(NEW YORK) — One of five people shot over the weekend on Bourbon Street in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter was identified on Monday as one of two suspects in a gunfight that sparked panic in the popular tourist destination, police said.
New Orleans Police Chief Shaun Ferguson made the announcement at a news conference Monday in which he called an eruption of weekend gun violence “very disturbing, very alarming.”
He said police are searching for a second man suspected of being involved in the shooting. He released a grainy security camera image of the suspect and asked anyone with information about his identity to contact the police immediately.
The shooting broke out just after 2 p.m. Sunday on Bourbon Street and Orleans Avenue about two blocks from Jackson Square and around the corner from the famed Preservation Hall, according to police.
Ferguson said a city security camera captured the shooting giving police clear images of the two men involved.
Meanwhile, an EarthCam video camera mounted on Cat’s Meow Karaoke Bar, which normally provides a live feed of the party scene on Bourbon Street, captured the sound of multiple gunshots followed by chaos with panicked people running for cover in all directions. Several people narrowly avoided being hit by cars crossing Bourbon Street.
“One of the victims we do believe was a shooter in this incident,” Ferguson said. “We do believe there was an exchange of gunfire between two individuals.”
The chief did not release the wounded suspect’s name.
“His involvement is still under investigation. That is why we have not made a formal arrest,” Ferguson said.
He described the second suspect as a heavyset Black man, in his 30s, 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-7, with short dreadlocks or curly long twists.
Ferguson said a motive for the shooting remains under investigation.
About two-and-a-half hours after the Bourbon Street shooting, four people were shot in the adjacent Iberville neighborhood just northeast of the French Quarter. Ferguson said a 15-year-old boy was killed in the incident and another 15-year-old boy was arrested in the homicide after his mother turned him in, police said.
”It was the parent of this 15-year-old suspect that turned him in to ensure that that family has closure,” Ferguson said. “I have spoken to the mother of this 15-year-old suspect and, understandably so, she is very shaken up. She’s upset, she was very emotional. She had to make a difficult but courageous and the right decision.”
He said a motive for the shooting is under investigation, but that the suspect’s mother told him her son and the victim were once friends.
Ferguson said Sunday’s gun violence came after the city saw homicides fall to 23 in July compared to 25 in June.
New Orleans has recorded more than 250 shootings and more than 100 homicides already this year. In 2020, New Orleans police investigated 195 homicides, a 63% increase from 2019, according to police department crime statistics.
“Overall crime was down last week compared to the previous week,” Ferguson said. “This weekend just put a black eye and dampened the spirit of what we’ve been actually accomplishing over the last few weeks.”
(WASHINGTON) — Some Democratic lawmakers are calling on House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy to resign after he said over the weekend it would be “hard not to hit” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the speaker’s gavel he hopes to win if Republicans take back the House chamber in next year’s midterm elections.
“I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel. It will be hard not to hit her with it,” McCarthy said at a GOP fundraiser in Nashville Saturday, after Tennessee’s Republican members of Congress gifted him with an oversized gavel.
McCarthy’s comment was met by laughter among the audience of 1,400, according to audio posted to Twitter by a Main Street Nashville reporter and not disputed by McCarthy’s office.
It comes nearly seven months after the attack on Jan 6. when a pro-Trump mob invaded the Capitol with some rioters taunting, “Where’s Nancy?” while they scouted her out, and one man, armed with a taser, kicked up his feet on a desk in her office.
Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill responded on Twitter Saturday, saying “a threat of violence to someone who was a target of a #January6th assassination attempt from your fellow Trump supporters is irresponsible and disgusting.”
While McCarthy’s office hasn’t commented publicly on the growing backlash to his comments, an aide to McCarthy said “he was obviously joking” without commenting further.
The speaker herself has not weighed in.
But some of her Democratic colleagues have rushed to her defense with California Reps. Eric Swalwell and Ted Lieu calling on McCarthy to resign.
“America has suffered enough violence around politics. @GOPLeader McCarthy is now a would-be assailant of @SpeakerPelosi,” Swalwell wrote on Twitter.
Lieu posed a question to McCarthy: “Don’t you think America has had enough political violence?”
“You should never be encouraging or threatening or joking about causing violence to anyone, including the Speaker of the House. You need to apologize for your statement, or resign,” he said.
Other Democrats have put pressure on McCarthy to apologize. Republicans have largely stayed silent.
“Violence against women is no laughing matter,” New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the No. 5 House Democrat, said on Twitter.
Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., a former police chief who is challenging GOP Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for his Senate seat, also weighed in.
“Speaker Pelosi used her courage and moral compass to lead us to pass the Violence Against Woman Act. Kevin McCarthy thinks joking about hitting a woman is funny. When someone shows you who they are, believe them,” she said.
Some activists on Twitter — amplifying the hashtag “#ResignMcCarthy” over the weekend — raised how the GOP leader voted against the reapproval of the Violence Against Women Act in April 2019.
His comment and its backlash come after weeks of growing bitterness between lawmakers in Washington on issues such as mask mandates order by the Capitol physician and how to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the building they work inside.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(SAN FRANCISCO) — Fire conditions in the West are worsening this week, increasing the possibility of more blazes.
Currently, 90 large wildfires are burning in 12 states in the West — at least 35 of which ignited over the weekend due to lightning strikes.
Another heat wave is blanketing the region as moisture from the monsoons in the Southwest move away, leaving behind a dry atmosphere and tinderbox conditions. Heat advisories and excessive heat watches have been issued from Oregon to Arizona, with temperatures expected to surpass 100 degrees again.
The McFarland Fire in Wildwood, California, has prompted evacuations in the area after it grew to more than 2,100 acres and remains just 5% contained.
The Dixie Fire near the Feather River Canyon in Northern California, the largest in the state so far this year, is now at 248,000 acres. Firefighters were able to halt the blaze’s progression, which is now 33% contained, but some evacuation orders remain in place.
Firefighters in Oregon have made progress against the Bootleg Fire, the largest in the country, with 84% containment after it grew to nearly 414,000 acres, the third-largest wildfire in state history.
However, red flag warnings have been issued in Southern Oregon over the possibility that more fires will spark due to dry lightning. Hot, breezy conditions are expected to persist this week.
Above-normal significant fire potential is expected to continue in the Northwest, northern Rockies and northern portions of the Great Basin, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center’s National Fire Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for August through November.
Despite monsoon conditions in the Southwest last week, “exceptional drought” conditions are persisting across Northern California and the Northwest, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
ABC News’ Melissa Griffin and Max Golembo contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — With 3.6 million Americans at risk of being evicted as soon as Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeated her call to the Biden administration to immediately renew the now-lapsed eviction moratorium on Monday after House Democrats over the weekend failed to pass legislation via unanimous consent to extend it to Oct. 18.
“As they have called upon the American people to mask up, to be vaccinated and to take other public health precautions, it is critical, in recognition of this urgency, that they extend the eviction moratorium,” Pelosi said of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a new letter to Democratic colleagues Monday morning. “Putting people on the streets contributes to the spread of the virus.”
It comes after freshman Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., who highlights how she was once homeless herself, spent her third night sleeping on the Capitol steps to protest the end of the moratorium even as most House lawmakers had already headed home for the August recess.
As Pelosi says she now awaits a new response from the administration, the White House said last week that it can’t unilaterally extend the moratorium because of a Supreme Court ruling in late June when Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the 5-4 majority, said he would block additional extensions unless there was “clear and specific congressional authorization.”
But Democratic leaders have put the responsibility to extend the measure — which they’ve called a “moral imperative” — back on President Joe Biden and the CDC, which first implemented the moratorium last September, after the Biden administration on Thursday, one day before the House adjourned for August recess, called on Congress to pass legislation.
Despite the 11th-hour scramble by lawmakers, the moratorium expired on Saturday.
With the Senate back in session to focus on unprecedented infrastructure legislation, the chances senators would pivot to a moratorium extension are slim.
“Action is needed, and it must come from the Administration,” Pelosi said in a joint statement with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., and Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark, D-Mass, on Sunday evening. “As the CDC doubles down on mask-wearing and vaccination efforts, science and reason demand that they must also extend the moratorium in light of the delta variant.”
The Democratic leaders also called on the Treasury Department to indicate how state and local governments can more efficiently deliver the billions in rental assistance Congress has authorized since last December. Of the $47 billion available, only $3 billion has been sent out so far.
Pelosi on Monday also announced House Democrats will have a presentation Tuesday from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, whose department transferred the funds earlier this year, which were intended to help renters and landlords with payments during the moratorium catch up — but dispersing those out has been a slow process.
While the House adjourned for its August recess, Pelosi has teased that she could call members back to bring legislation. However, without a desire in the Senate to pass an extension, she’s putting the onus back on Biden.
The president, who was leaving Camp David for the White House Monday, has not yet directly responded to Pelosi’s latest letters, but he has also called for the acceleration of congressionally-approved rental assistance funds.
“There can be no excuse for any state or locality not accelerating funds to landlords and tenants that have been hurt during this pandemic,” Biden said in a statement Friday.
Progressive lawmakers including Bush, who has been homeless, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have called on their colleagues to do more.
“We cannot in good faith blame the Republican Party when House Democrats have a majority,” Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “Now, there is something to be said for the fact that this Court order came down on the White House, a month ago, and the White House waited until the day before the House adjourned to release a statement asking on Congress to extend the moratorium.”
She and other progressive Democrats, who also penned a letter to urge the Biden administration to take action, joined Bush and activists outside the Capitol over the weekend to draw awareness to what they call a public health emergency.
“Extending the eviction moratorium is a matter of life and death for the communities we represent,” they said in the letter.
Bush, who was still on the Capitol steps Monday, told ABC News over the weekend that she was “frustrated” and “disgusted” that the moratorium was not extended and didn’t have plans to leave.
According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau survey from late June and early July, about 7.4 million adult tenants reported they were behind on rent.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 613,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.1 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.1% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC last week, citing new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant, changed its mask guidance to now recommend everyone in areas with substantial or high levels of transmission — vaccinated or not — wear a face covering in public, indoor settings.
Here’s how the news is developing Monday. All times Eastern:
Aug 02, 2:14 pm
Louisiana respiratory therapist: ‘We see families destroyed’
In Louisiana, which has the nation’s highest case rate per 100,000 residents, COVID-19 hospitalizations are reaching peak levels, with more than 1,700 patients now receiving care.
“We’re seeing people that are way too young to be so sick,” David Wrightson, a respiratory therapist and ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) specialist for the Willis-Knighton Health System in Shreveport, Louisiana, told ABC News. “We see families destroyed. We see children without one or more parent because of this virus. We see a new mom who will never go home to see her newborn, will never see her child grow up.”
He went on, “When you see someone that’s 30 years old with no medical problems at all, nobody knew anything was wrong, and we have this person literally on death’s doorstep, doing everything in our power to turn them around and return them to their family. The vaccine is something worth getting.”
More people need to see and understand the reality of this disease, he said.
“I wish I could show them a few steps in our day to see what we see and to see what we have to do, and to go home at night and, and have nightmares about those things, and sometimes cry yourself to sleep,” he said.
-ABC News’ Erica Baumgart and Arielle Mitropoulos
Aug 02, 1:48 pm
Denver mandates vaccinations for workers in high-risk settings
Denver is mandating vaccinations for city employees and those in high-risk jobs like first responders, correctional workers and school personnel. The mandate also applies to staff at long-term care facilities, shelters and hospitals.
After considerable deliberation & consultation w/ public health experts, including @DDPHE‘s exec. director, I am approving a public health order mandating that all @CityofDenver employees and private-sector workers in high-risk settings, be fully vaccinated against COVID by 9/30. pic.twitter.com/VS73Z7HPvR
70% of adults in US have now had at least 1 vaccine dose
Seventy percent of adults in the U.S. have now had at least one vaccine dose, the White House announced Monday, nearly one month after President Joe Biden hoped to reach the milestone.
Biden said in May, “Our goal by July 4th is to have 70% of adult Americans with at least one shot and 160 million Americans fully vaccinated.” When that date finally rolled out, the White House touted that 70% of Americans ages 27 and up met the goal, but low vaccination rates among young people kept the country from fully meeting the target.
Biden is scheduled to give remarks on vaccination progress on Tuesday.
-ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky
Aug 02, 11:50 am
Nearly 60% of counties reporting high community transmission
In the U.S., 59.72% of counties are reporting high community transmission. Five weeks ago, only 8% of counties were reporting high transmission, according to federal data.
Louisiana now has the highest case rate in the country with more than 600 new cases per 100,000 residents, according to federal data. Florida, Arkansas and Mississippi follow behind with 500, 400 and 300 new cases per 100,000 residents respectively.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Aug 02, 10:59 am
At least 1 patient checked in every hour at Louisiana hospital
At least one COVID-19 patient was checked in every hour Monday morning at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hospital officials told ABC Baton Rouge affiliate WBRZ.
The hospital said Monday it has 301 unvaccinated COVID-19 patients and 52 vaccinated COVID-19 patients.
Our Lady of the Lake Hospital is among 45 hospitals in the state requesting extra staff, reported WBRZ.
Louisiana is recording a “remarkable increase in the number of newly vaccinated people,” White House COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar tweeted Monday.
Aug 02, 10:42 am
Masks strongly recommended indoors for the vaccinated, NYC mayor says
Masks are now strongly recommended in public, indoor settings in New York City, even for those who are vaccinated, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.
The mayor also announced that all new city hires must be vaccinated.
De Blasio noted that this week is the last week to get all children ages 12 and above fully vaccinated by the first week of school.
Aug 02, 10:09 am
New vaccine policy for NY transit workers
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports, have adopted the same policy the state has for its public sector employees in requiring either a vaccine or a weekly proof of a negative test. Subway, airport and bus and commuter rail workers must be vaccinated starting Labor Day or face a weekly test, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday.
The number of COVID-19 cases in New York state has increased four-fold in the last month while hospitalizations have doubled.
Cuomo last week mandated vaccines for public-facing workers in state-run hospitals. If cases continue to rise, Cuomo said he would consider mandatory vaccines for teachers and nursing home employees.
Cuomo also said he is encouraging restaurants, bars and other business owners to adopt a vaccine-only policy.
-ABC News’ Aaron Katersky
Aug 02, 9:44 am
Tokyo COVID-19 cases up 200% in 1 week
There are 2,195 new COVID-19 cases in Tokyo, a 206.9% increase since last Monday, according to the Tokyo Media Center.
At the Olympics, there are 281 new COVID-19 cases, an increase of 17 cases in the last 24 hours, according to Tokyo 2020 organizers. None of these cases are athletes; they are all contractors, personnel or media.
Aug 02, 8:56 am
At least 1 patient checked in every hour at Louisiana hospital
At least one COVID-19 patient was checked in every hour Monday morning at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hospital officials told ABC Baton Rouge affiliate WBRZ.
Our Lady of the Lake Hospital is among 45 hospitals in the state requesting extra staff, reported WBRZ.
Aug 02, 8:19 am
TSA screens highest number of people since start of pandemic
The Transportation Security Administration screened 2,238,462 people at U.S. airports on Sunday, the highest number since the start of the pandemic, the agency said. The continued spread of the highly contagious delta variant has not stopped travelers this summer and the TSA put out a tweet reminding fliers to mask up and socially distance.
(New York) — Boosted by a recent uptake in vaccine administrations, the U.S. crossed a long-awaited milestone Monday in its race to vaccinate the country against the novel coronavirus.
Seventy percent of U.S. adults ages 18 and older have received at least one vaccine dose, Cyrus Shahpar, the White House’s COVID-19 data director, posted in a tweet.
This is nearly a month after the country missed President Joe Biden’s July 4 deadline to meet that threshold.
Although the majority of the country’s adults have one shot, there is a major discrepancy among states, according to the CDC.
Health officials have been urging eligible residents to get their shots, which are free and shown to prevent hospitalization and death from the virus, as soon as possible as the more contagious variants like delta spread.
As of Monday, 22 states and the District of Columbia have 70% of their adult population with one dose, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many of these states are located in the Northeast with Vermont leading the nation with over 86% of its adult residents receiving one shot, according to the health data.
A dozen states, almost all located in the South, haven’t cracked the 60% mark for their adult residents with one shot, CDC data showed. Mississippi has the lowest percentage of adults with one shot, at 50%, according to the data.
Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the country have been on the rise, particularly in locations with low vaccination numbers, health officials said.
Officials in several states, including Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri and Arkansas, are reporting that the majority of their hospitalized patients are unvaccinated people.
The U.S. began vaccinating residents in December, starting with health care workers and the elderly. By mid-April, all residents above 18 were eligible and a month later, the Pfizer vaccine was approved for Americans over the age of 12.
Two of the three approved vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, require two doses and use mRNA technology to protect against the virus. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires only one dose.
The seven-day average of new daily first shots administered peaked at 3.4 million on April 11 but it has declined to low of 217,884 on July 7, the CDC reported. Several states that had lagging vaccination numbers, however, saw a small jump in shots administered during the final weeks of July.
The seven-day average of first doses administered grew to 367,351 on July 27, the CDC data showed.
On Sunday, White House COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar revealed that over 517,000 people received their first shot.
Anyone who needs help scheduling a free vaccine appointment can log onto vaccines.gov.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration is expanding the group of Afghans who could be granted refugee status and flee to the United States to escape the growing threat of the Taliban across Afghanistan, the State Department announced Monday.
The militant group is increasingly gaining control of districts across the country, as the war-torn country teeters dangerously towards collapse into all-out civil war.
But while President Joe Biden has committed to helping Afghans who helped the U.S. military and diplomatic mission in the country for the last 20 years, the new policy will apply only to Afghans who have left the country and will take at least over a year for their cases to be processed, according to senior State Department officials — even as the risk to these Afghans is urgent.
The Biden administration has launched relocation flights for thousands of Afghans who worked as interpreters, guides, and other contractors and applied for Special Immigrant Visas – some 20,000 applicants in total, according to a State Department spokesperson, although only a fraction of them will be evacuated by the U.S.
For interpreters and other contractors who did not meet the required two years of service for a Special Immigrant Visa, the State Department will now allow them to apply for refugee status instead. They’re also expanding the pool of potential refugees to any Afghan who worked for a U.S.-based media outlet, for a U.S. government-funded program, or for a U.S. government-supported project.
After 20 years of humanitarian development across the country, that’s a wide category of Afghans, along with their eligible family members. Senior State Department officials declined to provide an estimate, but said it was likely in the tens of thousands in total.
The administration has been under pressure, especially from Republican and Democrat lawmakers and U.S. veterans’ groups, to do more to help Afghans who worked with or for the U.S. during two decades of war and development – and who therefore may be at greater risk of retaliatory attacks by the Taliban.
While the militant group’s political leaders have said Afghans will not be harmed, the last year has seen a string of high-profile assassinations against journalists, women’s rights activists, minority leaders, and military and police chiefs. At least 300 interpreters have been killed by Taliban fighters since 2014, according to the advocacy group No One Left Behind.
“The U.S. objective remains a peaceful, secure Afghanistan. However, in light of increased levels of Taliban violence, the U.S. government is working to provide certain Afghans, including those who worked with the United States, the opportunity for refugee resettlement to the United States,” the State Department said in a statement.
But the refugee resettlement process takes several months, if not years, including intensive security vetting, and the process will require Afghan applicants to leave the country, according to senior State Department officials – something that many cannot afford, cannot risk, or cannot manage.
“This program is meant to expand the aperture of people who have an opportunity to be resettled in the United States beyond the SIVs. It is our attempt to try to offer an option to people,” said a senior State Department official.
The State Department has said it will evacuate nearly 5,000 of those “SIV’s,” or Special Immigrant Visa applicants, along with their eligible family members like spouses and children.
Some 750 and their dependents – 2,500 in total – who have been granted approval by the U.S. embassy in Kabul and cleared security vetting will be moved to Fort Lee, a U.S. Army base in central Virginia. The first of them arrived last Friday, with a second flight with 200 more arriving early Monday and now at Ft. Lee, according to a U.S. official.
In addition, 4,000 applicants who have been approved by the embassy, but are awaiting security clearances, will be moved to safe third countries. Along with their family members, the group could total approximately 20,000, and diplomatic discussions on where to house them all as they wait months for their applications to be processed remain underway with several countries, including Kuwait, Qatar, and Kazakhstan, according to U.S. officials.
But a senior State Department official said the administration does not plan to relocate any of the Afghans who now qualify for refugee status under this new designation, known as Priority 2, or P2. Instead, their employer will open a case with the embassy in Kabul, and once the U.S. government confirms it is ready to begin processing their case, they must find their own way to a third country and declare themselves a refugee.
“At this point in time, unfortunately, we do not anticipate relocating them, but we will continue to examine all the options to protect those who have served with or for us, and we will review the situation on the ground, and our planning will continue to evolve,” said the senior official.
Once outside of Afghanistan, it could take at least 12 to 14 months for their case to be adjudicated, per the senior official.
As the new designations could lead to thousands of Afghans fleeing the country and seeking refugee status, a second senior official said the U.S. government has had conversations with some of Afghanistan’s neighbors, like Pakistan, about preparing for refugee flows and keeping their borders open to refugees.
ABC News’s Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Israel is now the first in the world to give a third booster COVID-19 vaccine shot to those over 60 and other vulnerable people as cases rise.
The U.K. expected to roll out boosters next month.
Watch the full report from ABC’s Good Morning America:
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 613,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.1 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.1% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC last week, citing new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant, changed its mask guidance to now recommend everyone in areas with substantial or high levels of transmission — vaccinated or not — wear a face covering in public, indoor settings.
Here’s how the news is developing Monday. All times Eastern:
Aug 02, 9:44 am
Tokyo COVID-19 cases up 200% in 1 week
There are 2,195 new COVID-19 cases in Tokyo, a 206.9% increase since last Monday, according to the Tokyo Media Center.
At the Olympics, there are 281 new COVID-19 cases, an increase of 17 cases in the last 24 hours, according to Tokyo 2020 organizers. None of these cases are athletes; they are all contractors, personnel or media.
Aug 02, 8:56 am
At least 1 patient checked in every hour at Louisiana hospital
At least one COVID-19 patient was checked in every hour Monday morning at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hospital officials told ABC Baton Rouge affiliate WBRZ.
Our Lady of the Lake Hospital is among 45 hospitals in the state requesting extra staff, reported WBRZ.
Aug 02, 8:19 am
TSA screens highest number of people since start of pandemic
The Transportation Security Administration screened 2,238,462 people at U.S. airports on Sunday, the highest number since the start of the pandemic, the agency said. The continued spread of the highly contagious delta variant has not stopped travelers this summer and the TSA put out a tweet reminding fliers to mask up and socially distance.
(NEW YORK) — The nation’s largest gun violence prevention organization is stepping up efforts to address the scourge of recent shootings across the country as part of a new initiative unveiled exclusively by ABC News on Monday.
Everytown for Gun Safety is delivering millions of dollars in grants and providing support to local organizations that aim to reduce gun crimes by tapping into communities most impacted by firearms. The new initiative, known as the Everytown Community Safety Fund, is dedicating $25 million over five years to gun violence prevention programs. The first million is set to be distributed across organizations next month.
“It’s an urgent moment,” said Michael-Sean Spence, Everytown’s director of community safety initiatives who is leading the rollout of the new initiative. “We’re in the middle of a public health crisis — one that has been brewing for a number of years and has really taken off over the last year, year and a half.”
The rate of homicides with a firearm is nearly 25 times higher in the U.S. compared to similar economically developed countries, according to a 2015 study published in the journal of Preventive Medicine. More recently, 2020 marked the highest number of firearm deaths in at least 20 years, according to Britannica, the group behind the famed encyclopedia, and the Gun Violence Archive.
On a recent week in July, a joint analysis by GVA and ABC News found that 2.4 people were killed and 5.5 people were wounded every hour.
“The trends we’re seeing today don’t approach the ’90s levels of gun homicides that we fortunately were able to reverse,” Spence told ABC News. “But they are some of the highest numbers we have seen since the early 2000s, and we’ve also seen a prolonged, persistent spike.”
The funds from Everytown will support 100 local intervention programs, building on its original list of 60 programs funded by the organization over the past two years.
“There are a number of factors that drive gun violence. One is the lack of opportunity,” Spence said. “Many of these programs, once they’ve identified individuals, can put them into workforce development programs and connect them with other opportunities to change their life.”
One of the groups set to receive funding is No More Red Dots, which runs a handful of gun violence prevention programs in Louisville, Kentucky. The organization maintains a database of high-risk individuals in the area and works to prevent them from engaging in future shootings.
Led by Dr. Eddie Woods, who has more than 20 years of experience in community safety, No More Red Dots has deep roots in Louisville. Some of the organization’s programs include an artist’s workshop and basketball league that are designed to build the skills and interests of at-risk youth and provide them with mentorship opportunities.
“We’ve been around forever, so a lot of the young people’s parents, and maybe in some cases grandparents, were in our group sessions back in the day,” Woods told ABC News. “So we kind of got a feel for the culture in some families — the personalities of some families.”
The hyper-local formula appears to be moving the community in a positive direction. Thousands of kids have gone through the program, Woods said, and more than 115 have gone from engaging in dangerous activity in the streets to obtaining a college education.
