.2% in 2010.
“If we weren’t struggling with the costs of [electric vehicle] transition, some sedans may be able to survive even at lower volumes,” Brinley told ABC News. “EVs are capital-intensive and expensive. Product development money is going to EVs.”
Rory Carroll, the editor-in-chief of Jalopnik, said automakers have one objective: To make money.
“If you’re going to invest in something you won’t take money away from products that are selling,” he told ABC News. “Sports cars and sedans — those are not selling right now. Automakers are in the business to sell cars.”
Michael Tripp, vice president of vehicle marketing and communications at Toyota North America, defended the Avalon’s 28-year production run, saying the large sedan had a “storied history” with 30,000 units sold annually. Its quagmire? SUVs.
“What’s driving migration away from passenger cars isn’t a government mandate or what automakers are doing — it’s customer tastes,” Tripp told ABC News. “The [large sedan] segment is down 70% to 75% in the last four, five years. It has nothing to do with the Avalon’s powertrain. It has to do with the segment.”
The pandemic — and not EVs — likely accelerated the slide away from sedans, according to Autoweek editor Natalie Neff.
“Automakers have been steering away from that segment for a while,” she told ABC News. “People haven’t been buying sedans … it’s why Ford got out of the car building business a few years ago.”
Plus, she added, “the practicality of a sedan is far less than a crossover. It’s not like the sedan offers greater performance or fuel efficiency or utility.”
More Americans are slowly starting to go electric. Brinley said battery-electric vehicle registrations totaled 2.4% of the U.S. market in the first six months of 2021 and 1.8% last year. IHS Markit predicts 32% of U.S. light vehicle sales to be BEVs by 2030.
“EVs have not been widely accepted on the market partly because their development has been focused on straight line performance,” said Jalopnik’s Carroll. “It’s a cool trick but not a driving experience. My mom would be terrified to go that fast.”
Ten years ago, few if any Americans were interested in EVs when General Motors launched the Bolt and Volt, Wiesenfelder said. But government policy and an industry-wide push are shoring up these billion-dollar bets.
“There is a gamble in abandoning future product plans for anything but EVs,” Wiesenfelder admitted. “The last big push fizzled. It won’t this time. More manufacturers are in the game.”
Brinley is still convinced sedans have a place in the crowded automotive market. EVs may be trendy now, she said, but the stakes are high.
“For a lot of consumers, EVs are still a bit of a mystery. It will take time for adoption,” she said. “It will be a very long transition despite the hype.”
(MOSCOW) — As the Hispanic and Latino population grows throughout the U.S., New Mexico has established itself as a haven for people of Latin American and Hispanic descent.
That culture can be seen throughout the streets — in the Pueblo- and Spanish-style architecture, the traditional santeros and the Mexican artistry.
“The Land of Enchantment” is the most Hispanic and Latino state in the country, with 49% of its population identifying as such, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But this population can’t be so easily defined.
“We see ourselves as multicultural: Mexican, American, Latino, Chicano, Indigenous — We’re what we call ‘mestizaje,’ a mixture of blood and culture,” said Denise Chavez, a Chicana writer and playwright. “There’s no place quite like it.”
This state has a turbulent history of colonialism that led to diverse traditions, a blend of cultures, a complicated clashing of identities.
Indigenous and Native communities have occupied now-New Mexico for centuries. It wasn’t until the late 1500s that Spanish colonizers created their first settlements.
New Mexico’s capital, Santa Fe, is the oldest in the U.S., since it was designated 400 years ago. It became the 47th state in 1912, about five weeks before Arizona gained statehood.
“Spanish is the first [European] language we spoke in what is today the United States, so it’s not a foreign language,” said Rob Martinez, a state historian.
With the region dominated by Spain before Mexico governed it the 1800s, those Indigenous roots run deep, Martinez explained.
“It’s never pleasant to be on the receiving end of conquest and colonization,” Martinez said. “I like to tell people: Our culture and our history are brilliant, they’re magnificent, but history is also violent and scary, and you have to be brave to study your history.”
This culture represented in the lively traditions seen throughout the streets.
Art is a major part of the culture — Mexican retablos, paintings of saints on wood, and santeros, the painted and carved images of saints, can be seen at historical sites, churches and homes throughout New Mexico.
“This is a tradition from the late 1700s and early 1800s — it’s truly New Mexican,” Martinez said. “It’s a combination of Roman Catholicism and folk Catholicism. It’s a very beautiful, very stark and straightforward art form. People love this religious and cultural expression.”
And when in New Mexico, Chavez said, visitors must have a dish featuring the state’s prized vegetable: chile. It’s used to add a pungent, smoky kick to stews, sauce, tamales, sandwiches and more — and is a staple of New Mexican cuisine.
“We’re just at the end of chile season, which is an incredible time in New Mexico,” Chavez said. “The smell of green chile, the harvest, going out to the farms, getting your chile and roasting it … a lot of our traditions have to do with food.”
Another integral, and controversial, piece of New Mexican culture is the Fiesta de Santa Fe.
The annual celebration commemorates the reconquest of Santa Fe in 1692, according to Martinez. The city was “founded” by Spanish colonists in 1610, but in 1680 Pueblo natives fought back, burning down the city and driving out the Spanish, who fled to present day Juarez, Mexico.
“They didn’t want to get rid of their languages, they did not want to lose their religion, they did not want to lose their culture,” Martinez said. “So there’s a revolt — the first revolution in what’s today the United States.”
In 1692, the king of Spain ordered a resettlement mission. The Spanish retook those lands and began oppressing the natives, said Patricia Marie Perea, the Hispanic and literary arts educator at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
“There’s always some tension between the Indigenous communities and those who are celebrating the Spanish and the conquest into New Mexico,” said Perea. “It’s such a hard thing to contend with.”
For this reason, Perea said, celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month — Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 — can be a bit complicated.
“Hispanic” refers to people who descend from Spanish-speaking countries. Considering the state’s long history of Spanish colonialism, many New Mexicans denounce the term.
And while the population has expanded to include so many people of many Latin American cultures, the state’s history adds to the intensity and passion with which New Mexicans defend their roots.
“There is hope here,” Chavez said, “and that’s what makes New Mexico so wonderful — the never-dying hope of its people.”
(MOSCOW) — Russia’s best-known opposition figure, Alexey Navalny, has criticized Google and Apple for bending to Kremlin demands for censorship during recent parliamentary elections, accusing the tech giants of “cowardice” and of becoming “accomplices” to president Vladimir Putin’s efforts to suppress political opposition.
Both companies bowed to Russian government pressure to delete content relating to a tactical voting campaign promoted by Navalny during elections last weekend that saw Russia’s ruling pro-Putin party retain its majority amid accusations of widespread ballot-rigging and a crackdown on anti-Kremlin opposition.
“If something surprised me in the latest elections, it was not how Putin forged the results, but how obediently the almighty Big Tech turned into his accomplices,” Navalny said on Twitter on Thursday — a message written from prison and published by colleagues.
Navalny’s campaign, named Smart Voting, had called for people to vote for any candidate with the best chance of defeating the ruling party, United Russia. The online content had contained lists of registered candidates recommended by Navalny’s team.
Google and Apple removed Smart Voting apps from their stores in Russia, and Google blocked two related videos on YouTube.
The removals are the biggest concession the tech firms have made to Kremlin demands to restrict content and it has set off fears among liberal Russians that it is a significant step towards the companies accepting broader censorship in the country.
Russian authorities outlawed Navalny’s movement earlier this year, after jailing the anti-corruption activist and pro-democracy campaigner who survived a nerve-agent poisoning in 2020. The government in June designated Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and its regional political offices as “extremist organizations,” equating them to violent terrorist groups and requiring social media platforms to ban their content.
The designation has been widely condemned internationally, including by the United States, as politically motivated.
Neither Google nor Apple have made a public statement on the app removals, and each declined to comment to ABC News. In an email explaining the decision to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, published online by Navalny’s team, Apple said it was obliged to follow local laws and cited Russian prosecutors’ allegations that the app enabled “election interference.”
Navalny accused the companies of allowing themselves to be used as instruments of the Kremlin to block legitimate efforts at peaceful opposition, saying they were worried about losing market access to Russia and calling them “hypocrites” for presenting themselves as firms driven by values such as improving the world. Google famously used “Don’t be evil” as a company motto.
“In our case, the very intention to organize voters in order to put competitive pressure on the ruling party was declared criminal, and Big Tech agreed with this,” Navalny wrote.
He also called on employees inside the companies to raise the issue, writing: “I know that most of those who work at Google, Apple, etc. are honest and good people. I urge them not to put up with the cowardice of their bosses.”
Google and Apple in the past largely have resisted Russian government demands that they remove content that criticizes authorities, racking up fines imposed by Russia’s state censor. But recently the Kremlin has escalated pressure on U.S. tech companies amid a broader crackdown on dissent.
The day before Apple and Google each removed the voting app, the companies were made to appear before a committee of Russia’s senate. Andrey Klimov, a prominent senator who heads a commission — Protection of State Sovereignty and Prevention of Interference in the country’s Internal Affairs — accused them of illegal election interference and threatened to penalize them with new legislation.
Days before that, court bailiffs visited Google’s offices in Moscow, demanding the company pay unpaid fines imposed by the state censor. The New York Times reported Google made the decision to remove Navalny’s app after authorities threatened to arrest local employees at Google’s Moscow office.
Security experts have said they’re concerned the Kremlin is now increasingly bent on taming foreign tech giants as it tightens its grip on the Russian internet. The government has blocked a growing number of sites and is developing infrastructure to allow it to cut off Russia’s acces to the global web, if deemed necessary. This year it began slowing down Twitter after the company refused to remove content.
Andrey Soldatov, author of “Red Web,” which examines the Russian government’s efforts to control the internet, said last week’s concession was unlikely to discourage the Kremlin from leaning on Google and Apple further. He said the government was increasingly confident in its technical capabilities to block major international platforms.
“To be honest,” he told ABC News by phone, “things look really, really dark right now.”
(FORT BLISS, N.M.) — The FBI is investigating after a female U.S. service member reported she was assaulted by a group of male Afghan evacuees at Fort Bliss in New Mexico.
The woman, who was helping to support the evacuees brought from Afghanistan to the United States in the wake of the Taliban reclaiming the country, reported she was assaulted by a small group at the Doña Ana Complex on Sept. 19, according to Lt. Col. Allie M. Payne, the director of public affairs for Fort Bliss.
“We take the allegation seriously and appropriately referred the matter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Payne said in a statement. “The safety and well-being of our service members, as well as all of those on our installations, is paramount. We immediately provided appropriate care, counseling and support to the service member.”
The base also said it is adding security measures, like increased lighting, safety patrols and enforcing a buddy system.
“We received the referral from Fort Bliss and our office is investigating the allegation,” FBI El Paso said in a statement.
There were no further details about the incident.
The Doña Ana Complex, which is about a half hour north of Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, across the New Mexico border, is used as a firing range, but was converted into a sprawling, air conditioned tent city for incoming evacuees.
The Biden administration chose Fort Bliss two weeks ago when it granted access to the media to one of the facilities housing the tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees who were flown out of Kabul in a frenzied, chaotic process prompted by the Taliban reasserting control of the country much sooner than anticipated.
About 10,000 evacuees are staying at the facility until they can be processed and resettled, according to U.S. officials. All of the evacuees were subject to a thorough vetting process before they were flown to the U.S., according to U.S. officials.
News of the investigation of the assault on a female service member follows the arrests of two Afghan evacuees at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin this week.
Mohammad Haroon Imaad, 32, was charged with strangling and suffocating his wife in an incident that took place Sept. 7, according to the indictment, and Bahrullah Noori, 20, was charged with attempting to engage in a sexual act with a minor.
Court documents say 13,000 people related to the resettlement are being housed at Fort McCoy.
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 682,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.7 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. The average number of daily deaths in the U.S. has risen about 20% in the last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The U.S. is continuing to sink on the list of global vaccination rates, currently ranking No. 45, according to data compiled by The Financial Times. Just 64.3% 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:
Sep 24, 6:12 pm
VA begins offering booster shots to veterans
The Department of Veterans Affairs said it is already doling out booster shots to veterans at its medical centers and clinics on Friday, just hours after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky approved the third shots.
“These booster doses are an important step forward in the fight against COVID-19,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in a statement. “With the authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech booster for eligible individuals, VA can provide Veterans an opportunity to maximize their protection, continuing our work to keep people safe and save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The boosters, so far only authorized for the Pfizer vaccine, are to be administered six months after an individual receives their initial vaccines.
It also said in a statement that it continues to reach out to veterans who have not been vaccinated at all.
Sep 24, 4:37 pm
US reaches vaccine milestone
Seventy-five percent of those eligible (12 years and older) have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, the White House’s COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar posted on Twitter Friday.
Calling the statistic a “milestone,” Shahpur also tweeted, “Let’s add more!”
Sep 24, 3:51 pm
Millions of federal contractors must be fully vaccinated by Dec. 8
The White House said Friday millions of federal contractors must get fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by Dec. 8.
The announcement came in a document issued Friday by the White House’s budget office, the Office of Management and Budget, following up on an executive order President Joe Biden signed Sept. 9 that mandated vaccinations for federal contractors, Reuters reported.
The formal guidance also says that after Dec. 8 “all covered contractor employees must be fully vaccinated by the first day of the period of performance on a newly awarded covered contract.”
An OMB spokesperson told ABC News that “millions” of people would be covered but didn’t share more exact numbers.
Earlier this month, the White House said that federal government employees and contractors will now be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will create a rule for private businesses with 100 or more employees to require their employees to be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson, Molly Nagle, Sarah Kolinovsky, and Justin Gomez
Sep 24, 3:34 pm
Nurses laud CDC decision to include front-line workers as eligible booster shot group
National Nurses United, the nation’s largest union of registered nurses, is lauding CDC director Rochelle Walensky’s inclusion of front-line and health care workers in her recommendations for who may now get a third Pfizer booster dose — a decision which overruled the agency’s independent panel conclusion.
The CDC’s advisory group had rejected the idea of third Pfizer doses for “high risk” workers like nurses and teachers, saying that without further data it wasn’t comfortable with automatically adding younger, healthier people simply by occupation.
The nurses’ union urged Walensky to bypass what her advisory panel had said — which is what she ultimately did.
“Nurses across the country are beyond relieved today to wake up to the news that CDC Director Rochelle Walensky prioritized the health and safety of health care and other essential workers most at risk of contracting Covid-19,” NNU president Deborah Burger told ABC in a statement Friday.
“It takes courage to do the right thing, especially when it involves going against the CDC’s own advisory panel,” Burger added. “We applaud this bold decision-making that prioritizes the health and safety of workers on the front lines of this ongoing crisis, and we know that her decision will absolutely save lives.”
Walensky however, insisted that she did not overrule the CDC’s advisory panel’s decision on booster shots for at-risk, front-line workers. She defended the decision as a “scientific close call” saying that she would advocate for the boosters if she was in the room.
“I want to be very clear that I did not overrule … the advisory committee,” she said. “I listened to the votes. I listened to the comments on the vote and this was a scientific close call … It was my call to make. If I had been in the room, I would have voted ‘yes.'”
She also said that boosters were not a solution for ending the pandemic.
“I want to be clear we will not boost our way out of this pandemic. Infections among the unvaccinated continue to fuel this pandemic rise, resulting in a rising number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths where people are in vaccinated,” Walensky said.
-ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik and Matthew Vann
Sep 24, 2:28 pm
CVS says it will make Pfizer booster available today
On the heels of pharmacy retail chain Walgreens’ announcement that it is now ready to give third booster doses of the Pfizer vaccine to newly eligible groups, CVS announced it too will be ready “later today.”
“We are reviewing the CDC guidance and will be ready to provide the booster dose at CVS Pharmacy and select MinuteClinic locations that offer the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine later today. We strongly encourage customers to schedule an appointment in advance at to ensure they are able to access the correct vaccine at a convenient time and location,” the drugstore chain said in a statement Friday.
-ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik
Sep 24, 1:08 pm
COVID-19 outbreaks increase in school districts without masking policies: CDC study
School districts without a universal masking policy in place at the start of the school year saw a significant increase in COVID-19 outbreaks, according to three new studies released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Additionally, school districts in those counties saw more than double the number of pediatric COVID-19 cases during this same period, the studies, released Friday, also found.
The studies further emphasize that school mask requirements, along with other prevention strategies, are critical to reducing the spread of COVID-19 in schools.
Other key findings from the studies include:
– Schools in Arizona that opened without a school mask requirement had a 3.5 higher likelihood of having a COVID-19 outbreak than schools that opened with a school mask requirement.
-During the early part of the 2021-2022 academic school year, almost 2,000 schools have been closed and more than 900,000 students in more than 40 states have been impacted.
– Pediatric cases during the start of the 2021-2022 school year were about half in U.S. counties with school mask requirements than in counties without school mask requirements.
To prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in schools, the CDC recommends a multi-layered strategy including vaccination, universal indoor masking, testing and physical distancing.
-ABC News’ Eric Strauss
Sep 24, 12:18 pm
Walgreens announces its doors are open for new Pfizer booster group
Walgreens announced Friday morning that its participating stores are ready to start giving third booster doses of Pfizer’s vaccine to newly eligible groups.
The CDC green-lit Pfizer booster shots on Thursday.
As of Friday morning, those newly eligible groups can walk into any Walgreens location offering the Pfizer shot, the company said.
Also, as of Friday, people can begin scheduling appointments online or over the phone.
-ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik
Sep 24, 12:11 pm
Pfizer booster shot available ‘literally right now’ in NYC: Mayor
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said a third Pfizer booster shot is available to eligible New Yorkers, “literally right now.”
“As of now, as of this exact moment, New Yorkers in a number of categories are eligible for the 3rd booster shot, Pfizer only, for the COVID vaccine,” the mayor told radio station WNYC Friday.
Eligible New Yorkers include anyone who got their second shot six months ago and are 65 or older; in a long-term care facility or nursing home; are between 18 and 64 years old with an underlying medical condition; or are between 18 and 64 years old and a front-line or health care worker doing direct work with the public, the mayor said.
On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention an independent advisory panel’s recommendation for seniors and other medically vulnerable Americans to get a booster shot of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine six months after their second dose.
“Literally now you can go online, vax4nyc, either make an appointment right now for the coming days or you can get a list of all the city-run sites and you can walk in today if you are in those categories,” de Blasio said.
-ABC News’ Aaron Katersky
Sep 24, 6:23 am
CDC endorses Pfizer boosters for older and high-risk Americans
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has endorsed an independent advisory panel’s recommendation for seniors and other medically vulnerable Americans to get a booster shot of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, six months after their second dose.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, also partially overruled her agency’s advisory panel in a notable departure by adding a recommendation for a third dose for people who are considered high risk due to where they work, such as nurses and teachers — a group which the panel rejected in its recommendation. Some panelists said that without further data, they weren’t comfortable with automatically including younger people because of their jobs.
In a statement announcing her decision late Thursday, Walensky pointed to the benefit versus risk analysis she had weighed, and data rapidly evolving.
“In a pandemic, even with uncertainty, we must take actions that we anticipate will do the greatest good,” Walensky said. “While today’s action was an initial step related to booster shots, it will not distract from our most important focus of primary vaccination in the United States and around the world.”
With Walensky’s final sign-off, booster shots will now quickly become available for millions more Americans at pharmacies, doctors’ offices and other sites that offer the Pfizer vaccine as soon as Friday.
Sep 23, 8:40 pm
Leaving nurses out of booster recommendation ‘unconscionable,’ union charges
The nation’s largest union of registered nurses pushed back against the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel’s vote on COVID-19 booster shots, calling not including front-line workers like nurses in its recommendations “unconscionable.”
National Nurses United is urging CDC Director Rochelle Walensky to bypass what the advisory panel, ACIP, recommended and add nurses and other health care workers to the list of eligible booster recipients.
“Nurses and other health care workers were among the first to be vaccinated because of their high risk of exposure to the virus,” Deborah Burger, the union’s president, said in a statement. “Why leave them out of booster shots?”
“It is unconscionable that ACIP would not vote to keep us safer from death, severe Covid, and long Covid,” Burger continued. “We must do everything possible to ensure that the health of our nurses and other health care workers will not be put even more at risk.”
ACIP voted Thursday to recommend a third Pfizer dose for people aged 65 and older, as well as those as young as 18 if they have an underlying medical condition.
In its authorization Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration did agree to make the shots available to front-line workers. But ACIP said there was not yet enough data to support providing booster shots automatically to young people because of their jobs.
