(NEW YORK) — A 1-year-girl was released from a New York hospital Friday nearly four months after she was shot in the face.
Catherine, whose mother described her as “our beautiful miracle baby,” was initially hospitalized in critical condition at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital following the Jan. 19 shooting in the Bronx.
Since February, she has been hospitalized at Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Valhalla, Westchester County, for extensive rehabilitation to relearn how to walk, talk and eat. She walked out of the hospital while holding her parents’ hands to cheers from hospital staff and officers from the New York Police Department and the Westchester County Police Department.
“Our journey has been long, but finally, this is the light at the end of the tunnel,” her mother, Miraida Gomez, told reporters while holding Catherine outside the hospital.
“We’re definitely happy, we’re eager to start this new chapter in our life, and just happy that everyone is able to witness a miracle,” she said.
Catherine was struck by a stray bullet days before her first birthday while in a parked car with her mother outside a grocery store, waiting for her father who was inside the store, police said.
A man chasing another man fired two shots, hitting the baby in the face, police said.
Recalling that day, Gomez said she was “numb.”
“I don’t think I could describe my emotions all at once,” she said.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams called the shocking incident “a wake up call.”
“It should be unimaginable that this would happen in our city. But it did,” he said on social media at the time.
“Leaders at every level have abandoned city streets. I won’t,” he said.
Gomez said they weren’t sure what the outcome would be following the shooting.
“It was really gloomy. It felt like there was a dark cloud over us because everything was unknown,” she said.
Due to her injuries, the toddler had developed hemiparesis, a paralysis of her right side that affected her ability to eat, walk or use her right arm, the hospital said.
Today, she is a “super bubbly” toddler who loves to climb and is able to walk, “which is something they told us might not happen,” Gomez said.
“She’s beat all odds against her, gratefully,” Gomez said. “I want to say that her journey has also been miraculous compared to what we were always told, and we’re just happy to share this with everyone.”
Authorities are still looking for the shooter, who police said fled the scene in a gray four-door sedan.
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark vowed that the city would not stop looking until the gunman was caught.
“You could continue to go out there and think you’re going to get away with it, but you’re not going to get away with it,” Clark told ABC New York station WABC in the wake of the shooting. “We’re going to find you eventually, because we’re not going to stop looking.”
ABC News’ Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Justice Department lawyers and attorneys representing a coalition of GOP-led states were in court on Friday to again trade jabs about whether the Biden administration can lift pandemic-based restrictions at the southern border known as the Title 42 order.
Judge Robert R. Summerhays, a Trump appointee, said he plans to issue his decision later — not immediately — on the legal challenge that would block the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Title 42 order from ending May 23.
Meanwhile, the temporary restraining order issued by the federal judge to prevent any phase-out of Title 42 will remain in place until he issues that decision and Customs and Border Protection can continue to expel immigrants on Title 42 grounds.
The administration argues that Title 42 is a health care policy meant to deal with the spread of COVID-19, not an immigration control measure, and that it has no choice but to follow the agency’s guidance that the public health order is no longer necessary as of May 23.
At the same time, even many vulnerable border state Democrats warn the administration is making a major mistake, that is has no plan to deal with an expected influx of immigrants and that it will hurt the party politically before the midterm elections.
At the hearing, the GOP coalition argued that the Biden administration failed to consider the impact ending Title 42 would have on the states, pointing to reports coming out of the Department of Homeland Security that they are preparing for further elevated level of undocumented immigrants in the coming weeks.
That could be as many as 18,000 more per day, according to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The GOP coalition argued their states would be harmed by education and health care costs, new drivers’ licenses and even drug trafficking, going as far as to say that lifting Title 42 would “reduce their ability to provide healthcare to legal residents.”
The evidence of such effects, though, is unconfirmed and untested.
Judge Summerhays at one point questioned the potential increase in criminal justice costs.
“It seems highly speculative … I don’t see how you can make the connection there,” the judge said.
When the federal government’s side picked up on the judge’s skepticism and attempted to run with it to undermine the plaintiff’s case, Summerhays clarified that he was simply “prodding” the state coalition attorneys as he did throughout the hearing.
Undocumented immigrants overall pay roughly $11.74 billion in state and local taxes every year, according to the non-profit, non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. That amounts to about 8% of an average immigrant’s income, compared to about 5.4% of those in the top 1%.
Central to the case is whether the government fully considered the potential impact on states and whether the Biden administration acted unlawfully when it did not allow for a months-long notice and comment period prior to the end of Title 42.
The Trump administration initially brought the Title 42 order without such notice and DOJ attorneys argued that required such notice would kneecap the CDC’s authority to act quickly in response to changing emergency situations.
The judge’s order could come any time between now and May 23.
Olivia Rodrigo has been performing Gwen Stefani‘s No Doubt hit “Just a Girl” while on tour, and Gwen finally noticed. “U killed it,” Gwen shared while posting a clip of Olivia’s recent performance to her Instagram story. Olivia responded with a sobbing emoji. Fans are now hoping Gwen will crash one of Olivia’s shows.
Kelly Clarkson got pranked by Melissa Rivers on her daytime talk show. Kelly is not a fan of spiders and was fooled by a contraption that flings a fake arachnid at you. Kelly let out a loud shriek and later told Melissa she’s going to share the video clip with her prankster son, Remington, adding, “He’s gonna love you so much.”
Paula Abdul is joining American Rescue Dog Show as a guest judge, with Leslie Jordan and Yvette Nicole Brown. Varietyreports the show asks rescue dogs to “strut their fluff” to raise money for local animal rescue centers. The show begins airing May 25 at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Camila Cabello released the music video for “Hasta Los Dientes,” which features Maria Becerra. Camila wears a frost-blue number, complete with a minty wig and frilled dress, for her colorful music video.
Justin Bieber is not built for the outdoors. He posted an Instagram video of him trying to chop wood like a shirtless lumberjack, and failing. “I’m out of my element,” he captioned the video.
The Zappa Band, a group mostly made up of former members of the late Frank Zappa‘s backing bands, will launch its first-ever headlining tour in June, a series of dates in the Northeast that will follow a trio of concerts in California.
First up for The Zappa Band are California shows on May 22 in Banning, June 3 in Escondido, and June 5 at the famed Los Angeles-area club the Whisky a Go Go.
The U.S. trek kicks off in earnest on June 12 in Homer, New York, and winds down with a June 26 concert in Plymouth, New Hampshire. The 11-date outing also includes a June 16 stop at Sony Hall in New York City.
The Zappa Band lineup includes lead singer/guitarist Ray White, guitarist/keyboardist Mike Keneally, bassist Scott Thunes and keyboardist/sax player Robert Martin, who all performed live and recorded with Frank. Rounding the group are two former members of Dweezil Zappa‘s Zappa Plays Zappa tribute group — guitarist Jamie Kime and drummer Joe “Vaultmeister” Travers, the latter of whom also served as a Zappa archivist.
“A lot of amazing Frank Zappa music played with intensity, humor and love,” says Kenneally with regard to what fans can expect from Zappa Band concerts. “We’ll be enjoying the opportunity to play different material from night to night; we know that often people like to attend multiple shows, and our repertoire is presently large enough to be able to change things up.”
You can check out a list of the group’s confirmed shows at The Zappa Band’s official Facebook page.
Cardi B tried her hand at tennis in her latest Cardi TriesMessenger series. She teamed with her “Wild Side” collaborator, Normani, to see if they have what it takes to be the next Venus and Serena Williams. Cardi, who’s left handed, crashes a children’s tennis lesson and discovers she is not athletically blessed.
AJR was on Jeopardy! Thursday night — kinda. The final Double Jeopardy clue, for $2,000, was, “At the 2021 show, this letter-perfect indie trio gave a smokin’ performance of ‘Bang!'” The answer was “Who is AJR?,” but, as the band revealed on their Instagram story, “No one got it!” They later shared footage of their performance.
Justin Bieber is not built for the outdoors. He posted an Instagram video of him trying to chop wood like a shirtless lumberjack, and failing. “I’m out of my element,” he captioned the video.
Olivia Rodrigo has been performing Gwen Stefani‘s No Doubt hit, “Just a Girl,” while on tour, and Gwen finally noticed. “U killed it,” Gwen shared while posting a clip of Olivia’s recent performance to her Instagram story. Olivia responded with a sobbing emoji. Fans are now hoping Gwen will crash one of Olivia’s shows.
Camila Cabello released the music video for “Hasta Los Dientes,” which features Maria Becerra. Camila wears a frost-blue number, complete with a minty wig and frilled dress, for her colorful music video.
(NEW YORK) — Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid to purchase Twitter struck an unexpected roadblock early Friday morning when he tweeted that he had put the deal “temporarily on hold,” citing concern over the prevalence of bot and spam accounts on the platform.
Nearly two hours later, Musk assured observers that he remains “committed to acquisition.” But damage had been done. The price of Twitter shares plunged Friday, closing more than 9% down.
Market analysts said the worry over fake accounts could serve as a pretext for Musk to bargain a lower price for the acquisition or abandon the effort altogether. The share prices of both Tesla and Twitter have fallen in the weeks since Musk reached a deal to purchase the social media platform, on April 25, potentially making the acquisition less attractive for Musk.
“I believe he’s still committed in theory, probably at a lower price,” Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at Wedbush, an investment firm, who closely follows the tech sector, told ABC News. “It starts to be a boy that cried wolf.”
An unpredictable figure, Musk defies an easy assessment of his thinking. But he has expressed concern over fake accounts on previous occasions. On April 21, days before he reached the deal to acquire Twitter, Musk tweeted: “If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!”
There are two main explanations for why Musk could be worried about fake accounts. First, there is the threat they pose to the company’s business model. Second, there is their potential to undermine the credibility of the platform as a site of authentic discourse between real users.
Twitter generates the vast majority of its revenue through advertising to users on the platform, which means its business depends to a significant degree on the number of users who see the ads displayed by the company.
In the first quarter of this year, the company reported 229 million users who accessed Twitter on any given day on a platform on which they could be shown ads, which amounted to a 15.9% increase from the same quarter a year ago. The company reported $1.2 billion in revenue for the first quarter of this year, of which $1.11 billion came from advertising.
If the number of spam or bot accounts on Twitter is larger than the company has estimated, then it could cut into that number of monetizable users and the amount of ad revenue they generate. In turn, that could damage Twitter’s bottom line.
An accurate estimate of the number of fake accounts is important “given that establishing an accurate number of real tweeters is considered to be key to future revenue streams via advertising or paid for subscriptions on the site,” Susannah Streeter, a senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, told ABC News in a statement.
In prior comments, Musk has stated another source of worry over bot accounts that centers on how they could undermine the role Twitter plays as a “de facto public town square,” as he has described it. If Twitter posts cannot be trusted as real remarks from actual human beings, then the value of the discourse on the platform deteriorates.
“There is so much potential with Twitter to be the most trusted & broadly inclusive forum in the world!” Musk tweeted on May 3.
“That is why we must clear out bots, spam & scams. Is something actually public opinion or just someone operating 100k fake accounts? Right now, you can’t tell,” he added in a follow-up tweet minutes later.
Public interest in fake accounts on social media platforms intensified in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, when it was found that Russian operatives had used false accounts to spread misinformation on a massive scale. In 2018, Twitter escalated its efforts to remove fake or suspicious accounts, suspending more than 70 million such accounts in May and June of that year, the Washington Post reported that July.
For its part, Twitter has acknowledged the challenge of accurately estimating the number of fake accounts on the platform. In the public filing this month in which it stated that fake accounts make up less than 5% of users, Twitter added a note of caution about the figure: “In making this determination, we applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated.”
Last month, Musk reached a deal to buy Twitter at $54.20 a share, which amounted to a 38% premium above where the share price stood before it was made public that Musk had been purchasing company stock.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Musk over a delay in notifying regulators of a 9.2% stake in Twitter he took earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Likewise, the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the acquisition over the possible violation of an antitrust reporting rule.
Ives, the analyst at Wedbush, said the announcement from Musk on Friday puts the outcome of the acquisition in question.
“This continues to be a circus show that really puts the deal in uncertainty,” he said. “The chances of a deal getting done is probably less than 50% now.”
(NEW YORK) — Police are thinking differently about the undetermined death of a woman previously thought to have been killed in a rash of prostitute murders on Long Island, New York.
Suffolk County police on Friday released three 911 calls made on May 1, 2010, the day Shannan Gilbert, a sex worker, vanished near Oak Beach.
Though the 2010 search for Gilbert led police to discover the Gilgo Beach murder victims, Suffolk County police said Friday that the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit concluded that Gilbert’s death isn’t consistent with homicide.
Gilbert’s cause of death is undetermined and was most likely an accident, police said.
In the early hours of May 1, 2010, Gilbert was driven from New York City to Oak Beach to meet a client, Joseph Brewer, police said.
“Gilbert’s driver remained in the area while she met with Brewer,” police said in a statement. “During the meeting, Gilbert reportedly began acting irrational, prompting her client to contact the driver to have Gilbert leave his home.”
Gilbert called 911 from Brewer’s house. Police noted that at times on the call Gilbert spoke calmly but slurred her words. At other points on the call she was non-responsive, and at other points she screamed, police said. She told the operator, “There’s somebody after me.”
Gilbert eventually left Brewer’s home and ran to the house of another resident, who called 911. The third 911 call was made by another resident when Gilbert knocked on her door.
An investigation found Gilbert’s death “was most likely non-criminal,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told reporters Friday.
Brewer and Gilbert’s driver have been cleared of any criminal involvement in her death, police said.
However, Gilbert’s family hired a private pathologist to conduct an autopsy; while that pathologist determined there’s insufficient information to determine a definite cause of death, he found her death is consistent with homicidal strangulation, police said.
Harrison told reporters, “Shannan was a loving daughter, sister and a young woman who should have had a whole life ahead of her, regardless of the circumstances surrounding her death. Her unfortunate passing is tragic.”
Police said they are “committed to evaluating any information or evidence that the public may have to help determine a definitive cause of death.”
The investigation into the unsolved Gilgo Beach murders started more than 11 years ago when Suffolk County police, searching for Gilbert, discovered the body of Melissa Barthelemy along Ocean Parkway. 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.
A $50,000 reward is available for information leading to an arrest in the Gilgo Beach murders.
(NOTE LANGUAGE) When Gwyneth Paltrow‘s lifestyle brand Goop announced the Diapér [Dye-PAIR] — a luxury disposable diaper selling for $150 for a pack of 12 — it raised eyebrows.
Then again, Goop also sells that infamous Gwyneth’s nethers-scented candle for $75, so it also wasn’t exactly a surprise.
However, Paltrow took to Instagram to reveal The Diapér was just a gag, but one with a serious undertone.
Noting that “there was a lot of outrage” when Goop launched the item, Paltrow responds in a video post, “Good. It was designed to pi** us off.” The “outrageous, fake luxury diaper [was] designed to shine a light on an outrageous luxury tax” put on the real thing.
In 33 states, she comments, diapers are taxed as a luxury item. “This leaves one in three families struggling to afford them,” Paltrow says. “While eliminating the diaper tax is not a complete solution, it could allow many families to buy another month’s supply.”
“If it made you mad, good. Help us change the diaper tax,” Paltrow concludes.
(WASHINGTON) — The ongoing baby formula shortage — with nearly half of products recently unavailable, according to experts — triggered a flurry of responses from Washington this week as the Biden administration and Congress sought to address the public outcry.
“There’s nothing more urgent we’re working on than that right now,” President Joe Biden said Friday from the White House at an event that had been meant to tout public safety funding — reflecting how the lack of formula has quickly overtaken other administration concerns.
Criticism and dismay from parents grew ever sharper as families encountered more empty shelves, with an estimated 43% of formula products out of stock as of Sunday at stores across the U.S., according to tracking firm Datasembly.
The shortage — compounded by broader, coronavirus-related supply chain issues — was worsened by a recall from Abbott, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of baby formula products.
The company pulled three of its popular brands in February and closed its plant in Sturgis, Michigan, in the wake of bacterial infections linked to two infants who died after consuming Abbott formula and a Food and Drug Administration inspection that documented problems at Abbott’s Michigan facility, including the same bacteria.
(Abbott maintains there is no evidence its products were connected to the babies’ deaths, though it has acknowledged the infractions the FDA found elsewhere at the plant.)
A complaint against Abbott was first filed in September, but the FDA didn’t investigate the plant until approximately four months later.
Now, the Biden administration is facing questions from Republicans and others about how long problems may persist and what solutions are available to the public — even as the government stresses its watchdog role in investigating Abbott.
“This is not a Third World country,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican and a new mother, said at a Thursday GOP news conference. “This should never happen in the United States.”
Responding to such criticism, Biden insisted Friday that “if we had been better mind readers, we could’ve [acted more quickly], but we moved as quickly as the problem became apparent to us. We have to move with caution as well, and speed.”
The White House has not provided a timeline for when shelves will be restocked, though press secretary Jen Psaki maintained Thursday that the government has been working “for months” on this issue as they roll out new steps aimed at alleviating the problem.
Among the fixes, as Psaki and Biden then reiterated on Friday, was supporting the ability of parents to use benefits from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (also known as WIC) to buy formula. Abbott has agreed to provide rebates through August for WIC users to buy other products.
The administration is also calling on federal and state officials to crack down on reports of potential price gouging.
The FDA will announce next week ways that the U.S. can import more products from abroad. It remains unclear how the imports would work given the FDA’s requirements on formula packaging and vitamin content, though Commissioner Robert Califf tweeted Friday that the agency will ensure imported products meet “certain safety, quality and labeling standards.”
Biden said Friday he believed the timeline for imports would be a “matter of weeks or less.”
The Department of Health and Human Services has also unveiled a new website where parents and caregivers can go to obtain information on where to find formula and other resources.
Psaki said Thursday the White House was considering “every option,” including invoking the Defense Production Act, which gives the president substantial power over private industry. But on Friday, Psaki noted that the administration views the DPA as a potential “long-term” solution. “Our focus primarily is twofold: One is increasing supply, and the other is making it readily available,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill is launching investigations into the nationwide shortage. The House Oversight Committee is demanding records from four major manufacturers.
“We have asked for a briefing by the end of the month, and we’ve asked three basic questions: Do they have the supply to meet the demand? Is there a supply chain problem that can be corrected? And what can we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?” Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., told ABC News.
A group of 32 Senate Democrats on Friday wrote a letter to urging the Infant Nutrition Council of America — an association of formula manufacturers — to take “immediate action” to address the shortage, though they didn’t offer any specific steps the group can or should implement.
“We are calling on you and your member companies to take immediate action and ensure that infant formula manufacturers are making every effort to mitigate this dangerous shortage and get children the nourishment they need,” the lawmakers wrote.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday the House of Representatives intends to take legislative action as soon as next week, voting on a bill that would grant emergency authority to the WIC program to address supply disruptions and recalls by relaxing certain regulations.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell addressed the shortage in his own floor speech on Thursday, calling it “outrageous and unacceptable”.
“It seems that while President Biden’s administration and the FDA … have been asleep at the switch in terms of getting production back online as fast as possible,” he argued.
Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney penned his own letter to both the FDA and United States Department of Agriculture earlier this week urging the agencies to “protect infant health by ensuring they have access to safe formula, and when crises arise, to initiate contingency plans to mitigate shortages that risk the lives of infants across the nation.”
House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., announced Wednesday her panel would examine the Abbott plant in Michigan, where the bacteria was found, and the “FDA’s delayed response to this horrific incident.”
DeLauro released a whistleblower complaint last month showing a former employee of Abbot detailed concerns about alleged wrongdoing at the facility.
Abbott said it could restart operations at its Michigan facility within two weeks of getting the green light from the FDA. From there, the company estimates it would take an additional six to eight weeks to get the product into stores.
But the FDA said Friday that Abbott’s plant still carried contamination risks as of March.
“The plant remains closed as the company works to correct findings related to the processes, procedures, and conditions that the FDA observed during its inspection of the facility from January 31 – March 18, 2022, which raised concerns that powdered infant formula produced at this facility prior to the FDA’s inspection carry a risk of contamination,” an FDA official said.
Abbott says they are working to address the FDA’s issues so they can resume operations.
“We are confident that we can continue to produce safe, high-quality infant formula at all of our facilities as we have been doing for millions of babies around the world for decades,” the company said in a statement.
Dierks Bentley and Elle King reunite today with the release of their new duet, “Worth a Shot.” They previously collaborated on “Different for Girls.”
Jon Pardi’s latest release, “Fill ‘Er Up,” is out now. It’s the next track to come off a new album project he’s working on, following lead single “Last Night Lonely.”
Jake Owen has been announced as the newest headliner performing this summer at The Amp at Dant Crossing in Gethsemane, Kentucky. His performance is set for September 30; go here for ticketing information.
