(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — dThe Florida Board of Education passed a rule Friday allowing parents in the state to skirt mask mandates that districts may enforce for their children.
The rule, passed unanimously at an emergency meeting, lets parents transfer their kids to a private school or another district if they experience “COVID-19 harassment,” including mask requirements.
According to the rule, these students would qualify for a Hope Scholarship, an existing program created to protect children who are bullied, assaulted, harassed or threatened in school.
The Florida Department of Health also announced a rule on Friday requiring school districts to allow parents to opt their children out of mask mandates.
Both rules were in response to an executive order issued last week by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which directed the state departments of education and health to enact measures to protect “parents’ rights … to make health care decisions for their minor children.”
Multiple districts this week defied the governor’s order by issuing mask mandates for their students, including northern Florida’s Alachua County, where schools have experienced a surge of COVID-19 cases among staff, including two recent deaths.
Leonetta McNealy, the chair of the Alachua County School Board, who told ABC News Thursday that the executive order was “appalling and absurd,” said Friday in a text message that the district will now allow parents to opt out of wearing masks by using the Hope Scholarship.
South Florida’s Broward County Public Schools, the other district to require masks for students, had not released updated guidance by Friday evening. The district said Wednesday that it was “awaiting further guidance” before updating its policy.
The debate around mask requirements comes as the delta variant of the coronavirus wreaks havoc in Florida.
On Thursday, the Florida Hospital Association reported 12,500 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19, marking a new pandemic high. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state is now reporting over 17,000 new cases per day. About 1 in 5 COVID cases diagnosed in the country are now in Florida, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration has announced it is extending pandemic relief for student loan repayments, interest and collections through January 31, 2022, referring to it as the “final” extension.
The pause has been in effect since former President Donald Trump signed the CARES Act in March 2020 and was extended by both him and President Joe Biden. It was most recently set to expire on Sept. 30.
“As our nation’s economy continues to recover from a deep hole, this final extension will give students and borrowers the time they need to plan for restart and ensure a smooth pathway back to repayment,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “It is the Department’s priority to support students and borrowers during this transition and ensure they have the resources they need to access affordable, high quality higher education.”
The Department of Education says the extension will give borrowers time to plan to resume payments and reduce the risk of delinquency and default.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Ayanna Pressley applauded the move in a joint statement Friday afternoon.
“We’re pleased the Biden administration has heeded our call to extend the pause on federally-held student loan payments, providing an enormous relief to millions of borrowers facing a disastrous financial cliff,” they said. “The payment pause has saved the average borrower hundreds of dollars per month, allowing them to invest in their futures and support their families’ needs.”
Still, the group of lawmakers wants the president to go further and use executive action to cancel $50,000 of student debt.
“Student debt cancellation is one of the most significant actions that President Biden can take right now to build a more just economy and address racial inequity,” the statement said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, however, last month said the president does not have the power to cancel student debt and that only Congress has that authority.
“He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power,” she said at a press conference.
Borrowers will be notified about the new extension “in the coming days” and the Education Department is expected to provide information about how to plan for restarting payments.
(NEW YORK) — Those who wish to spend a few minutes at the edge of Earth’s atmosphere will now have the chance — if they have $450,000 to spare.
Virgin Galactic, the private space tourism firm headed by billionaire Richard Branson, announced Thursday evening that it was officially reopening ticket sales.
The announcement comes on the heels of a successful test flight last month in which Branson and a crew flew to the edge of space in a mission dubbed Unity 22.
“Leveraging the surge in consumer interest following the Unity 22 flight, we are excited to announce the reopening of sales effective today, beginning with our Spacefarer community,” Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said in a statement Thursday as the company announced second quarter earnings. “As we endeavor to bring the wonder of space to a broad global population, we are delighted to open the door to an entirely new industry and consumer experience.”
“Spacefarer community” refers to customers who already have put down a refundable deposit to be first in line to purchase tickets. The company said it intends to offer three consumer offerings for the private astronaut market: a single seat, a multi-seat package for couples or friends and a full-flight buyout. When the firm initially announced it was selling tickets to space a few years ago, the announced price was $250,000.
Branson’s July 11 suborbital flight took heat from critics for stretching the definition of space as the crew did not go above the Karman line (62 miles above Earth) that is defined by many agencies — but not all — as the boundary between the planet’s atmosphere and space.
Still, video from the trip showed Branson and his crew enjoying a few minutes of micro-gravity and the entire crew was presented astronaut wings during a news conference after their landing.
Branson’s role in much-viewed test flight was as a mission specialist, tasked with testing the customer experience.
“I think, like most kids, I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid and honestly nothing can prepare you for the view of Earth from space,” Branson said after landing. “It’s just magical. I’m just taking it all in. It’s just unreal.”
Just nine days after Branson’s spaceflight, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took a similar jaunt via a ride from his private space-faring company Blue Origin. Many saw the back-to-back billionaire spaceflights as ushering in a new era in space tourism that has been propelled by a budding commercial space industry dominated by the ultra-rich.
(WASHINGTON) — A New Jersey man on Friday pleaded guilty to two federal counts of assaulting law enforcement and obstruction of an official proceeding during the January 6 Capitol assault.
Scott Fairlamb is the first accused rioter charged with assaulting law enforcement to plead guilty.
Prosecutors say he was seen in videos stalking a line of officers outside the Capitol before punching one in the head.
Obstruction of an official proceeding carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and the assaulting law enforcement court carries a maximum sentence of 8 years.
Prosecutors said they are seeking a sentence ranging from 41 to 51 months in prison and have said Fairlamb should pay $2,000 restitution.
Fairlamb will likely argue for less time behind bars.
Sentencing memos from both parties are due on September 20 and Fairlamb is scheduled to appear back in court on September 27.
“Are you an American? Act like one!” Fairlamb, a gym owner and former MMA fighter, is heard yelling in a body cam video, which was released to ABC and 13 other media outlets as part of the ongoing legal effort. “You guys have no idea what the f*** you’re doing.”
Prosecutors also flagged videos Fairlamb posted to his Facebook during the riot where they say he’s seen holding a collapsible baton and saying to the camera, “What do Patriots do? We f***in’ disarm them and then we storm the f***in’ Capitol!”
Fairlamb had previously hosted a pandemic protest at his Pompton Lakes gym in response to COVID restrictions and last summer posted a threatening message on Instagram targeting Representative Cori Bush.
While Fairlamb’s attorney has said the government is seeking a 51-month sentence for his client, it’s unclear what D.C. District Judge Royce Lamberth will decide is an appropriate punishment — though it could serve as a benchmark for the more than 150 rioters so far charged with attacking police.
Of the more than 30 rioters who have pleaded guilty so far in the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation into the Capitol attack, only six have been sentenced and none of them to significant time in prison.
A Florida man, Paul Hodgkins, was recently sentenced to eight months in prison after pleading guilty to a felony charge of obstructing a congressional proceeding, and two others who had already been in government custody pending trial were sentenced to time served.
There are more than 500 people charged by the Justice Department for their actions on January 6.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
(ALBANY, N.Y.) — A former New York State employee has filed a criminal complaint against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo with the Albany County Sheriff’s Office, a spokeswoman told ABC News.
This is believed to be the first complaint filed against the embattled governor in wake of Tuesday’s Attorney General report which concluded he violated state and federal law in sexually harassing at least 11 women.
The woman who filed the complaint is a former assistant to the governor who is identified as “Executive Assistant #1” in Attorney General Letitia James’ report released Tuesday.
“Since approximately late 2019 the Governor engaged in a pattern of inappropriate conduct with Executive Assistant #1,” the report said.
The conduct included close and intimate hugs, kisses, touching and grabbing of her backside and suggestive remarks, according to the investigators. The report listed that Executive Assistant #1 had what appeared to be the most serious allegation against Cuomo, accusing him of reaching under her shirt and fondling her breast in the Executive Mansion in Albany in November 2020.
Cuomo has denied all allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct.
Cuomo’s lawyer Rita Glavin said in a response to the report Tuesday that the governor “never groped Ms. X,” adding, “This claim is false, as the Governor has stated repeatedly and unequivocally.”
Earlier this week the lawyer of another accuser, Lindsey Boylan, said she intends to sue Cuomo for allegedly retaliating against her after she came forward.
“Our plan is to sue the governor and his and his co-conspirators,” Boylan’s attorney, Jill Basinger, told ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” citing the retaliatory actions outlined in the AG report.
The New York State Assembly’s impeachment investigation into Cuomo “is nearing completion,” officials said Thursday, and the Judiciary Committee will meet Monday morning to discuss the probe.
So far at least five district attorney offices — Manhattan, Albany, Westchester County, Nassau County and Oswego County — have launched investigations into Cuomo for alleged incidents outlined in the report that took place in their jurisdictions.
“The governor certainly seems to form a pattern of behavior that shows a sense, at a minimum, of an entitlement and a disregard of the well-being of others and the self-respect of many women,” Oswego District Attorney Gregory Oakes said to local ABC affiliate in Rochester WHAM.
(WASHINGTON) — Spirit Airlines customers should expect hundreds more cancellations in the coming days as the airline works to rebuild its network.
CEO Ted Christie said weather issues coupled with staffing shortages led to mass flight cancellations at the airline this week.
“How we got here really starts with a very challenging, operating month in the month of July,” Christie said in an interview with ABC News. “Weather delays and logistics delays throughout the air transportation system built throughout the course of the month and ate away at all the redundancy that we had in our system.”
By the end of July, Spirit was forced to cancel flights for lack of crew availability, leading to a crew disruption throughout the airline’s network.
“They were in the wrong places at the wrong time,” Christie said. “And we needed to start to build that puzzle back together again. And, unfortunately, that takes our group a lot of time to do.”
The carrier has canceled more than 1,700 flights this week alone. Christie said he expects the cancellations to continue into early next week.
“We are starting to turn the tide here and get our operation back moving again,” Christie said. “There will still be cancellations over the next few days, but we can start to build back to a full operation.”
Amid the breakdown at the airline, passengers were left stranded at airports across the country.
Maria Martinez was stuck in Tampa, Florida, for three days, trying to get home to Detroit.
“We boarded the plane, they de-boarded us out of the plane and then they told us it was canceled,” Martinez told Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ.
“It’s been a terrible week for us, for our guests,” Christie said. “We offer our apology to all of our guests that have been impacted here, and to our team members who are working really hard it’s been a rough week for sure.”
Despite this, Christie said he believes they have “taken care of” their guests and have provided adequate accommodations and vouchers.
“We believe we’ve taken care of our guests at this point, and we think we’re caught up there. We’ve either gotten them reaccommodated on Spirit or another airline or we’ve put them into a hotel or gotten them where they needed to be.”
Christie acknowledged Spirit’s reputation has taken a hit due of the issues. He hopes his airline will learn from it.
“While we strive for perfection in everything we do, in the times that we don’t we are humble enough that we look inside and figure out ways to get better and Spirit has been getting better over the last five years or so, and while this has been a terrible last few days we have to do the same thing here.”
Christie said Spirit will be working over the next few days to not only rebuild its network, but its trust with passengers.
“We have to do everything in our power to earn back their confidence, their business,” he said. “And that starts with building the airline back, making it as reliable as we want it to be.”
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. employers added a higher-than-expected 943,000 jobs last month, the Department of Labor said Friday, and the unemployment rate declined by a fraction of a percentage point to 5.4%.
A recent surge in virus cases in the U.S., propelled largely by the spread of the highly contagious delta variant, casts a shadow over the data collected in the earlier part of the month.
While the latest figures indicate the economic recovery is gaining steam, the unemployment rate still remains well above the pre-pandemic figure of 3.5% seen in February 2020.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Providence Police DepartmentProvidence Police Department
(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) — A woman has been arrested in connection to the brutal beating of another woman who was attacked by a mob of ATV riders and dirt bikers in Providence, Rhode Island, police said in a statement Thursday.
On Thursday evening, Providence Police detectives apprehended Shyanne Boisvert, 24, of North Providence, “related to the assault that occurred on Valley Street on August 3,” the police department said.
Providence Police were notified of Boisvert’s whereabouts by the Cranston Police Department, when she reported to their station regarding an unrelated matter, they said.
Boisvert was charged with one count of simple assault and one count of disorderly conduct. She will soon appear in court.
The investigation into the incident is ongoing.
On Tuesday night, a mob of about 10 ATV and dirt bike riders in Providence allegedly pulled a woman out of her car and beat her.
According to a copy of the police report obtained by ABC News, the 35-year-old victim had honked her horn at the group after they failed to move through two green lights.
As she drove away, some of them opened the driver’s side door, pulled her out of the car and began beating her on the street, the report said.
The incident was captured on a cellphone video which was obtained by Providence ABC affiliate WLNE.
It’s unclear as of now what role Boisvert played in the assault.
The incident is just the latest in a string of violent crimes that have taken place in Providence this year.
Last Friday, Providence City Council President John Igliozzi sent a letter to Gov. Dan McKee requesting that Rhode Island State Police troopers be deployed to the city to assist police in confronting the crime wave. Igliozzi also pointed out the lack of staffing in the local police department.
“As you know, the headlines regarding crime in the city of Providence over the last few weeks have been shocking — murders, drive-by shootings, stabbings, gang incidents and roving throngs of ATV and dirt bike riders terrorizing our neighborhoods,” Igliozzi wrote. “This wave of violent crime is unacceptable, and we need to act immediately to restore public safety and make our city’s residents once again feel safe walking and sitting outside in their own neighborhoods.”
(NEW YORK) — Life may be about to get tougher for the unvaccinated — and it’s not only because of their significantly increased risk of getting COVID-19 and becoming very sick.
A rising chorus of states, cities and private sector titans have implemented new vaccine requirements for their employees and patrons. It marks a new, less negotiable phase in the fight against the coronavirus, after months of cajoling and material goodies leading the vaccination campaign.
The new incentives aren’t financial. They draw motivation from immediate and tangible fears: of losing time to go get tested, losing a job, losing money or missing out on social events, as well as the ever more apparent pain of the pandemic hitting home through loss of life and loved ones. More than 97% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the country are unvaccinated, according to the White House COVID-19 Task Force.
Now, after months of vaccine rates tapering off, vaccination rates are heading back up with the recent surge of serious illness. On Thursday alone, the U.S. saw its highest vaccination numbers in over a month — 585,000 new vaccinations in a single day, the White House COVID-19 data director announced. Some of the most dramatic upticks in recent vaccinations have been in states with the highest surges in new cases and hospitalizations and some of the lowest vaccination rates.
“Watching more people dying in the ICU, kids getting sick? Yes, that motivates,” said Dr. Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics and the founding head of New York University School of Medicine’s medical ethics division. “Free beer, fishing license, free marijuana, college tuition didn’t move many people to get vaccinated.”
Unvaccinated Americans must now weigh their own personal risk-benefit ratio: Take the vaccine or face restrictions.
“The carrots do not work much,” Caplan said. “Now, we’re seeing more pressure coming from the other side.”
That pressure is coming in the form of federal, state and local vaccine requirements.
Requirements that government employees get vaccinated or face regular testing, social distancing and masks were accompanied by a slew of major companies like Google, Facebook, Tyson Foods and Disney, which is the parent company of ABC News, now requiring the vaccine for their employees.
“I think we’ve taken significant steps to make it difficult to come back to work, or more difficult to come back to work, if you’re not vaccinated,” White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said.
The Biden administration has made clear there will be no federal mandate; but its recent lean-in to vaccine requirements marks a shift in tone, going from removing barriers to getting the vaccine to making it harder to move about “normal” life for those who choose not to get it.
“There’s a bit of a hassle factor that plays into whether or not people are willing to get an exemption,” Julie Morita, executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told ABC. “And if it’s too difficult or more challenging, people might opt just to get vaccinated.”
As the NFL season gets into gear, the league informed clubs that it would not extend the season to accommodate a COVID-19 outbreak among unvaccinated players that leads to a game cancellation, the NFL Network reported, a stark turn from the season prior, when the league flexed the schedule to avoid missed games amid outbreaks. Additionally, players on both teams would forfeit pay for the lost contest, and the team responsible for the cancellation brought on by unvaccinated players would cover the financial losses and face potential disciplinary action.
Caplan suggests framing vaccination as the more appealing choice; opting out will make life harder.
New York is the first city in the country that will require proof of at least one dose of vaccination for some of the main modes of basic leisure — dining out inside, indoor entertainment and working out at the gym. All state employees will be required to get vaccinated or get tested weekly beginning Labor Day.
Major privately run hospitals in New York will impose a similar vaccine requirement. In internal emails obtained by ABC News, New York Presbyterian and Mount Sinai both notified staff that beginning in September, workers must show proof of vaccination or undergo weekly testing. State-run, patient-facing hospital workers will have no testing option.
“Please note that compliance — either by vaccination or exemption — will be required for your continued employment,” New York Presbyterian’s hospital president and vice president said in a letter to staff. “We want all of our team members to continue working with us, but we have to balance that with the imperative to protect our patients, employees and communities.”
The move earned protest from the largest health care union in the U.S. Members of the 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East said they shouldn’t have to be vaccinated to keep their jobs — especially if it risks losing front-line health workers at a time they’re most needed. That mirrored some national unions’ concerns about protecting individual freedoms — and not forcing their workers to pay for government-enforced testing.
Experts note there’s a fine line between requirements being “part of what’s going to nudge more people to get vaccinated,” as Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told ABC’s Start Here podcast, and pushing them away.
A full federal mandate might make hesitant and unvaccinated Americans “dig in their heels” further, Morita said.
“Generally, with mandates of any kind, you want to do everything else possible before you mandate something,” she said. “But when the vaccine is free, it’s accessible, and you’re still struggling, then mandates make sense. But you really want to give people the chance to do it on their own.”
The advent of more local mandates looms on the imminent horizon as soon as the vaccine is fully FDA-approved, which could come as soon as early September, a senior White House official familiar with the FDA approval process told ABC News.
Dr. Anthony Fauci called that moment a “game-changer,” one that will possibly provide more legal cover for companies to implement vaccine imperatives.
“‘My body, my choice’ is not an ethic for a plague,” Caplan said. “The ethics of plague are, ‘my body, vaccinated’ — more choices for everybody.”
(NEW YORK) — United Airlines announced Friday that all U.S.-based employees will be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and upload their vaccination card to a company site by this fall.
It is the first major U.S. carrier to mandate vaccines for all employees. Delta Air Lines announced earlier this year that it is requiring all new employees to be inoculated.
United joins a growing list of companies that have mandated vaccines for employees in some capacity: Uber, DoorDash, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Walmart and many more.
The airline’s deadline for employees to upload their vaccine card is five weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced it has fully approved a COVID-19 vaccine or five weeks after Sept. 20, whichever comes first.
“For those employees who are already vaccinated — and for those employees who get vaccinated and upload their records to Flying Together before September 20th — we’ll offer an additional day of pay,” United CEO Scott Kirby and United President Brett Hart wrote in a memo to employees.
The executives added, “We know some of you will disagree with this decision to require the vaccine for all United employees. But, we have no greater responsibility to you and your colleagues than to ensure your safety when you’re at work, and the facts are crystal clear: everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated.”
United’s decision comes as fears mount about the highly-contagious delta variant.
“Over the last 16 months, Scott has sent dozens of condolences letters to the family members of United employees who have died from COVID-19,” the executives wrote. “We’re determined to do everything we can to try to keep another United family from receiving that letter.”
Last year, major U.S. airline CEOs pointed to low infection rates among their employees in an attempt to prove that air travel is safe.
“At United, but also at our large competitors, our flight attendants have lower COVID infection rates than the general population, which is one of multiple data points that speaks to the safety on board airplanes,” Kirby said during a Politico event in September.
At the time, the largest flight attendant union in the U.S. that represents United flight attendants among other airlines — the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO — said they saw a little over 1,000 flight attendants across the industry contract the novel coronavirus. That represented less than 1% of the roughly 120,000 flight attendants that were employed at the end of last year, and was lower than the reported general infection rate of 2%.
