(NEW YORK) — Rental car giant Hertz announced it was buying 100,000 Tesla electric vehicles that will be available to customers starting next month.
Tesla stock soared on news of the massive order, and its market cap hit the $1 trillion milestone during intraday trading Monday, a feat very few U.S. companies have attained.
The announcement also comes just months after Hertz emerged from bankruptcy, after the COVID-19 pandemic gutted the travel and rental car industry in 2020.
In addition to the initial order of 100,000 Teslas by the end of 2022, Hertz also announced it was adding new electric vehicle charging infrastructure at outposts across its global operations.
Starting in early November, the company said customers will be able to rent a Tesla Model 3 at Hertz airport and neighborhood locations in major U.S. markets and select cities in Europe. It will offer digitized guidance to educate customers about the electric vehicles, and soon hopes to offer an expedited electric vehicle rental booking process through its app.
“Electric vehicles are now mainstream, and we’ve only just begun to see rising global demand and interest,” Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields said in a statement Monday.
“The new Hertz is going to lead the way as a mobility company, starting with the largest EV rental fleet in North America and a commitment to grow our EV fleet and provide the best rental and recharging experience for leisure and business customers around the world,” Fields added.
The company said it was the first U.S. car rental company to introduce electric vehicles to its rental fleet in 2011 and that with the current order, electric vehicles will comprise more than 20% of Hertz global fleet.
Hertz is teaming up with seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady on an ad campaign about its new electric vehicle fleet.
“Although the company has been around for over 100 years, their constant evolution, especially now, is something that is amazing to be a part of,” Brady said in a statement. “I’ve been driving an EV for years and knowing Hertz is leading the way with their electric fleet speaks to how the world is changing and the way companies are approaching being environmentally and socially conscious. I’ve always loved how easy and convenient Hertz makes it for me when I’m traveling to my favorite places like New York, LA and Tampa and can’t wait to see what they continue to have in store.”
The move comes amid mounting pressure on the private sector and beyond to take action on climate change. The transportation sector generated the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, per the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, primarily from burning fossil fuels for cars, trucks, ships, trains and planes.
(NEW YORK) — A coalition of Amazon warehouse workers in New York City have officially filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday.
Kayla Blado, the press secretary for the National Labor Relations Board, confirmed to ABC News on Monday that the union petition was filed in the NLRB’s Region 29. The petition must now go through the NLRB’s formal representation election process before a vote will be held.
The group of workers, which calls themselves the Amazon Labor Union, are being led by a former fulfillment center employee of the e-commerce giant, Chris Smalls. He became the face of the labor movement at Amazon when he was fired under contentious circumstances at the beginning of the pandemic after organizing a demonstration over working conditions amid the health crisis.
The milestone comes some six months after a high-profile union bid by Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, who sought to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The unionization efforts garnered support from lawmakers and even President Joe Biden. Ultimately, however, the election resulted in the Alabama workers overwhelmingly voting not to form a union — though the RWDSU has accused Amazon of union-busting techniques — Amazon denies this — and has filed objections over the election with the NLRB.
“We’re completely independent, worker-led through and through, grassroots,” Smalls told ABC News Friday of the New York-based group, adding that they felt there were “missed opportunities” with the failed effort in Alabama.
“We’re just trying to navigate our way — we think we know the ins-and-outs of the company better than a third party or an established union,” Smalls said in describing why they’re seeking to create an independent union. He said he’d worked at Amazon for almost five years before his termination and that his fellow lead-organizers have similar experiences.
Smalls said organizers are seeking to obtain better job security, pay and working conditions through collective bargaining.
“Amazon has a high turnover rate — they hire and fire all the time,” he said. “We want to protect workers with their job.”
“We also want a decent living wage,” he added. “I know Amazon’s going to claim that they pay better than competitors, but with the cost of living in the New York state area, it’s still not sustainable.”
He said Amazon can afford to pay workers better, pointing to the wealth of founder Jeff Bezos, who was only recently unseated by Elon Musk as the richest man in the world, per Bloomberg’s real-time data on billionaires.
Smalls told ABC News on Friday that they have more than 2,000 workers who have signed union cards, and they plan to deliver these to the NLRB’s office on Monday to file for the union election for four facilities in Staten Island. There are approximately 7,000 workers at the facilities, according to Smalls, and organizers need signatures from at least 30% of the workers. He said they’re confident they’ll secure the remaining portion before Monday.
A statement from the newly formed coalition of workers said that they built trust among colleagues through months of organizing efforts that included hosting barbecues, handing out food and cold water and holding rallies.
“This is truly a remarkable historical moment for all Amazon workers all over the country,” the Amazon Labor Union stated. “Workers under the banner of the ALU have already broken barriers, and we will continue to do so. We’re not getting complacent, and we now need the support of the communities more than ever as our fight is just getting started.”
The move comes amid a spate of strikes and new employee activism in the workplace as the pandemic wanes in the U.S.
“The timing is, like, perfect, everybody’s been paying attention to the strikes, especially Amazon workers as well,” Smalls said. “So it’s kind of like we all stand in solidarity, even though we’re in different industries.”
“I think what we’re doing here is historical, and I think the Amazon workers are happy to be a part of it,” he added.
Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson, told ABC News in a statement Friday that they don’t feel unions “are the best answer for our employees.”
“Our employees have the choice of whether or not to join a union. They always have,” Nantel said. “Every day we empower people to find ways to improve their jobs, and when they do that we want to make those changes — quickly. That type of continuous improvement is harder to do quickly and nimbly with unions in the middle.”
(CAIRO) — After initially being put under house arrest by military forces Monday, Sudan’s acting Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and his wife Muna Abdalla were “kidnapped” at dawn from their Khartoum residence, according to the prime minister’s office.
The move happened after the military forces arrested several top civilian officials, including cabinet ministers. Soon after, Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan declared a state of emergency and dissolved the ruling transitional sovereign council and the government on Monday. It led to a backlash from the opposition and the United States.
Opposition figures said bridges and roads were blocked and that the internet was cut off in Khartoum. Videos posted on social media showed a large number of protesters taking to the streets, setting tires on fire and chanting against the apparent coup.
“What happened today in Khartoum is an attempt to erode the democratic gains of our December 2018 revolution,” Ismail El Taj, a leading member of the Sudanese Professionals Association, one of the main coalitions that rose up against the autocratic regime of Omar al-Bashir, told ABC News. “We will resist this coup with all peaceful means, such as peaceful marches, sit-ins and civil disobedience. The trembling hands that are trying to turn back the clock will not succeed.”
Both the U.S. embassy in Khartoum and the U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa issued statements condemning the military takeover.
On Saturday, U.S. special envoy for Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman met with Hamdok and coup leader Gen. Burhan together and “urged all actors to recommit to working together to implement the constitutional declaration and Juba Peace Agreement.” The agreement lays out the transition to democratic rule, according to the embassy.
“The US is deeply alarmed at reports of a military take-over of the transitional government,” Feltman said in a statement Monday. “This would contravene the Constitutional Declaration and the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people and is utterly unacceptable. As we have said repeatedly, any changes to the transitional government by force puts at risk U.S. assistance.”
Following Monday’s military takeover, the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum urged Americans to shelter in place in Monday and to avoid traveling to the embassy or international airports. It said armed forces were “blocking certain areas in and around Khartoum” and that internet in the capital is “non-functional.”
“There are unverified reports of violence against protesters. Flights are not leaving the country,” the embassy said in an alert.
The U.N. secretary-general called on the immediate release of the prime minister and all others who have been detained.
“The unlawful detention of the PM, government officials, and politicians is unacceptable and contravenes the constitutional document, and the partnership critical for the success of Sudan’s transition,” a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement Monday.
Regardless of the objections by other parties and the international community, coup leader al-Burhan said in a live television statement Monday that he was keen on completing a transition to democracy, adding that “a government of independent competent figures will be formed to lead the country until the elections (in July 2023). The equitable representation of all the people of Sudan, its factions and groups shall be taken into account.”
Sudan’s information ministry said military forces had stormed state TV offices in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman on Monday.
The prime minister’s office condemned the military forces’ move, saying the military leaders of the Sudanese state “bear the criminal, legal and political consequences of the unilateral decisions they have taken.” In a statement, they describe it as “a complete coup against the gains of the revolution and our people, who sacrificed their blood in search of freedom, peace and justice.”
ABC News’ Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 4.9 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 735,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 67% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 25, 10:23 am
Cases dropping across US but rising in some Midwest, Northeast states
In the last month, the daily case average in the U.S. has dropped by nearly 43% thanks to falling metrics in states like Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana, which have all seen their case averages drop by nearly 90% or more since August, according to federal data.
But in recent weeks, cases have been creeping up in several states in the Northeast and the upper Midwest, including Minnesota and Michigan.
Alaska currently has the country’s highest infection rate, followed by Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and North Dakota, according to federal data.
About 52,000 COVID-19 patients are currently hospitalized across the U.S., a major drop from the 104,000 hospitalized patients in late August.
But the U.S. death toll remains persistently high, with nearly 1,300 new deaths being reported each day, according to federal data.
Oct 25, 9:36 am
Moderna says its pediatric vaccine produces strong immune response in kids 6 to 11
Moderna has announced that its vaccine produces a strong immune response for children 6 to 11 and appears safe.
The study, which included 4,753 kids, found that side effects were generally consistent with those seen in adolescents and adults, such as fatigue, headache, fever and sore arm.
Moderna said it plans to submit this data to the FDA soon.
Meanwhile, FDA advisors are planning to meet this week to discuss Pfizer’s vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. Full authorization is possible by early November.
Oct 25, 8:12 am
Former CDC head ‘very encouraged’ by US data
Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday that he’s “very encouraged” by the country’s current COVID-19 metrics.
Speaking to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos during an interview on Good Morning America, Besser said the United States is “definitely” moving in the right direction with COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths on the decline in “a lot of communities” and vaccinations on the rise.
As the Halloween holiday draws near, Besser advised families living in areas where COVID-19 numbers are going down to remain vigilant by wearing protective face masks and using hand sanitizer when trick-or-treating this year. Otherwise, he encouraged them to “enjoy the holiday.”
“These kinds of things are very good for emotional health and you can do them safely,” explained Besser, who is now the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
When asked whether he thinks the situation will improve to a point where children won’t need to wear masks in school, Besser said it will come down to what’s happening at the community level.
“I think if we’re in a situation where vaccines are available and the rate of disease in the community is very low, we’ll get to a point where we won’t need masks anymore,” he said. “There will be a day where kids can go to school without masks and just be kids.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 4.9 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 735,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 67.2% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 25, 10:23 am
Cases dropping across US but rising in some Midwest, Northeast states
In the last month, the daily case average in the U.S. has dropped by nearly 43% thanks to falling metrics in states like Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana, which have all seen their case averages drop by nearly 90% or more since August, according to federal data.
But in recent weeks, cases have been creeping up in several states in the Northeast and the upper Midwest, including Minnesota and Michigan.
Alaska currently has the country’s highest infection rate, followed by Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and North Dakota, according to federal data.
About 52,000 COVID-19 patients are currently hospitalized across the U.S., a major drop from the 104,000 hospitalized patients in late August.
But the U.S. death toll remains persistently high, with nearly 1,300 new deaths being reported each day, according to federal data.
Oct 25, 9:36 am
Moderna says its pediatric vaccine produces strong immune response in kids 6 to 11
Moderna has announced that its vaccine produces a strong immune response for children 6 to 11 and appears safe.
The study, which included 4,753 kids, found that side effects were generally consistent with those seen in adolescents and adults, such as fatigue, headache, fever and sore arm.
Moderna said it plans to submit this data to the FDA soon.
Meanwhile, FDA advisors are planning to meet this week to discuss Pfizer’s vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. Full authorization is possible by early November.
Oct 25, 8:12 am
Former CDC head ‘very encouraged’ by US data
Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday that he’s “very encouraged” by the country’s current COVID-19 metrics.
Speaking to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos during an interview on Good Morning America, Besser said the United States is “definitely” moving in the right direction with COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths on the decline in “a lot of communities” and vaccinations on the rise.
As the Halloween holiday draws near, Besser advised families living in areas where COVID-19 numbers are going down to remain vigilant by wearing protective face masks and using hand sanitizer when trick-or-treating this year. Otherwise, he encouraged them to “enjoy the holiday.”
“These kinds of things are very good for emotional health and you can do them safely,” explained Besser, who is now the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
When asked whether he thinks the situation will improve to a point where children won’t need to wear masks in school, Besser said it will come down to what’s happening at the community level.
“I think if we’re in a situation where vaccines are available and the rate of disease in the community is very low, we’ll get to a point where we won’t need masks anymore,” he said. “There will be a day where kids can go to school without masks and just be kids.”
(HOUSTON) — The remains of a 9-year-old boy have been discovered in a Houston home along with three abandoned children, authorities said.
One of the children, a 15-year-old, said his 9-year-old brother had been dead for one year and his body was in the room next to his, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said Monday.
The 15-year-old and the other two children — boys under the age of 10 — were found home alone on Sunday, the sheriff said.
Both younger kids “appeared malnourished and showed signs of physical injury,” he tweeted.
Deputies also “found skeletal remains of a small child,” the sheriff said.
All three children were taken to the hospital, he said. Their conditions were not released.
Authorities believe the parents hadn’t lived in the home for several months, Gonzalez said.
The children’s mother and her boyfriend were found late Sunday night, he said.
At a news conference Sunday Gonzalez called it a “horrific situation.”
“I have been in this business for a long time and I had never heard of a scenario like this,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The day of the Jan. 6 insurrection, Facebook noticed a rise in social media posts calling for violence and incitement around the certification of the U.S. presidential election result and the storming of the Capitol.
How the social media giant prepared for that day, and how it responded to the sudden onslaught of misleading information and violent rhetoric on both Facebook and Instagram is detailed in internal documents obtained by ABC News and a group of news organizations.
The documents were disclosed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former employee, and provided to Congress in redacted form by Haugen’s legal counsel. It was provided to ABC News by a congressional staffer.
In her filing, Haugen alleged that Facebook had misled investors and the public about potential harms associated with the platform.
In response to a series of Wall Street Journal articles based largely on the documents provided by Haugen, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, in a statement rejected the idea that Facebook “systematically and willfully ignores” research that is “inconvenient for the company.”
One of the documents, updated on Jan. 7, shows that Facebook analyzed some of the Capitol riot’s impact on its platforms.
The document shows there was a spike in the volume of reports from Facebook and Instagram users complaining about posts inciting violence on Jan. 6. There were around seven times as many hourly reports about posts containing incitement to violence as in the previous week, according to the document.
Another set of documents created during the events of Jan. 6 show a wider range of restrictions explored by Facebook to limit potentially harmful content and mitigate violence and incitement. The documents indicate that more severe restrictions, known internally as “break glass” measures, had been active earlier, in 2020, and then removed or rolled back. Several of the restrictions listed as having been previously rolled back focused on groups, such as freezing commenting on some group posts or preventing groups from changing their names to include terms that aimed to delegitimize the election result.
Ciaran O’Connor, a disinformation analyst with the London-based think tank Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said keeping these type of measures in place may have prevented extremism on Jan. 6 that was inflamed by a “dangerous mix of disinformation and conspiracy theories.”
“This action was entirely irresponsible and illustrative of wider failings in Facebook in wrongly prioritizing platform growth over safety,” he said.
When asked about the rollback of the measures, a Facebook official stressed that they were only part of Facebook’s preparations for the election, and that specific metrics were used to determine whether or not to disable them. Measures that were disabled, the official said, were done so gradually.
During the chaos of Jan. 6, Facebook considered re-enabling some of its old strategies and implementing new ones, according to the documents, to respond to the risk of “violence and incitement” in connection with the day’s events.
Some of the proposed restrictions, such as demoting content promoting the storming of the capitol, were described in the documents as a “first line of reactive defense” on the day.
A Jan. 19 report by the Tech Transparency Project linked Facebook’s groups feature to the growth of the “Stop The Steal” movement after the 2020 election. Some members of those groups made calls to overthrow the U.S. government by force to reverse the election result. Facebook removed the first large “Stop The Steal” group, but copycats and similar groups by other names remained on the platform through the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to the report.
In another document, which BuzzFeed News obtained and published in April, Facebook researchers said that harmful movements, such as Stop the Steal, were coordinated efforts that ultimately “helped incite the Capitol Insurrection.”
O’Connor suggested there are potential dangers with Facebook’s groups feature. “Groups have proven to be hubs for misinformation and harmful content, where there often [are] no gatekeepers and false information is allowed to flourish,” O’Connor said.
When asked for comment on the potential harms of groups, a Facebook official pointed to an Oct. 20 update to the feature, as well as previous measures including changes to group recommendations and using independent fact-checkers to flag misinformation in groups.
After the events of Jan. 6, Facebook took further safety measures, according to O’Connor, including limiting the amount of political content shown to some users, including in the U.S., the suspension of Trump’s page, and tools for group administrators to limit toxic or harmful conversations.
Facebook said on Oct. 20 that it will start “demoting” content posted in groups by people who have broken community guidelines anywhere on the platform. The announcement was made with the aim to keep rule breakers from reaching others in their community, according to Facebook’s update.
Another internal Facebook document provides insight into how “demotion” — a way of limiting the exposure of content thought likely to break the platform’s rules — was used in an effort to minimize the spread of potentially harmful information in connection with the events of Jan. 6. The document was posted on Feb. 19.
According to Facebook’s Transparency Center, “problematic or low quality content” may be “demoted” in an effort to reduce the number of users who see it.
The practice of demotion was aided by custom-built algorithmic “pipelines.” Two of those pipelines on Jan. 6 tracked false claims that circulated widely on Facebook amid the storming of the Capitol: that Antifa protesters were responsible, and that then-President Donald Trump had invoked the Insurrection Act, according to the document.
The Insurrection Act, passed in 1807, allows the president to deploy military troops to respond to domestic unrest and disasters. It was last invoked in 1992 by the George H.W. Bush administration during the Los Angeles riots. Trump threatened to invoke the Act in 2020 amid protests over the police killing of George Floyd.
The team responsible for these anti-misinformation pipelines encountered challenges, according to the document, including questions about which posts constituted misinformation.
Employees involved in this effort aimed to avoid “false positives” that did not contain misinformation, using “exclusion terms” like “MAGA losers” to rule out posts that criticized, rather than promoted, the storming of the Capitol.
The document says employees sought guidance from colleagues to resolve “ambiguities,” such as whether a claim that former President Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act was misinformation.
Facebook’s employees, according to the document, judged that claims that Trump would invoke the Act around Jan. 6 were valid, while false claims that he had already done so were considered misinformation.
“In close collaboration with Misinfo Policy, we determined that statements in the future are not considered misinfo. However, users posting the phrase “he signed the Insurrection Act” was considered unambiguous enough and judged as misinfo,” wrote the author of the document, who has not been identified.
In a statement issued on the evening of Jan. 6, the company said that in addition to demoting content that likely violated its rules, it had begun removing certain types of posts, including those that praised the storming of the Capitol or that called for further violence.
Facebook later said in a Jan. 11 statement that it would remove content containing the phrase “stop the steal.”
Haugen told the SEC that the company elects to demote content despite knowing it is “an ineffective response” due to concerns about being criticized over accidentally removing “false positives,” or posts that do not violate its rules.
Facebook executives frequently cite the protection of free speech on the platform as a bedrock principle, such as in an October 2019 speech by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that called for its protection despite its “messiness.”
During Haugen’s Oct. 5 Senate testimony, she criticized Facebook’s “closed design” which she alleged hides information from researchers and regulators.
“As long as Facebook is operating in the shadows, hiding its research from public scrutiny, it is unaccountable,” Haugen said to a Senate Commerce subcommittee.
O’Connor said that despite the changes it implemented after Jan. 6, the company still has work to do.
“Facebook, and other online companies, must do better and take action to limit the dangers of falsified information and extremist actors on their platforms,” he said.
Facebook’s Oversight Board said on Oct. 11 that it would meet with Haugen “over the coming weeks” to discuss the claims she made about the platform’s content-moderation decisions.
Facebook, along with other social media companies like Twitter and Snapchat, was the subject of a request for records announced on Aug. 27 by the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack.
On Oct. 22, another former Facebook employee, who has not been identified, was revealed to have submitted whistleblower documents to the SEC. The former employee told the Washington Post that Facebook prioritizes profit over safety on its platforms, and failed to take adequate action to address issues including illegal activity like drug dealing and antiquities trafficking.
A Facebook spokesperson said in response to the Washington Post’s report that the story was “beneath” the newspaper and set a “dangerous precedent” by relying on a single source, but did not deny the second whistleblower’s claims.
(ATLANTA) — With the lowest COVID-19 infection rate among all states as of Friday, California, which has some of the strictest mask and vaccination mandates in the country, has managed to flip the script as the former U.S. epicenter of the pandemic.
“They’ve been very much forward-thinking in terms of policies around vaccination requirements and mandates,” said epidemiologist Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
As of Friday evening, California had an infection rate of 61.1 cases per 100,000 over the past week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state was briefly the only to be classified with a “moderate” rate of transmission — 10 to 49.99 cases per 100,000 over seven days — before it went back up to “substantial,” meaning 50 to 99.99 cases per 100,000 over seven days.
Over the previous week, Hawaii, Florida, Louisiana, Connecticut, New Jersey, Mississippi, Maryland, Georgia and Washington, D.C., each also reported “substantial” rates.
A rate of at least 100 cases per 100,000 is labeled as “high.” Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Alaska, as of Friday, had the highest rates over the previous seven days, with each above 450 cases per 100,000 people. The U.S. average over that span was 150.9.
Experts said California’s journey from worst to first is likely due to a combination of things.
“We can’t know for sure which factors are responsible,” Brownstein added, “but we know that the combination of interventions and policies can play a really strong role in driving transmission.”
‘Ending this pandemic’
More than 70% of California’s population has received at least one dose of vaccine, according to the CDC, and the state also leads in total vaccinations administered, roughly 53 million doses. As of Friday, the national average rate was 66.2%.
Being the first state to announce a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for schools, California has some of the strictest mandates in the U.S. The state has mandated vaccines for state employees, health care workers, teachers and at large indoor gatherings.
“The more aggressive the vaccination campaign, the better,” Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health, told ABC News.
Given that vaccines are the most powerful tool we have in curbing the spread of COVID-19, experts said they believe California’s emphasis on immunizations has provided big dividends.
“These results show quite clearly that vaccines offer protection for individuals who lack immunity, with important implications for finally ending this pandemic,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, wrote in a blog post Tuesday.
Idaho and Wyoming have some of the lowest vaccination rates and the highest transmission rates.
All three COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. have since shown high effectiveness in preventing death due to COVID-19, and as of Friday, California boasted the lowest death rate in the country, with 0.3 per 100,000 over the previous week. The U.S. average over that span was 2.7 per 100,000.
Additionally, experts told ABC News, having endured the harshest waves of infections last winter and the delta surge in July, formerly infected Californians may have acquired antibodies and more of a natural immunity to COVID-19 — both factors that, in concert with vaccines, could be driving down case numbers.
‘More work to do’
In addition to strict vaccine mandates, California has been unwavering on face-coverings, testing and social distancing policies.
“While California has administered more vaccines than any other state, we have more work to do,” the California Department of Public Health said in a statement to ABC News.
Everyone, regardless of vaccination status, is required to wear a mask on public transit, in health care settings and at educational and correctional facilities. Masks are required for all unvaccinated people and recommended for vaccinated people in settings such as theaters, retail stores, restaurants and bars.
Despite having a higher vaccination rate than California, states like Vermont are still falling behind on transmission rate rankings, which experts said points to the importance of distancing and masking. Breakthrough cases seen in Vermont can be further explained by its higher proportion of residents 65 and older.
Mobility
Research shows mobility, or movement in populations, can be a predictor of disease spread, especially via air travel or mass transit. This became evident through the surge of COVID-19 cases the U.S. saw during holiday season.
Gov. Gavin Newsom pleaded with California residents on Christmas Eve to avoid holiday gatherings at a time when hospitals in the state were under “unprecedented pressure.”
Californian cities experienced a huge surge of cases and hospitalizations following the holidays, although rates have since declined.
No stranger to stay-at-home orders, the California government imposed several lockdowns and restrictions to curb the spread of the virus. It celebrated its most recent reopening in mid-June, which replaced 15-month-long public health restrictions with conditions more akin to “business as usual.”
“In the height of the pandemic, people were locked down, they weren’t moving at all, they were staying at home,” Brownstein told ABC News. “The more people move around, that’s usually an indicator for increased transmission.”
The great outdoors
The virus has been shown to spread more indoors and with people in close proximity to one another. California’s sunny climate means more people spend more time outside.
“When we spend most of our time indoors, that’s when transmission is greatest,” Ellerin said.
Added Brownstein: “More close contacts with people outside your household indoors is what creates additional risk.”
This effect is also compounded by the rise in the virus’ effective reproductive number during the winter season with research suggesting that a drop in temperature encourages virus growth.
Compared to many other states, especially as winter draws nearer, California is in “quite a good spot,” Brownstein said. “In all likelihood, the trends that we’re seeing are realistic and very much driven by compliance with masking and other interventions, plus the well-covered vaccination strategy in the state.”
(CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.) — A dark moment in U.S. history is set to be revisited when a federal civil trial begins in Charlottesville, Virginia, over a violent 2017 white nationalist rally that ended with an alleged neo-Nazi ramming his car into counterprotesters, killing one and injuring more than 30.
Jury selection is scheduled to get underway on Monday in the high-profile civil case in the U.S. district court in Charlottesville against organizers and certain participants of the “Unite the Right” rally. Nine people injured over the two-day event are accusing promoters of exhorting followers to “defend the South and Western civilization” from non-white people and their allies, according to the lawsuit.
“There is one thing about this case that should be made crystal-clear at the outset — the violence in Charlottesville was no accident,” contends the suit that is seeking unspecified damages from 24 defendants, including James Alex Fields Jr., the Ohio man who plowed his Dodge Challenger into a group of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
Fields, now 24, was convicted in 2018 of murder and multiple counts of aggravated malicious wounding, malicious wounding and hit and run. He was later sentenced to life in prison.
Fields also pleaded guilty to 29 federal hate crimes in a deal his attorneys worked out with prosecutors to spare him the death penalty.
Among the other defendants named in the civil suit are the alleged key organizers of the 2017 rally; Jason Kessler — who took out the permit for the rally — and Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute, which the plaintiffs have described in court documents as a white nationalist think tank.
Also named as defendants in the suit are the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina, the East Coast Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and Andrew Anglin of Ohio, founder of the far-right website the Daily Stormer.
The trial will mark the first major civil suit to be tried under the Enforcement Act of 1871, which is also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act and passed by Congress in response to a wave of terrorist violence against African Americans in the South.
“These defendants planned violence on social media and on other communication forums and even in-person conversations. They went to Charlottesville, committed that violence and then celebrated that violence,” Amy Spitalnick, executive director of Integrity First for America, a nonprofit supporting the plaintiffs, told ABC affiliate WRIC in Richmond, Virginia.
The defense
The defendants claim they were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech and their right to self-defense, claiming counterprotesters initially turned violent.
“Plaintiffs complaint is long on coarse internet language regarding non-whites and short on allegations of racial violence perpetrated by any moving defendant,” defense attorneys argued in a motion to dismiss the case that was denied.
The defendants also said the lawsuit fails to demonstrate that they conspired to incite violence.
“Plaintiffs have failed to make any credible allegation that any moving defendant came to any agreement with anybody, to do anything, other than march and chant in Charlottesville,” defense attorneys said in a filing.
Kessler and Spencer both denied the allegations that they helped instigate the violence in their responses to the lawsuit.
Immediately after the Charlottesville rally ended in the deadly hit and run, Kessler released a statement blaming local police for the mayhem.
“The blame for today’s violence is primarily the result of the Charlottesville government officials and the law enforcement officers which failed to maintain law and order by protecting the First Amendment rights of the participants of the ‘Unite the Right’ rally,” Kessler said in a statement to WVIR-TV, the NBC affiliate station in Charlottesville.
The “Unite the Right” rally was organized in response to a February 2017 decision by the Charlottesville City Council to consider a petition to remove a statue honoring Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a city park.
Far-right demonstrators from across the country descended on the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville on Aug. 11, 2017, where many were seen marching with tiki torches, giving Nazi salutes, and chanting “white lives matter” and “you will not replace us.”
Broken legs and emotional distress
Several of the plaintiffs were marching on Aug. 12, 2017, with a group of counterprotesters on Fourth Street in downtown Charlottesville when Fields’ was recorded driving his car into the protesters at high speed.
Marcus Martin, one of the plaintiffs, was peacefully protesting when he saw Fields’ car bearing down on him and pushed his fiancee out of the way right before he was struck by the vehicle, suffering a broken leg and ankle, according to the lawsuit.
Martin’s now-wife, Marissa Blair, who is also a plaintiff, was a co-worker and friend of Heyer, the woman killed in the incident. Both Martin and Blair suffered not only physical injuries but also emotional distress from the incident, according to the lawsuit.
Another plaintiff, referred to in court papers as Jane Doe 1, said she was marching with her mother and sister when Field’s car plowed into her, breaking both her legs and a knee.
‘Very fine people on both sides’
In the aftermath of the violence, then-President Donald Trump came under fire from Democrats — and many Republicans — for failing to strongly condemn the white supremacists and said during a news conference that there were “very fine people on both sides.”
President Joe Biden has said the turmoil in Charlottesville is the reason he ran for president.
“In that moment, I knew that the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime. I wrote at the time that we’re in a battle for the soul of this nation,” Biden said in his 2019 campaign launch video.
The civil trial is expected to last at least four weeks, and the aim of the litigation, according to the lawsuit, is to get justice for the plaintiffs and “to ensure that nothing like this will happen again at the hands of (the) Defendants, not on the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, and not anywhere else in the United States of America.”
(WASHINGTON) — Hate crimes against people of Asian descent rose by 76% in 2020, according to newly republished data by the FBI.
The FBI previously issued hate crime data in August, but due to an error in reporting Ohio’s statistics, the data was incomplete. The FBI has now corrected the technical problem in Ohio’s reporting system.
In 2020, 279 hate crime incidents against individuals of Asian descent were reported, compared to 158 incidents reported in 2019.
More than 60% of hate crimes in the United States were carried out on the basis of an individual’s race, according to FBI data released Monday.
“Every hate crime is an attack on the community,” Jay Greenberg, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s criminal division, told ABC News’ Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas.
Greenberg said most hate crimes are directed at African Americans, but acknowledged there was an uptick in anti-Asian hate crimes due to COVID-19.
In total, there were 8,052 single-bias incidents — crimes motivated by one type of bias — involving 11,126 victims. Comparatively, there were 7,103 single-bias incidents involving 8,552 victims in 2019.
The FBI said 20% of the hate crimes targeted a person’s sexual orientation and 13% of the hate crimes that occurred in 2020 were due to religious bias.
More than half of the offenders were white, and 21% of the offenders were African American.
Greenberg said they are working to make sure there is trust not only in the FBI, but in local communities as well.
“Because a hate crime is defined as a violent or property crime with a bias motivation, that crime could be categorized a number of different ways,” he explained. “We would like the public to reach out to us if they believe that they are a victim of a hate crime. It’s not for the public to make that determination; we will work with our state and local partners and help determine how best to investigate that.”
When someone is a victim of a hate crime, people have different reactions, according to Regina Thompson, the head of the FBI’s victim services unit.
“Everybody has their own way of reacting and on their own timeline, so sometimes people will react immediately in the aftermath of a crime,” said Thompson, who was named head of the unit last year. “Sometimes they’ll go immediately into crisis and crisis intervention will be needed. Sometimes the full impact isn’t felt for hours, days, weeks, sometimes even months after the criminal event and the way that they react, there’s absolutely no normal.”
Greenberg said that while they don’t discuss the number of cases they are currently investigating, leaders at the FBI “have brought a renewed focus to enforcing the civil rights program consistently across all our offices, and we have seen the number of cases rise in the last year.”
The bureau takes a victim-centered approach to hate crimes, the two senior FBI officials explained.
“The FBI does have a victim services division that is focused on assisting and supporting the victims of federal crime and that when they are a victim of a federal crime, we are there to assist them and they can expect us to do that with understanding, dignity, fairness and respect,” Thompson said.
Thompson said that hate crimes are especially unique because it is a direct assault on someone’s identity and individuality.
“It really strikes at the fundamental core of who the person is, which makes it very different from some of the other violent crimes,” she explained. “It is an attack on something that is within the person’s identity, something that’s very immutable about them and often something that they can’t even change. So that has a very deep psychological effect.”
