At least two people are dead and several others are wounded after a driver of an SUV allegedly shot at several people Sunday in Tucson, Arizona, including multiple first responders.
The shootings unfolded at three locations where emergency personnel were responding to separate incidents.
Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus said the incident began as the Tucson Fire Department was dispatched to a fire at 3:45 p.m. local time in the 2100 block of Irene Vista. At “pretty much” the same time, EMTs were responding to an unrelated medical emergency in a nearby park. That’s when, according to Magnus, a suspect got out of his silver SUV, approached the ambulance and opened fire, striking the driver in the head and the passenger in the arm and chest.
The 20-year-old EMT driver is in “extremely critical condition,” while the EMT in the passenger seat, a 21-year-old woman, is listed in stable condition.
Then, as firetrucks arrived to the call at the residence, neighbors were also at the scene trying to help.
That’s when the suspect “arrives on the scene and starts firing at both the fire department personnel and the neighbors,” Magnus said during a press briefing Sunday night.
At this point, firefighters called police to say they are being shot at. One fire captain was shot in the arm at the residence and is in good condition, while a neighbor died after being shot in the head, police said. A second neighbor was grazed by a bullet and is in good condition.
Then as a responding police officer arrives at the scene, he sees the suspect’s vehicle in the area. The SUV then rams the officer’s car, disabling it, Magnus said. The officer then exited the car and exchanged gunfire with the alleged suspect, striking him. The 35-year-old alleged suspect is in critical condition at a local hospital.
Magnus said making the incident more complex is the fact a dead body was found inside the burning residence. At this time, that victim’s identity is not known and police said they are unsure if that person’s death is directly related to the suspect.
Adding to the suspicions around these incidents, authorities said the whereabouts of “two or three” children “associated” with the burning residence are unknown. Anyone with information about these children, of which a description was not immediately available, was asked to call 911.
This is a “highly tragic, really horrific incident with many unknowns,” Magnus said Sunday night. The investigation, he said, will be “lengthy and complex.”
“I ask our entire Tucson community to join me in thinking about and praying for the victims of this afternoon’s fire and shooting by Silverlake Park, including first responders from AMR and the Tucson Fire Department. This was a horrific and senseless act of violence,” Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said in a statement Monday.
(SPRING, TX.) — A chemical spill at a water park in Texas sent dozens of people to the hospital, according to officials.
The incident began around 2:30 p.m. in a children’s pool at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Splashtown in Spring, Texas, when a lifeguard and several guests started to get sick, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo told reporters.
Children and their parents were experiencing “respiratory issues,” and 28 of them were transported to hospitals, the Harris County Fire Marshal’s office said.
After evacuating the park and conducting preliminary tests of the air and water, investigators found the water had a chemical combination of 35% sulfuric acid and 10-13% bleach, Scott Seifert, the chief of Spring Texas Fire, told reporters. The chemicals are commonly used to clean and treat swimming pools.
Over 65 people were contaminated by the substance, however, no one suffered any chemical burns, according to the fire marshall’s office. The affected persons were decontaminated.
The most serious case involved a 3-year-old child, and as of Sunday, that child was stable at Texas Children’s Hospital, according to Hidalgo.
“Everybody else was in the less urgent position,” she said. “Most people were feeling better afterward.”
A representative from the park said in a statement that it was closing Hurricane Harbor Splashtown indefinitely as they work with health officials to determine what caused the spill.
“The safety of our guests and team members is always our highest priority,” Rosie Shepard, a spokeswoman for the park, said in a statement.
The fire marshal said the last time the park had its fire and safety inspection was June 29 and the Harris County health department conducted health and safety inspections for commercial pools in April.
Hidalgo said that the park is supposed to have systems in place that track the pH level in the water and alert crews quickly, however, she reiterated that the city will make sure this doesn’t happen again.
“If you can have 60-plus people get sick, and your system doesn’t catch it … then clearly something is wrong with the system,” she said.
ABC News’ Timmy Truong contributed to this report.
(CANNES, France) — It was almost a strange sight; packed movie premieres and actors again walking the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival — maskless- — while throngs of photographers snapped away.
With going to the movies put on hold for more than a year, and the festival canceled last year due to the pandemic, even some of the stars were struck by what felt like a return to normal.
“I was a little overwhelmed last night, and I’m really glad that we’re here this year. Because I think we’ll all look back and remember launching out of COVID — and what a way to do it,” said actor Matt Damon, who teared up after the standing ovation he received at the premiere of his new film, “Stillwater.”
Beyond the glitz and glamour, the Cannes Film Festival is also home to the world’s biggest movie market, the Marché du Film. Set up inside the Palais des Festivals, a convention center behind the main theater where premieres are held, the marché is where thousands of directors, producers, sales agents and distributors from around the world try to get their movies made, bought, sold or distributed.
“The Marché du Film is really the business of film, we’re the less sexy and exciting part of the film festival,” said Monique White, senior vice president of distribution for California Pictures who’s been coming to Cannes for years.
This year, cinema’s power players were eager to get back to work, hoping the deals struck here will serve as evidence the business of film is also back. The industry took a massive hit during the pandemic — global theatrical revenue in the U.S. fell from $42.3 billion in 2019 to just $12 billion in 2020, according to the Motion Picture Association’s Annual Report — leaving film professionals scrambling to adjust.
Some argue perhaps the single biggest change was the streaming boom.
“COVID changed the way we watch anything now. Whether we’re watching on just the internet, on Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, Hulu, whatever. We have more eyeballs on our computers and our phones,” said White.
While tensions between traditional theaters and streaming platforms had been growing for a while, the problem really came to a head during the pandemic, with the controversial online release of Universal Pictures’ “Trolls World Tour” movie in April 2020 marking the beginning of a new era and sending shockwaves through Hollywood.
AMC, the country’s largest cinema chain, responded by temporarily refusing to run Universal movies.
“There used to be more of a professional understanding that you would wait a period of time before you released,” said White. “But now it’s really subject to the production and the producer and how they want to release the film domestically.”
The feud between Universal and AMC was eventually resolved, but a number of other studios have since then followed suit. Disney, the parent company of ABC News, decided to release films like “Mulan” and “Luca” online, and WarnerMedia announced the company would release all of its 2021 films on HBO Max the same day they hit theaters.
The shift to digital has even prompted the Oscars to change their eligibility rules — whereas movies first had to be released in theaters to qualify for the awards competition, the Academy is now allowing movies released online to participate.
As a result, “Nomadland” which was released on Hulu, eventually won best picture, and Netflix won seven awards and 35 nominations, the most of any studio this year.
Recently announced Emmy nominations are reflecting a similar pattern with streaming services winning more nominations in 2021 than those of broadcast and cable combined.
The Cannes Film Festival, for its part, is maintaining requirements that a movie must first air in theaters to be able to qualify.
“Of course, the streaming companies exploded and they needed lot more product which is great because now they’re asking for more,” said Hernan Aguilar, a distributor focused on the Latin American market.
Aguilar said he sees an upside to the shift to streaming.
“In general it’s good this thing is happening, because cause more product is being asked for,” he said. “The demand is going up, so in that sense, that’s good.”
The change is causing a certain uneasiness in the industry, with some fearing streaming services could not only put theaters at risk, but also the likes of producers and distributors. A number of streaming platforms are now producing their own content, instead of buying films made by independent filmmakers.
It’s an issue that’s top of mind in Cannes this year.
“Cinema and screening platforms can coexist. At one time, there was a thinking that TV was going to kill cinema. This stuff is not new. It’s all cycle,” said director Spike Lee, president of the Cannes Film Festival jury this year.
Some argue studios won’t be able to continue bypassing theaters, as there’s just no substitute for box office revenue. The recently released blockbuster “F9” — released exclusively in theaters — raked in $70 million on opening weekend.
White predicts streaming services will eventually have to raise their prices.
“They’re all gonna go up. And before you know it, let’s say in the next couple of years, it’s gonna be like 20 bucks for Netflix, I’m sure. That’s not gonna be sustainable,” she said.
Aguilar thinks it’ll be the opposite.
“I think what’s gonna happen is there’s going to be more and more streaming platforms and with competition the prices will go down but I think it’s really not expensive at all right now compared to tickets in the cinema,” he said.
Another big question: will streaming change the type of content that’s being produced?
“Streaming is definitely … if you see the quality of the content you’re seeing, you’re seeing more lower quality in terms of the story or how things are done,” said Juan Pablo Cadaveira, producer and co-founder of Blue Productions.
It’s unclear what will happen next, but some are hopeful the end of the pandemic will mean a return to theaters, pointing out it was the Great Depression that inspired Hollywood’s Golden Age.
“I just think now though hopefully with things opening up, we’re gonna be less on [streaming platforms] than we were before. No one wants to be in a small apartment. They want to go out and see people and go to the movies,” said White.
“I think as people go to church for religion, you go to the cinema to watch a good film, but it’s true that for me people are going to do it less and less because it’s so much easier to watch a good film in your house,” said Aguilar.
(NEW YORK) — Four people have died and two people have been injured in a terrible single-vehicle accident that ended up splitting their car in half.
The incident occurred at approximately 2:24 p.m. on Saturday, July 17, in Hickory Hills, Illinois, when police say a car with six people inside ended up losing control and striking a tree, according to a report from ABC News’ Chicago station WLS-TV.
None of the victims involved in the accident have currently been identified but authorities told WLS that two people died on the scene and two people died after being taken to the hospital following the accident. The condition of the other two people have not yet been disclosed.
Police are still investigating the circumstances surrounding the accident but an eyewitness told WLS that the aftermath of the accident was shocking.
“I have never seen anything like it,” Joanna Proszek told WLS. “It was bad, tragic. I think they just, like, started flying because there is a hill. So I am thinking they just revved up the engine and they just flew into the tree.”
It is unclear if speed was a factor in the accident but authorities say that the investigation into what caused the crash is ongoing.
(NEW YORK) — Local officials have the right to reimplement mitigation strategies to stop the spread of COVID-19 amid a surge in cases fueled by the delta variant, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Sunday.
“Unfortunately we’re seeing rises, particularly among the unvaccinated in many parts of the country now,” Murthy told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
Approximately 97% of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. are among the unvaccinated and at least 58% of current reported cases were directly linked to the delta variant. At the end of May, the variant was estimated to account for just over 3% of new cases.
The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has for the last two months said that vaccinated individuals can enter public, indoor spaces without a mask. Amid a surge in cases, Los Angeles County reinstated its indoor mask mandate in all public places for all individuals, regardless of vaccination status and at least 10 additional counties in California, including the city of Berkeley, have highly recommended all residents wear masks indoors again.
“In areas where there are low numbers of vaccinated people, where cases are rising, it’s very reasonable for counties to take more mitigation measures, like the mask rules coming out of LA,” Murthy continued. “And I anticipate that will happen in other parts of the country — and that’s not contradictory to the guidance the CDC issued.”
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda L. Solis told Raddatz in a separate interview on “This Week,” that the new mask mandate was not punishment for the vaccinated, but prevention.
“We still have 4 million people out of 10 million that haven’t been vaccinated — and many of them are young people,” Solis told Raddatz. “And we’re seeing that this transmission is so highly contagious that it will cost more in the long run.”
Murthy reinforced his support for LA County’s decision as an acceptable mitigation approach based on data on the ground. The county reported over 1,000 new COVID-19 cases daily this past week.
“We saw this during the last year of the pandemic, that we have large numbers of people gathering in indoor spaces that is the right setup for COVID-19 to spread,” Murthy said, adding that the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention will provide surge response teams to assist regions experiencing high coronavirus cases.
Raddatz asked Murthy about the World Health Organization’s warning that the delta variant and three additional variants of concern could prolong the pandemic and possibly lead to the emergence of deadlier strains of COVID-19.
“If we don’t get this under control now, what do you anticipate the fall looking like?” Raddatz asked.
“I am deeply concerned,” Murthy responded. “We’ve made so much progress over this past year, but what I worry about are those that we still have — millions of people in our country who are not vaccinated.”
“We have to still protect our children under 12 who don’t have a vaccine available to them.” Murthy added. “Our kids depend on the people around them being protected, being vaccinated in order to shield them from the virus. And that’s why, again, it’s so important for us to get vaccinated.”
“We have to still protect our children under 12 who don’t have a vaccine available to them.” Murthy added. “Our kids depend on the people around them being protected, being vaccinated in order to shield them from the virus. And that’s why, again, it’s so important for us to get vaccinated.”
(NEW YORK) — Misinformation – false information spread regardless of intent – is rampant across popular social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Most speech, whether true or false, is protected under the U.S. legal system.
But questions about inaccurate information, spread maliciously or not, and its effects on many facets of our lives have led to efforts by social media platforms, fact-checkers and others to try to crack down.
The territory is murky and has ignited an intense debate as technology companies struggle to define the problem and attempt to get a handle on the flood of false and misleading information.
In the U.S., the situation came to a head during the 2020 presidential election cycle when social media platforms decided to fact-check and remove election-related statements from former President Donald Trump and ultimately decided to suspend or ban him in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol for tweets that ran counter to the company’s glorification of violence policy. Facebook later announced the suspension would be lifted in two years under certain conditions.
The move led to an outcry, largely from conservatives as well as civil libertarians about free speech and the rights of social media companies to regulate what has become what many consider the new public square.
Misinformation has become such a crisis, in fact, that the U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, recently issued a warning about false information surrounding COVID-19 vaccines. And President Biden Friday said it was “killing people,” a description Facebook took exception to.
Some governments, however, have taken steps to go even further, and there are fears of using the concept of misinformation broadly to target dissent.
In recent years, Singapore, for example, implemented a law that requires platforms to remove certain posts that go against “public interest” such as security threats or the public’s perception of the government.
Similarly, Russia can legally fine those who show “blatant disrespect” online toward the state.
India takes on misinformation
In February, India, the world’s largest democracy, implemented new rules to regulate online content, allowing the government to censor what it claims to be misinformation.
Under the rules, large social media companies must appoint Indian citizens to a compliance role, remove content within 36 hours of legal notice and also set up system to respond to complaints, according to Reuters.
These restrictions give the government more power, in some cases, to dictate what can and cannot be circulated on digital platforms in the country.
For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the COVID-19 variant “B.1.617,” now known as delta, was first detected in India last year.
According to Reuters, in May 2021, the Indian government sent a letter to social media companies demanding that all content that names or implies “India Variant,” as it became commonly (but not officially) known, be removed from platforms, calling that moniker “FALSE.”
In another case, late last year, farmers in India clashed with police over new laws that they believe will exploit their practices and reduce income while giving power to large corporations. In February, the Indian government issued an emergency order that demanded Twitter remove posts from the platform that used the hashtag “#farmergenocide.”
The government said in a statement that while India values the freedom of speech, expression “is not absolute and subject to reasonable restrictions.”
A Twitter spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News that when a valid legal request is received, it is reviewed under both Twitter Rules and local law. Should the content violate Twitter’s rules, it may be removed from the platform.
“If it is determined to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, but not in violation of the Twitter Rules, we may withhold access to the content in India only,” they continued. “In all cases, we notify the account holder directly so they’re aware that we’ve received a legal order pertaining to the account.”
Separately, WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has sued the Indian government, which is looking to trace its users, who use encrypted messages. The government wants to have the ability to identify people who “credibly accused of wrong doing,” according to Reuters. Although the Indian government said it will respond to the lawsuit, it hasn’t done so yet.
Krishnesh Bapat, a legal fellow with the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), an Indian digital liberties organization that seeks to ensure technology respects fundamental rights, highlighted the implications of the WhatsApp case.
“This is one of the most problematic consequences of these rules,” Bapat said. “Several experts have suggested that the only way to implement this would be to remove encryption.”
End-to-end encryption is a key feature for WhatsApp users, as it protects private conversations from being accessed by any entity outside the chat. WhatsApp claims the new rules are unconstitutional and a clear breach to user privacy.
“India is a big cautionary tale for how we have to be really careful of the most well-intentioned regulatory power,” said David Greene, senior staff attorney and civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “We used to say, ‘well that’s not a threat to democratic societies.’ I don’t think we can say that anymore, India’s a democratic society.”
ABC News could not immediately reach the IT Ministry for comment.
Difficulty in regulating
Platforms rely heavily on users flagging potentially harmful posts that break community guidelines, and that self-regulatory model may be the best bet for the future of content regulation, Greene said, as opposed to government or institutional regulation.
Similarly, A Yale Law review published earlier this year explains that a self-regulatory model should be considered to combat the spread of misinformation in India. The review says that implementing such a model should “ensure that the ‘outcomes-based’ code is not vague or tilted to serve state interests, and does not incentivize platforms to adopt an overly heavy approach to removing content. The outcomes should be built around common objectives, and should provide flexibility for platforms to develop protocols and technological tools to achieve them.”
The New York State Bar Association recently suggested that government policy and oversight can be just as important as a self-regulatory model when dealing with misinformation. It also mentions that combatting misinformation is not solely for one entity to address, claiming that it will require corporations, governments, educators and journalists to work together in an effort to prevent the continued spread of harmful, inaccurate information.
“Most democratic legal systems have robust free speech,” Greene said. “We find a lot of protection for false statements, and this is supposed to protect people because mistakes are inevitable. False statements have to actually cause a specific and direct harm before they’re actionable.”
This means that there must be a clear intent of defamation, written or spoken, in order for legal action to be taken, which is historically difficult to prove. In the U.S., libel laws in particular differ state to state, which adds an extra layer of complexity to any attempt at content regulation.
Greene also suggested that given the difficulty in casting information as verifiably false as well as the overwhelming number of posts that need to be reviewed, it’s nearly impossible for platforms to regulate content well.
In February 2018, the first Content Moderation & Removal at Scale conference was hosted by the Santa Clara University High Tech Law Institute. Experts and advocates gathered to “explore how internet companies operationalize the moderation and removal” of user-generated content. They developed what’s now known as the Santa Clara Principles.
The model, which is endorsed by EFF among other notable groups, provides three guiding principles for content moderators – being transparent about the numbers of people permanently suspended or banned, proper notice and reason for doing so and a “meaningful” appeals process.
Greene says that the Santa Clara Principles can be utilized as a guideline for companies in an effort to preserve basic human rights in content moderation. Alternatively, regulation that involves prescreening or filtering posts can have serious human rights implications, but although a post may include false information that contains offensive language appearing to hurt certain people or groups, it’s usually not illegal.
“By mandating filters, users are subjected to automated decision making and potentially harmful profiling,” Greene explained. “This has a chilling effect on speech and undermines the freedom to receive impartial information. When knowing to be censored, users change behavior or abstain from communicating freely.”
(NEW YORK) — There were over 170 reports of severe weather in the U.S. on Saturday, the majority of them on the East Coast. Out West, fire alerts range from California to Wyoming and wildfires continue to blaze.
In New Jersey, A 58-mph wind gust was reported at Newark Airport. A 78-mph wind gust was reported just off shore of Cape May.
Quarter-sized hail was reported in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Nearly 4.55 inches of rain fell in Stanton, New Jersey, on Saturday. 3.39 inches of rain was reported near the New York-Connecticut border and nearly 4 inches of rain was reported near Buffalo, New York
New York City now has had 9.11 inches of rain so far for the month of July. The average rainfall for all of July is 4.60 inches. The wettest July on record in New York city is 11.89 inches of rainfall.
Boston has had 8.93 inches of rain so far in July. The wettest July on record in Boston is 11.69 inches.
Hartford, Connecticut, has had 8.40 inches for the month of July. The wettest July on record in Hartford is 11.24 inches.
There are still a handful of flash flood watches across parts of the Northeast Sunday. That is because some of the rain is still moving out and could cause some additional flooding. Some more rain showers will linger in parts of New England through the day Sunday. On Monday, there will still be an isolated chance of a shower, but overall the region will be drier and milder.
Temperatures will drop to comfortable levels in the Northeast for the next 48 hours, before the heat builds back up on Tuesday.
In the West, there are fire alerts from California to Wyoming. In California, monsoon storms could bring dry lightning which could easily start wildfires.
The Bootleg Fire in Oregon is now at 298,662 acres, still 22% contained. The Tamarack Fire in Alpine County, California, which began earlier in July, is now at 21,000 acres. This fire rapidly grew this weekend and there are new evacuation orders for parts of the region.
Excessive heat will continue today in parts of Idaho and Montana. The heat will slide eastward this weekend and give some of the upper Midwest hot temperatures including parts of North Dakota which could be over 100 degrees during the first part of this week.
(NEW YORK) — Local officials have the right to reimplement mitigation strategies to stop the spread of COVID-19 amid a surge in cases fueled by the delta variant, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Sunday.
“Unfortunately we’re seeing rises, particularly among the unvaccinated in many parts of the country now,” Murthy told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
Approximately 97% of new cases in the U.S. are among the unvaccinated and at least 58% of those cases were directly linked to the delta variant. At the end of May, the variant was estimated to account for just over 3% of new cases.
“In areas where there are low numbers of vaccinated people, where cases are rising, it’s very reasonable for counties to take more mitigation measures, like the mask rules coming out of LA,” Murthy continued. “And I anticipate that will happen in other parts of the country — and that’s not contradictory to the guidance the CDC issued.”
Los Angeles County reinstated an indoor mask mandate in all public places for all individuals, regardless of vaccination status and at least 10 additional counties in California, including the city of Berkeley, have fully reinstated mask mandates or highly recommended all residents wear masks indoors again.
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda Solis told Raddatz in a separate interview on “This Week,” that the new mask mandate was not punishment for the vaccinated, but prevention.
“We still have 4 million people out of 10 million that haven’t been vaccinated — and many of them are young people,” Solis told Raddatz. “And we’re seeing that this transmission is so highly contagious that it will cost more in the long run.”
Murthy reinforced his support for LA County’s decision as an acceptable mitigation approach based on data on the ground. The county reported over 1,000 new COVID-19 cases daily this past week.
“We saw this during the last year of the pandemic, that we have large numbers of people gathering in indoor spaces that is the right setup for COVID-19 to spread,” Murthy said, adding that the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention will provide surge response teams to assist regions experiencing high coronavirus cases.
Raddatz asked Murthy about the World Health Organization’s warning that the delta variant and three additional variants of concern could prolong the pandemic and possibly lead to the emergence of deadlier strains of COVID-19.
“If we don’t get this under control now, what do you anticipate the fall looking like?” Raddatz asked.
“I am deeply concerned,” Murthy responded. “We’ve made so much progress over this past year, but what I worry about are those that we still have — millions of people in our country who are not vaccinated.”
“We have to still protect our children under 12 who don’t have a vaccine available to them.” Murthy added. “Our kids depend on the people around them being protected, being vaccinated in order to shield them from the virus. And that’s why, again, it’s so important for us to get vaccinated.”
Raddatz also asked Murthy about his warning about COVID-19 misinformation online and what else social media companies like Facebook need to do to stop it.
“I’ve been deeply concerned about the flow of misinformation across technology platforms and throughout society over the last many months,” Murthy responded.
“I’ve called for greater transparency in terms of the data that they have to share with independent researchers so we can get a better sense of how much misinformation is flowing on these sites and what strategies are working to address them,” he added.
“I also ask people across our country to stop and verify your sources, before you post stories online,” Murthy concluded.
(LOS ANGELES) — Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda L. Solis said Sunday that restoring the mask mandate there is “not punishment, but prevention” as the county responds to the alarming spike in cases of the highly transmissible delta variant.
“We’re up to almost 1,900 cases and over 460 individuals that are now in our ICU unit. This is very disturbing,” Solis told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “As responsible elected officials, we have to do something, and in this case, the county has the ability to do that through our health order, through our health officer.”
The county reinstated the mask mandate over the weekend, nearly a month after California Gov. Gavin Newsom waived many of the state’s COVID-19 restrictions. Though roughly 52% of LA County residents have been vaccinated, it applies to all county residents regardless of vaccination status.
“We’re seeing that this transmission is so highly contagious that it will cost more in the long run if we have to see our hospitals being impacted, our ICU units, as well as our health care workers,” Solis said Sunday.
Raddatz asked Solis about the possibility the move might disincentivize vaccines.
“A recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that once vaccine-hesitant people saw that vaccinated people could go out in the community, it was an incentive, and those easing of restrictions helped the hesitant people go out and get the shot. Are you worried that they won’t do that now?” Raddatz asked.
“No, in fact, just yesterday we held an event out in a park and we saw many adults coming in with their children. And I think, because of the heightened information regarding the delta variant, that more people are more concerned,” Solis replied.
Solis said that the county is promoting programs aimed at “lessening the hardships” to receive a vaccine and to ease vaccine hesitancy.
“We are going with groups on the ground to parks, to swimming pools, to swap meets — anywhere you can think of where we are encouraging people to get vaccinated,” Solis said.
“I just want to caution people that we still have many youngsters under the age of 12, who are not eligible to get vaccinated. So we, as responsible adults, should be taking a proactive approach and making sure that we mask up and that we also get vaccinated as soon as possible,” Solis also told Raddatz.
Solis added that she believes more California counties will introduce similar mask mandates in the near future.
“I think that other counties and other jurisdictions are going to also follow suit in the coming days and let these numbers go in the different direction, but right now they continue to rise,” she said.
Raddatz asked about enforcement.
“Enforcement is always an issue, but the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department released a statement saying they will not enforce mask-wearing, arguing the order contradicts CDC guidelines,” Raddatz said. “So how do you plan on enforcing this mask mandate?”
“Our public health department is typically the individuals that go out and do inspections, so I don’t see where the sheriff really has to come in and weigh in on the manner that he might have thought,” Solis said.
“I’m not concerned about that. I think the public, overall, is smart enough to understand what is being said and how to protect themselves,” she added.
(WASHINGTON) — The Washington Nationals game was called to an abrupt halt on Saturday night after a shooting outside the stadium.
Police said at a late-night press conference that the shooting was an isolated incident and believed to be a shootout between two vehicles.
Earlier, the team had confirmed there was a shooting outside the Third Base Gate at Nationals Park. After initially telling fans to stay in their seats due to an “incident” outside, they were then told to exit the stadium through the Centerfield or Right Field gates.
The game was in the bottom of the sixth inning when fans heard loud pops outside the park. The game was halted as fans were seen heading for the concourse and some even exited the stands onto the field and into the dugouts.
The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department said two people were shot outside the park and there did not appear to be an ongoing threat. Police later said a third person, a woman who was attending the game but was outside the park, was also struck by gunfire.
She is expected to be OK, police said. Two others believed to be involved in the shooting are being questioned at the hospital.
One car involved in the shooting has been recovered and they are looking for the second, authorities said.
The Nationals were losing, 8-4, at the time the game was stopped.
The team said it will pick up the game on Sunday where it left off with a nine-inning game. The game will be part of a doubleheader.
A 6-year-old child was killed in a shooting in Washington, D.C., overnight with officials holding a press conference to announce a $60,000 reward for information into the shooting. Homicides have been on the rise in the city since 2017, according to city crime data.
ABC News’ Sarah Shales contributed to this report.
