(LONDON) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was fined in connection with the police investigation into illegal parties and gatherings held at his residence and other government premises during coronavirus-induced lockdowns, Downing Street confirmed Tuesday.
Johnson is the first sitting prime minister in U.K.’s history to have broken the law while in office.
Johnson, his wife, Carrie, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak have all been handed fines in connection with a host of lockdown breaches reported last year. Details as to how much the fines were worth, or which gatherings they were issued in connection with, were scant.
“The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have today received notification that the Metropolitan Police intend to issue them with fixed penalty notices,” a Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement. “We have no further details, but we will update you again when we do.”
The investigation into a number of events held at Downing Street by the prime minister’s staff while the country was under lockdown conditions dominated headlines earlier this year. U.K.’s Metropolitan Police Service announced it was investigating at least eight gatherings, and they were currently examining over 500 documents and 300 images provided to them by a separate, internal investigation led by top civil servant, Sue Gray.
A number of gatherings during lockdown took place at government residences, including a Christmas event, two leaving parties for departing staff and a summer gathering in the Downing Street garden, where up to 100 staffers were invited to bring their own alcoholic drinks. The Prime Minister has previously denied any wrongdoing, though recieved backlash for saying he believed that one of the gatherings, where pictures were leaked to the press of staff drinking alcohol, was a “work event.”
The announcement that Johnson and Sunak are to be issued with fixed penalty notices — fines which must be paid to avert criminal proceedings — came a day after the Metropolitan Police announced an update to their investigation, saying at least 50 people have been fined so far.
Though media attention soon turned to the prime minister’s handling of the crisis in Ukraine, where he has taken a strong line against Russia and was recently pictured with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, the announcement of the fines has led to fresh calls for his resignation.
While Parliament is in recess, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, has already called for both Johnson and Sunak to resign.
“Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have broken the law and repeatedly lied to the British public,” he posted on Twitter. “They must both resign. The Conservatives are totally unfit to govern. Britain deserves better.”
(NEW YORK) — An American family living in Poland is doing what it can to help Ukrainian refugees in need amid the war.
In February, OT and Julie Benson and five of their eight kids moved from the Detroit suburbs to Krakow, Poland, looking for an adventure. But nearly a month after arriving in Poland, their lives changed instantly when Russia invaded Ukraine.
The couple told ABC News’ Good Morning America that they couldn’t turn a blind eye.
“When you’re staring [at] refugees who have been traveling for many days, and they have nothing but the clothes on their backs, you don’t really make a plan, you just say yes, and I’ll figure it out,” OT Benson said.
It was at a church during those first few days of the war when OT decided to heed the Bishop’s call to house Ukrainian refugees in his own home.
Over the past four weeks, the Benson’s house has been a home for at least nine families — some staying the night, others for weeks. At one point, OT and Julie packed the house with 21 people.
“Our job is trying to make them feel safe,” Julie Benson said. “Make them feel like they’re with us, that they are like at their home. So that’s what we’re trying to do. And every day see them happy, smiling — I think that is the best reward.”
The couple’s daughter, Leo, said she was nervous at first living in a full house, but she said welcoming their home to those in need was humbling.
“We had our first group of people stay with us, and they were so amazing and so kind and genuine,” Leo Benson said. “It was really humbling to see them. I don’t even know how I can express it into better words. I just love them so much.”
“This family is great,” Oksana Tymchenko told GMA of the Bensons. Oksana is staying with the family with her three daughters, but her husband had to stay and fight in Ukraine. She said her daughters miss their dad, but living with the Bensons has helped keep their spirits up.
“I’d never expected they’d receive us like that,” Tymchenko said. “Like their own children. We don’t even have a language barrier — they understand us, we understand them.”
The Bensons said hosting refugees has shown how the war has impacted families like Oksana’s.
“We had boys that would be here like in the backyard playing and they would see a plane fly over and react in very scary ways screaming,” OT Benson said. “The other kids would say, ‘Rocket, rocket’ — it looks like something they saw a few weeks ago.”
While the Bensons and the families who stay with them are still learning to adapt, the Bensons said they are also learning from their own kids, who they said are also changing from the experience too.
“I would say certainly when living in the U.S., you feel disconnected with this kind of thing. Think they come quickly to the realization that this is a different place, a different time, and it makes you grow up a lot faster,” OT Benson said. “Which for me as a dad I’m glad that they can do that, that they can see that and I want them to understand what it means to serve others and help others.”
(NEW YORK) — The New York City Police Department has announced a person of interest in connection with Tuesday morning’s subway shooting in Brooklyn.
Investigators said they are looking for Frank James and released a photo of the person, asking the public to call NYPD Crime Stoppers with any information on his current whereabouts.
This is Frank James who is a person of interest in this investigation. Any information can be directed to @NYPDTips at 800-577-TIPS. pic.twitter.com/yBpenmsX67
A gunman donned a gas mask, detonated a smoke canister and opened fire on a New York City subway train Tuesday morning, shooting 10 people and sparking panic during the rush-hour commute. The suspect fired 33 times, according to police.
Twenty-nine victims went to Brooklyn hospitals with various injuries. Five people were critically injured and have since stabilized, according to a fire department official.
Police described the gunman, who is still on the run, as an “active shooter.” The bloodshed comes amid a surge in crime on New York City’s transit system.
The shooting, reported just before 8:30 a.m. local time, erupted on a Manhattan-bound N subway car as it approached the 36th Street subway station in Sunset Park in Brooklyn, New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said at a news conference.
According to a police official, the suspect was seen mumbling before he put on the gas mask, released a smoke canister commonly bought online and opened fire with a .380 caliber handgun.
The gun jammed during the incident, according to a police official.
Investigators recovered the gun, three extended magazines, a hatchet, gasoline, four smoke grenades and a bag of consumer-grade fireworks, according to police. The gun was not stolen, police said.
A credit card was also recovered from the scene and investigators said the card was used to rent a U-Haul, according to a police source. Keys to the vehicle were also found in the shooter’s possession, according to police.
Investigators located the vehicle in Gravesend, Brooklyn, on Tuesday afternoon, roughly five miles southeast of the subway station and were investigating to determine if it has any connection to the suspect, according to the police.
Police later said James rented the van in Philadelphia. There is a $50,000 reward for information that leads to his wherabouts.
The NYPD said it is still piecing together clues about the suspected shooter.
“At this time, we still do not know the suspect’s motivation. Clearly this individual boarded the train and was intent on violence,” police commissioner Keechant Sewell said at an evening press conference.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams told New York station WABC that police are working on getting as much evidence and clues from the vehicle as they can.
“We want to make sure that all of the evidence that is gathered is going to assist us in apprehending this person. We must make sure that we have it protected correctly so that we can convict this person for,” he said.
There were no working cameras in the 36th Street station, according to a police official. The cameras, which are aimed at the turnstiles, didn’t transmit in real-time due to a glitch computer malfunction, a source said. The same glitch impacted cameras at the stops before and after 36th Street.
Investigators are looking into how this malfunction happened.
But police were able to get an image of the suspect from a bystander’s cellphone video, a law enforcement official told ABC News.
Yav Montano, 24, was on the train when he said the whole car filled with smoke.
“It was hard to breathe, it was hard to see. It was hard to hear or pay attention to what was going on with the chaos that was happening,” he said.
“I didn’t see anything because the smoke in the train was so thick. I couldn’t even see halfway down the length of the train car,” he added.
“After the smoke went on, there was a bunch of popping, which I thought at first was firecrackers,” he went on. “I ducked behind a chair to protect myself.”
From a crouching position on the floor, Montano said, “I saw a lot of blood on the floor. Too much blood.”
Montano said the doors opened at 36th Street about three to four minutes later. “As soon as the doors opened, everyone started to pour out and run,” he recalled.
Multiple smoke devices and a bag of commercial-grade fireworks have been recovered, according to a law enforcement official.
Sewell said there are no known explosives on subways and a motive is still unknown.
After initially saying the shooting was not being investigated as an act of terrorism, Sewell later said police are “not ruling anything out.”
Sewell described the suspect as a man wearing a green construction-type vest and a gray-hooded sweatshirt. The suspect has a “heavy build” and is believed to be about 5 feet 5 inches tall, Sewell said.
A man who works in a bodega outside the subway told ABC New York station WABC about 10 to 15 people ran to his store for safety.
“It was horrifying,” he said.
“I saw three or four people with gunshot wounds to their legs. They just fell to floor before the cops came…They just stayed here for a couple of minutes before the coast was clear,” he said. “Everyone was terrified, I was terrified.”
A senior federal law enforcement source told ABC News authorities are concerned this shooting showed a level of planning and commitment to kill scores of commuters during rush hour. The source said it is too early to know if the suspect acted alone.
President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have been briefed on the situation, the White House said.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday afternoon that he’s “praying for those that are injured and all those touched by that trauma.”
“And we’re grateful for all the first responders … including civilians, who didn’t hesitate to help their fellow passengers,” Biden said.
Freelance photographer Derek French, who was on the platform when the incident took place, told ABC News how he and two other good Samaritans created makeshift tourniquets out of a jacket and applied them to the wounded.
“When I saw the pool of blood from one of the victims I essentially just snapped into first-aid mode,” French said, noting he’d previously trained with the Red Cross.
“It wasn’t a second thought, it was that I needed to do that,” he said.
The FBI is assisting and officials from the ATF are at the scene.
Later in the evening, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul visited victims who were recuperating at Maimondes Hospital
One of the victims was an 18-year-old student on the way to school, she said. The student was awaiting surgery, according to the governor.
“He seems to be doing well, and is in very good spirits, as well as his mother and grandmother who are there,” Hochul said.
The governor also said she spoke to the mother of a 16-year-old victim who had just undergone surgery.
“All she has is her son,” she added. “So I had a long, long hug with her and let her know that we send the love of all New Yorkers.”
Anyone with information, video or photos related to the shooting is urged to call 800-577-TIPS.
(NEW YORK) — Authorities in Suffolk County, New York, on Tuesday released video evidence from the unsolved Gilgo Beach murders, showing the last known surveillance of Megan Waterman, one of the victims.
Suffolk County Police also announced it is doubling the Crime Stoppers reward to $50,000 for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case.
Waterman, whose remains were found along Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach in 2010, was last seen at Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge, New York, in June 2010. She had advertised escort services on Craigslist.
The remains of 10 people were found in 2010 and 2011 in the weedy sections off Ocean Parkway near Jones Beach. At the time, police said half of the identified victims worked as prostitutes.
Earlier this year, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison created the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force. The task force includes representatives from the FBI, New York State Police, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office and the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office.
In 2020, police released photos of a belt believed to be handled by the suspect, which did not belong to any of the victims, hoping to advance the investigation.
Authorities discovered the remains during the search for Shannan Gilbert, a sex worker from New Jersey, but she is not believed to be tied to the other deaths because she did not match the pattern of the Gilgo Beach homicides, police said in 2020.
Remains found on Dec. 11, 2010 during the search for Gilbert, were later identified as the remains of 24-year-old Melissa Barthelemy. Two days later, three more victims were found on Ocean Parkway. They were later identified as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25; Amber Lynn Costello, 27; and Megan Waterman, 22.
All four women worked as Craigslist escorts.
The remains of another woman who worked as an escort were found on March 29, 2011, but the remains have not been identified.
On April 4, 2011, three more sets of remains were found on Ocean Parkway, which were those of a toddler, an unidentified Asian male and a third victim who was later identified as Valerie Mack.
Two more sets of remains were found a week later, one of which was discovered to be the mother of the toddler. The mother’s partial remains were first found in 1997.
Several country stars really raked in the dough in 2021.
Of the top 10 artists who made the most money in last year, Blake Shelton leads the pack by a wide margin, bringing in a whopping $83 million, according to Substack. This is mainly from his $50 million music catalogue and his earnings as a coach on the wildly popular The Voice.
Behind him is Luke Bryan, who between his gig as an American Idol judge and endorsement deals with household brands like Bayer and Jockey earned $40 million last year. Coming in third is the legend herself, Dolly Parton, who’s empire that includes perfumes, a new novel and her extensive music catalogue brought in $30 million.
The fourth highest-earning country star is Chris Stapleton, who’s top-selling albums and multiple hit songs made him about $26 million. Rounding out the top five is Florida Georgia Line, the duo of Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley, at $25 million, much of which came from the sale of their publishing catalogue last year.
Ringo Starr‘s All Starr Band has unveiled dates for a second North American tour leg this year.
The newly announced series of shows, which includes 19 dates, begins on September 23 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and runs through an October 19-20 engagement in Mexico City. After the kickoff show, the outing will stop in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and then work its way across Canada, with concerts in Michigan and Minnesota along the way.
Once on the West Coast, the trek will proceed to visit venues in Washington, Oregon, and California, wrapping up the U.S. portion on October 16 at Los Angeles’ famed Greek Theatre.
As previously reported, the first leg of the All Starr Band’s upcoming tour begins with a May 27-28 stand in Rama, Canada, and runs through a June 26 show in Clearwater, Florida. The 2022 trek is made up mostly of dates that were postponed from 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is so great to finally announce all these shows we had planned for 2020, and I am really looking forward to playing them!” Ringo says. “How great to start at Casino Rama [in Rama, Canada], where we’ve begun 5 All Starr tours, and then to go back to [New York City’s] Beacon [Theatre], and to the Greek, which was the last show we played in 2019 on our 30th Anniversary tour. I can’t wait to see all our fans and until then I’m sending everyone peace and love and see you soon!”
The All Starr Band’s current lineup features Edgar Winter, Toto guitarist Steve Lukather, Men at Work‘s Colin Hay and former Average White Band guitarist/bassist Hamish Stuart, as well as sax player/percussionist Warren Ham and drummer Gregg Bissonette.
Need Earth Day plans? Netflix has you covered with their new docuseries Our Great National Parks. Narrated and executive produced by President Barack Obama, the new series brings you up close to nature’s greatest creatures in its most iconic landscapes.
“I’d like to think that this the series speaks of the importance of wilderness everywhere and because we need it now more than ever, and it needs us,” James Honeyborne, a producer of the series, tells ABC Audio. “It’s a two way thing. It’s about our relationship with wilderness as well.”
While exploring that relationship with wilderness, they were able to capture rare footage of hippos body surfing the waves, something Honeyborne says was “so hard to get,” sharing that the crew spent a lot of time in Gabon in Africa before managing “to get the material of these big hippos going into the ocean, catching waves to actually move up and down the coast.”
After watching the docuseries you can choose which National Park is your favorite, but if you ask Honeyborne, the answer is Monterey.
For producer Sophie Todd, “Leuser National Park in Indonesia, just because it’s an incredibly beautiful rainforest where you can still see forest elephants, orangutans, tigers and rhinos in the same place.”
In addition to exploring the world’s National Parks, the producers got to work with Obama, something they agree just made sense.
“As president, he protected more natural space than any president in U.S. history in terms of area. So I mean, it’s just a natural fit, really, wasn’t it?” Todd says.
“Yeah,” Honeyborne agrees. “It felt very authentic to have him there. And it was wonderful that we were able to to have him introduce each episode because he has a connection to each location that we have filmed.”
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Cleveland 10, Cincinnati 5
LA Angels 4, Miami 3
St. Louis 6, Kansas City 5
Milwaukee 5, Baltimore 4
Colorado 4, Texas 1
LA Dodgers 7, Minnesota 2
Houston 2, Arizona 1
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Boston 5, Detroit 3
Chicago White Sox, 3 Seattle 2
NY Yankees 4 Toronto 0
Tampa Bay 9, Oakland 8
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Chicago Cubs 2, Pittsburgh 1
NY Mets 2, Philadelphia 0
Atlanta 16, Washington 4
San Francisco 13, San Diego 2
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Brooklyn 115, Cleveland 108
Minnesota 109, LA Clippers 104
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Buffalo 5, Toronto 2
Carolina 4, NY Rangers 2
Washington 9, Philadelphia 2
Florida 3, Anaheim 2 (OT)
St. Louis 4, Boston 2
Ottawa 4, Detroit 1
NY Islanders 5, Pittsburgh 4 (SO)
Minnesota 5, Edmonton 1
Nashville 1, San Jose 0 (OT)
Los Angeles 5, Chicago 2
Calgary 5, Seattle 3
Dallas 1, Tampa Bay 0
New Jersey 6, Arizona 2
Vancouver 5, Vegas 4 (OT)
(WASHINGTON) — The White House says extending the federal mask mandate for airlines and other forms of transportation is still possible despite urging from GOP lawmakers and transportation industry leaders to end the measure, which is set to expire next week.
The decision could be influenced by an increase in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and a large increase in travelers. The TSA screened 2.6 million travelers on March 20 — a record since the pandemic began and an upward trend many experts expect to continue as summer approaches.
White House COVID-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said extending the public health order is “absolutely on the table” on NBC’s “Today Show” on Monday. Dr. Jha was asked whether rising case numbers could justify extending the order.
“This is a decision that the CDC Director Dr. Walensky is going to make,” Dr. Jha said. “I know the CDC is working on developing a scientific framework for how to answer that. We are going to see that framework come out I think in the next few days.”
CEOs of airlines including Alaska Air, American Airlines, Delta, JetBlue Airways and United sent a letter to President Joe Biden in late March asking him to roll back the mask mandate on airlines as well as the testing requirements for passengers. They pointed to the efficacy of vaccines and to the “burden” enforcing such measures puts on airline staff.
“Now is the time for the Administration to sunset federal transportation travel restrictions – including the international pre-departure testing requirement and the federal mask mandate – that are no longer aligned with the realities of the current epidemiological environment,” the letter said.
“Importantly, the effectiveness and availability of high-quality masks for those who wish to wear them gives passengers the ability to further protect themselves if they choose to do so,” industry leaders said in the letter. “It makes no sense that people are still required to wear masks on airplanes, yet are allowed to congregate in crowded restaurants, schools and at sporting events without masks, despite none of these venues having the protective air filtration system that aircraft do.”
GOP Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Roger Wicker R-Miss., as well as Reps. Sam Graves, R-Mo., and Garret Graves, R-La., also called on the White House to roll back the order in a letter last week.
“At a time when operators across all modes of our Nation’s transportation system are grappling with skyrocketing fuel prices and the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, the Administration’s policies should reflect nothing less than steadfast support for the transportation sector’s rapid recovery. To that end, we urge you to join us in supporting our Nation’s transportation operators, employees, and users by ending immediately the Federal transportation mask mandate, or allowing it to expire once and for all,” the letter from lawmakers said.
Airlines for America, a group representing major airlines, and other travel industry groups also sent a letter to Dr. Jha last week urging the administration to roll back the COVID mitigation measures.
“Simply put, the pre-departure testing requirement and the mask mandate no longer provide the public health benefits they once did,” the letter said. “Today, these measures are imposing significant costs on the traveling public, airline employees, and the American travel and tourism industries.”
(NEW YORK) — Opioid overdose deaths in adolescents rose far more rapidly than the general population between 2019 and 2021, according to a new study of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
The study found that deaths from opioid overdoses in teens ages 14 to 18 increased by 94% between 2019 and 2020 and by an additional 20% between 2020 and 2021.
One specific driver of these deaths was fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that the Drug Enforcement Administration says is 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine.
The researchers, who hailed from multiple institutions, found that adolescent fentanyl-related overdose deaths leapt 350% over the study period. Overall, fentanyl was associated with 77% of adolescent overdose deaths in 2021.
Additionally, specific youth faced elevated risk. Opioid overdose deaths were higher in adolescents from American Indian and Alaska Native and Latinx communities.
The findings come amid the widespread — and rapid — proliferation of fentanyl across the country.
According to the DEA, the number of forensic drug reports testing positive for fentanyl has skyrocketed in recent years from under 20,000 in 2015 to 117,045 in 2020. A recent study from the National Institutes of Health found that the number of individual fentanyl pills seized by law enforcement increased nearly 50-fold from the first quarter of 2018 to the last quarter of 2021.
Even though the adolescent rates outpaced them, adults haven’t been spared from the rising ubiquity of fentanyl. Provisional data released by the CDC in March showed that overdose deaths across age groups had reached record highs, taking the lives of nearly 106,000 Americans within the prior year.
These deaths were in large part driven by fentanyl.
A separate CDC study showed that of the more than 100,000 people who died from drug overdoses between May 2020 and April 2021, nearly two-thirds were linked to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.
Overall, deaths linked to synthetic opioids have nearly doubled in Americans of any age over the past two years, the provisional data showed.
Advocates say that the record highs in overdose deaths highlight the importance of adopting new strategies to combat the opiate epidemic.
“Urgent action is needed to address America’s spiraling overdose crisis, including expanding access to opioid addiction treatment and investing in harm reduction,” the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit health care research organization, wrote in a February report, “but these lifesaving tools continue to be underutilized and resistance remains strong in many areas of the country.”
The authors of the study echoed those recommendations for youth specifically.
“Increasing adolescent overdose deaths, in the context of increasing availability of illicit fentanyls, highlight the need for accurate harm-reduction education for adolescents and greater access to naloxone and services for mental health and substance use behavior,” the authors wrote.
According to guidance by the U.S. Surgeon General, individual citizens also have an important role to play. The guidance recommends that individuals learn the signs of opioid overdose — including slowed breathing and pinpoint pupils — and get trained in the use of naloxone, a potent antidote for opioid overdoses.
“Knowing how to use naloxone and keeping it within reach can save a life,” the guidance reads.
Eli Cahan, MS, is a contributor to the ABC News medical unit. He is a fourth year medical student at NYU School of Medicine and will be starting his residency in pediatrics at UCSF in June.
