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(WASHINGTON) — The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) voted to advance Susan Monarez’s nomination as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday.

The panel voted along party lines 12-11.

Monarez is the first CDC director nominee to require a Senate confirmation after Congress passed a law requiring it in 2022.

If confirmed, Monarez will be the first CDC director without a medical degree since 1953.

Ahead of the vote, in opening remarks, Ranking Member Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., accused Monarez of allowing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to spread misinformation about vaccines.

“In my view, we need a CDC director who will defend science, protect public health and repudiate Secretary Kennedy’s dangerous conspiracy theories about effective vaccines that have saved, over the years, millions of lives,” Sanders said.

Monarez was named acting CDC director in January, stepping down after she was nominated for the position in March. It came after President Donald Trump’s first pick, Dr. David Weldon, had his nomination pulled by the White House due to a lack of votes.

Weldon was expected to be grilled on his past comments questioning vaccine safety, such as falsely suggesting vaccines are linked to autism.

Monarez has worked in both the public and private sector — including working in the government under former presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as during Trump’s first term. Her work has included strategies to combat antimicrobial resistance.

During her confirmation hearing last month, Monarez expressed support for vaccines, in contrast with Kennedy, who has expressed some skepticism.

“I think vaccines save lives. I think that we need to continue to support the promotion of utilization of vaccines,” Monarez said.

While Kennedy has previously cited vaccines as a potential reason behind rising rates of autism diagnoses, Monarez said she did not hold the same view.

“I have not seen a causal link between vaccines and autism,” Monarez said when asked by Sanders last month if she agrees with the American Medical Association’s stance “that there is no scientific proven link between vaccines and autism.”

While the CDC director role has been vacant, Kennedy has had final say over some CDC decisions, such as ending recommendations for children and pregnant women to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Additionally, Kennedy recently removed all 17 sitting members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee of Immunization Practices (ACIP), an independent panel that provides recommendations on vaccines to the CDC, and replaced them with seven hand-selected members — some of whom have expressed vaccine-skeptic views.

Public health professionals previously told ABC News that, traditionally, only a CDC director would be able to reconstitute ACIP.

ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.

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(KERRVILLE, Texas) — As the floodwaters rushed into Kerrville, Texas, under the cover of darkness on Friday morning, officers jumped into action to evacuate over 100 homes and rescue more than 200 people in one hour, the police department said.

The officers “realized that areas of town that traditionally don’t flood were going to flood, and that low-lying areas close to the river were in danger,” Kerrville police community services officer Jonathan Lamb said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Officers went “door-to-door, waking people up, convincing them that, ‘Yes, the floodwaters are coming, and you need to leave now,'” Lamb said. “They rescued people out of vehicles. They rescued people out of homes that were already flooding, pulling them out of windows.”

“One officer was there by himself, and he realized, ‘I need help.’ He sounded a siren, driving up and down those streets that were beginning to flood, calling on his PA system for folks to wake up and evacuate,” he said. “And then two other officers joined him — through, first, thigh-deep, then waist-deep, then chest-deep water — as they went from RVs [to] trailers and rescued people, carrying them safety through the water.”

Lamb said the tragedy would have been worse without officers’ quick thinking.

“I don’t know how many lives our KPD team saved in an hour in Kerrville. But I know that this tragedy, as horrific as it is, could have been so much worse,” he said.

Lamb commended one officer in particular who he said worked around the clock since Friday morning’s flooding and was then sent home to rest on Tuesday.

“But rather than taking a day off, a much well-deserved day off, he got up and he put on his gear, and he volunteered to go out on foot with a ground search party, and he spent his day up and down the Guadalupe River, going over, under, around trees, searching for victims to try and reunite the missing with their families,” he said.

Friday morning’s catastrophic flooding has claimed the lives of at least 95 people in Kerr County, including 36 children, officials said on Wednesday.

The county said 161 people remain missing.

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(INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, Fla.) — A 77-year-old Vermont man was killed on Sunday afternoon as he attempted to rescue a turtle on Interstate 95 in Indian River County, Florida, authorities said.

The fatal accident occurred around 4:20 p.m. on the southbound lanes of I-95, just north of Sebastian Boulevard, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

The man was crossing the lanes when a chain-reaction crash unfolded, investigators said. A Miami woman driving a vehicle slowed down to avoid hitting the pedestrian, but a Dodge Ram pickup truck behind her failed to brake in time, authorities noted.

The pickup truck rear-ended the first vehicle, which then veered off the road, crashed through a fence and came to rest on the west side, according to authorities. The Ram continued southbound and struck the Vermont man, who was thrown to the left shoulder of the highway, officials said.

First responders pronounced the man dead at the scene, officials noted. Florida Highway Patrol confirmed to ABC News that the turtle didn’t survive either.

“The turtle did not receive a favorable outcome in the crash,” Lieutenant Jim Beauford said in an email.

The driver of the Dodge Ram, identified as a 53-year-old Port St. Lucie man, and the occupants of the other vehicle — a 44-year-old woman and her 49-year-old male passenger — were not injured in the crash, authorities said.

The southbound lanes of I-95 were closed following the incident while authorities investigated.

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(UNION, Maine) — A woman who was found dead after she went paddleboarding on a lake in Maine was murdered, officials said Monday, and police are still searching for her killer.

Sunshine “Sunny” Stewart, 48, was found dead at Crawford Pond in Union on Thursday after police were contacted to say she had gone missing, Maine State Police said.

An autopsy was then conducted, which determined her death was a homicide, police said.

While the Office of the Chef Medical Examiner in Augusta determined the manner of death was a homicide, police said they would not be releasing the cause of death.

“All possible leads” and “every investigative avenue” are being pursued to solve Stewart’s killing, according to the Maine State Police.

Some of those angles include a thorough perimeter check of the area, canvassing the neighborhood for all surveillance and security camera footage that might help, an official familiar with the investigation told ABC News.

Anyone who may have seen Stewart paddleboarding on July 2 between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. near 100 Acre Island on Crawford Pond is asked to contact the Maine State Police at 207-624-7076.

Union is located near Maine’s Atlantic coast, about 30 miles from the capital of Augusta.

The investigation into the murder remains active and ongoing, police said.

“As always, members of the public are encouraged to remain aware of their surroundings and report any suspicious behavior to law enforcement. Additional information will be released when it becomes appropriate to do so based on the progress of the investigation,” Maine State Police said in a statement Monday.

Stewart’s sister, Kim Ware, described her as the “strongest person I know” who would “give you the shirt off her back.” Ware said Stewart was a marine biologist, the “world’s best bartender sternman, lobersterman and boat captain” and was currently working as a contractor.

“Anyone blessed to be in her presence was in awe of her, her strength, courage, character, her energy and light. Truly an amazing woman. Now we have to rally and give her justice!” Ware said.

Sarah Vokey, Stewart’s close friend, said she had an “all-encompassing smile” even though her life “was not an easy one.”

“One of the hardest things I have ever written was the text that I sent to my son, ‘Sunshine was murdered,'” Vokey said in a statement.

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(WASHINGTON) — Officials have increased the reward for information leading to the person who fatally shot a 21-year-old congressional intern in Washington, D.C., last month.

Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, of Granby, Massachusetts, was killed on June 30 at approximately 10:28 p.m. after getting caught in gunfire in northwest Washington, D.C., police said.

The Metropolitan Police Department said on Tuesday that a reward of $40,000 is available for anyone who is able to provide information that leads to the “arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible.” Police were offering a previous award of $25,000, but increased it an additional $15,000 “thanks to a contribution from our partners at the FBI Washington Field Office,” officials said.

Investigators said they recovered the suspect vehicle last week and stated that while the shooting was targeted, Tarpinian-Jachym was not among the intended victims.

In total, three people were wounded in the shooting: Tarpinian-Jachym, who was found unconscious; a woman, who was in stable condition as of last week; and a 16-year-old male who police believe was involved with the group that opened fire, police said. As of last week, the teenager remained in the hospital.

D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith told reporters last week, “We do have some good video footage, and I say good video footage that’s a little grainy, so we’re bringing in the FBI to kind of help enhance the video resolution so we can see a little bit better.”

Police are also working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on ballistics analysis.

Last week, Smith described the shooting as “a tragedy,” and “something that we don’t ever want to happen in our city.”

Tarpinian-Jachym, who had been serving as an intern for Rep. Ron Estes of Kansas since June, was a rising senior at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he was majoring in finance with a minor in political science.

Officials said anyone with information regarding the incident should call police at 202-727-9099 or text the police department’s line at 50411.

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(NEW YORK) — Just two days before devastating floods claimed at least 27 lives at Camp Mystic, the Texas Department of State Health Services signed off on the youth camp’s emergency plans, according to records obtained by ABC News.

An inspection report dated July 2 indicates that state inspectors noted the camp had emergency plans “in case of a disaster” in place and that staff and volunteers were briefed on the plans during training sessions and volunteer briefings.

Lara Anton, a spokesperson for DSHS, told ABC News in a statement that camps are required to develop their own emergency plans, which are then assessed by the state for adherence to the Texas Administrative Code.

“Camps are responsible for developing their own emergency plan,” Anton said. “The plans should include disaster, serious accident, epidemic, or fatality. Disaster would include flooding, tornado, etc. The inspector checked that they had plans posted for those elements in every building and that they had trained staff and volunteers on what to do.”

The details of Camp Mystic’s emergency plans were not included in the records released by the state. DSHS released the July 2 inspection report along with five years of reports of the youth camp.

The inspection report, which showed the youth camp complied with various regulations, concluded “there is no deficiency/violation cited or noted within the scope of this inspection/visit.”

The youth camp had 557 campers and 108 staffers between its Guadalupe and Cypress Lake locations at the time of the inspection.

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