(HARTFORD, Conn.) — Investigators say they discovered over 100 bags of fentanyl in the bedroom of a Connecticut teen who overdosed and died earlier this month and are seeking any information on the person who provided the drugs.
The Hartford Police Department said Wednesday that the bags recovered from the room matched 60 bags found at the Sports and Medical Science Academy, a magnet school in Hartford where the unidentified 13-year-old overdosed on Jan. 13. He died the following Saturday, police said.
“This fentanyl was packaged in the same manner as the bags located at the school, had the same identifying stamp, and tested at an even higher purity level (60% purity),” the Hartford police said in a statement.
Fentanyl is a Schedule II prescription drug used to treat patients suffering from severe pain after surgery, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, according to the institute.
The rate of drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone, such as fentanyl, increased 56%, from 11.4 per 100,000 in 2019 to 17.8 per 100,000 in 2020, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Two other students at the public school were sickened after apparently being exposed to the drug, but both recovered, investigators said.
The police said there is no evidence that anyone other than the 13-year-old brought the drugs to the school, police said.
An “individual who has history at the residence” and narcotics history is a person of interest but hasn’t been labeled a suspect, according to the police. Investigators have also interviewed the teen’s mother, who they say has been cooperating.
“At this time, we have no evidence to support her having any prior knowledge of her son’s possession of the fentanyl,” the police said in a statement.
(COLLEYVILLE, Texas) — A man faces a federal charge for allegedly selling the gun used in the Texas synagogue hostage situation earlier this month, authorities said.
Henry Williams, 32, faces one charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm in connection with the hostage crisis at Congregation Beth Israel in the Fort Worth suburb of Colleyville on Jan. 15.
The armed suspect, identified by authorities as 44-year-old British citizen Malik Faisal Akram, died in the incident when an FBI hostage rescue team breached the synagogue after an 11-hour standoff.
Investigators allege Williams sold Akram a Taurus G2C pistol on Jan. 13, two days before the hostage incident.
The FBI said it discovered Williams’ alleged ties to Akram through an analysis of Akram’s phone records after his death.
Agents first interviewed Williams on Jan. 16, during which he allegedly said he recalled meeting “a man with a British accent,” the Department of Justice said.
Agents interviewed Williams again after his arrest on an outstanding state warrant on Monday, during which he allegedly confirmed he sold Akram the handgun at an intersection in South Dallas after viewing a photo of the suspect, according to the Justice Department.
“Williams allegedly admitted to officers that Mr. Akram told him the gun was going to be used for ‘intimidation’ to get money from someone with an outstanding debt,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.
Cellphone records for both men also show their phones were in close proximity on Jan. 13, according to prosecutors.
Williams was arrested Tuesday on the firearm charge and made his first appearance before a magistrate judge Wednesday afternoon. According to the Department of Justice, Williams was previously convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and attempted possession of a controlled substance.
“Federal firearm laws are designed to keep guns from falling into dangerous hands. As a convicted felon, Mr. Williams was prohibited from carrying, acquiring, or selling firearms,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad Meacham said in a statement. “Whether or not he knew of his buyer’s nefarious intent is largely irrelevant — felons cannot have guns, period, and the Justice Department is committed to prosecuting those who do.”
A detention hearing has been scheduled for Monday. ABC News has reached out to Williams’ attorney for comment.
A rabbi and three members of the synagogue were taken hostage during the incident. All four managed to escape unharmed.
FBI agents said the suspect was demanding the release of a convicted terrorist and believe the location was intentionally targeted because it was the closest synagogue to Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth, where the prisoner is being held.
Multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News the suspect was demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of assault and attempted murder of a U.S. soldier in 2010 and sentenced to 86 years in prison.
In the weeks since the incident, investigators have been digging into the suspect’s social media and personal devices to try and find out more about his travel and associates.
Four men have also been arrested in England within the past week as part of the probe, British authorities said.
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at the State Department on Wednesday, confirmed the U.S. had delivered a written response to Moscow security demands as Russia amassed troops on its borders with Ukraine.
“Today, Ambassador Sullivan delivered our written response in Moscow. All told, it sets out a serious diplomatic path forward, should Russia choose it,” Blinken said.
“The document we’ve delivered includes concerns of the United States and our allies and partners about Russia’s actions that undermine security, a principled and pragmatic evaluation of the concerns that Russia has raised, and our own proposals for areas where we may be able to find common ground,” he continued.
“This is not a negotiating document,” Blinken said, adding that President Joe Biden was “involved from the get-go” and had signed off on it.
“The ball is their court,” he added, referring to the Russians.
Russia had said it would not continue talks until Moscow had the responses in hand, and Blinken announced after meeting in Geneva last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the U.S. would oblige, which some argued might be seen as a U.S. concession.
But Blinken denied that, saying the U.S. did not change its positions in the paper, but “reiterated what we said publicly for many weeks and, in a sense, for many, many years.”
That includes rejecting Russia’s key demands, laid out in its own draft treaties last month, that NATO bar Ukraine from joining the Western military alliance and that NATO pull back troops from its Eastern European member states, who were formerly Soviet states.
“There is no change. There will be no change,” he told reporters. “I can’t be more clear — NATO’s door is open, remains open, and that is our commitment.”
Blinken and Lavrov will speak in the coming days once Russia has reviewed the U.S. response, the top U.S. diplomat said. While there are fears that Russia is using the diplomatic exchange as pretext to attack Ukraine, saying diplomacy failed to address their concerns, Blinken said the U.S. would not be the one to end talks, even as it prepares sanctions and readies NATO deployments.
“You may be right, that Russia is not serious about this at all. But we have an obligation to test that proposition, to pursue the diplomatic path,” he said. “The point is we’re prepared either way.”
Blinken’s comments follow Biden saying Tuesday there could be some U.S. troop movements in the “nearer term” — and that he would consider personally sanctioning Russian President Vladimir Putin if Russia invades Ukraine — a day after 8,500 American forces were put on “heightened alert” in the region.
But in Ukraine, leaders have offered a different assessment from that put forward by the White House that a full-scale Russian attack is imminent.
During a news conference on Wednesday, Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said they believe Russia’s forces are currently “insufficient” for a full-scale invasion and that right now the Kremlin is seeking to destabilize Ukraine with the threat of attack and other means, not yet actually launching one.
In a televised address to the nation Tuesday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged people to stay calm about the threat of a Russian attack and said there was work in progress to bring about a meeting between him and the leaders of Russia, France and Germany.
“Protect your body from viruses, your brain from lies, your heart from panic,” Zelenskiy said.
The White House and State Department have defended the administration’s decisions and rhetoric, denying that drawing down the embassy, putting 8,500 U.S. troops on alert, and warning of an “imminent” threat have escalated the situation.
Asked on Tuesday about the criticism from Kyiv that the U.S. is giving into Russia’s playbook, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price denied the U.S. created a “panic.”
“We have been clear about our concerns. We have been clear about the depth of those concerns,” Price said. “Given what we’re seeing on Ukraine’s borders, what we’re seeing in what should be an independent sovereign country of Belarus, with the Russian military buildup there, what we’re seeing with preparations for potential hybrid operations — all of this is cause for concern, but certainly no one is calling for panic.”
Spotify has announced that it’s officially removed Neil Young‘s music from the streaming service as per the folk-rock legend’s request because he didn’t want share the platform with Joe Rogan‘s popular podcast, which Neil accuses of spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and the pandemic.
“We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users,” the company says in a statement. “With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.”
Meanwhile, Young posted a lengthy message on his official website regarding his decision, noting that he believes that Spotify has “recently become a very damaging force via its public misinformation and lies about COVID.”
Neil noted, “Most of the listeners hearing the unfactual, misleading and false COVID information on SPOTIFY are 24 years old, impressionable and easy to swing to the wrong side of the truth. These young people believe SPOTIFY would never present grossly unfactual information. They unfortunately are wrong. I knew I had to try to point that out.”
Young also thanked his label, Warner Brothers/Reprise Records, for supporting him in his decision, noting that the company will take a sizable financial loss because “Spotify represents 60% of the streaming of my music to listeners around the world.”
Neil points out that fans will still be able to stream his music on other platforms, and that some of those services offer higher-quality audio than Spotify does.
Young ends his message by saying he hopes “other artists and record companies will move off the SPOTIFY platform and stop supporting SPOTIFY’s deadly misinformation about COVID.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.6 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 872,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 63.5% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jan 26, 5:00 pm
NIH trial finds mixing and matching boosters is safe and effective
A study from the National Institutes of Health published in the New England Journal of Medicine found mixing and matching boosters are safe and create a similar immune response to sticking with your initial vaccine.
An earlier version of this study, with more preliminary findings, helped guide the CDC’s decision to allow mix-and-match.
The study authors make no claims about specific combinations being more or less effective. The study did find that people who got an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna) and then received the Johnson & Johnson booster had a significant increase in T-cell response, a part of immunity.
The trial looked at 458 participants who received a vaccine with no prior COVID-19 infection. This data is only for the first 29 days after receiving the booster; researchers plan to follow the participants for one year, allowing for more data.
-ABC News’ Vanya Jain, Sony Salzman, Eric Strauss, Dr. Alexis Carrington
Jan 26, 4:47 pm
Unvaccinated child dies in Mississippi
An unvaccinated child has died in Mississippi from COVID-19, according to the state’s health department.
The department confirmed to ABC News that the child was between the ages of 11 and 17, an age bracket that is eligible to receive Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
This marked the 10th child — including an infant — to die in Mississippi from COVID-19. None of the 10 children were vaccinated, according to the health department.
-ABC News’ Josh Hoyos
Jan 26, 10:40 am
US hospital admissions projected to fall for 1st time in months
COVID-19-related hospital admissions in the U.S. are expected to fall in the weeks to come, the first time the nation would see a decline in months, according to forecast models used by the CDC.
Estimates suggest between 4,900 and 27,800 Americans could be admitted to the hospital each day by Feb. 18.
Deaths from COVID-19 are expected to remain stable or have an uncertain trend. Estimates suggest about 33,000 more Americans could die from COVID-19 over the next two weeks.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 25, 6:06 pm
All Super Bowl attendees to get KN95 mask
Every attendee of next month’s Super Bowl in Los Angeles will receive a KN95 mask, health officials said Tuesday.
Additionally, “safety team members” will remind fans to keep their masks on unless they are eating or drinking, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said during a county Board of Supervisors meeting.
Attendees at the Super Bowl Experience will also receive a free at-home rapid test kit, Ferrer said, with messaging to test before the big game on Feb. 13 at SoFi Stadium.
The county expects to distribute over 60,000 take-home kits during the Super Bowl Experience, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from Feb. 5 to Feb. 12.
Wolfgang Van Halen and Eddie Van Halen in 2015; Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Solters
Today would have been the late Eddie Van Halen‘s 67th birthday, and to mark the occasion, his son, Wolfgang, has posted a touching tribute on his Instagram page.
The homage features a photo of Eddie with his son when Wolf was a young child and shows the two sitting next to each other on some steps, with both looking back over their shoulders at the camera.
The photo is accompanied by a note from Wolf that reads, “Happy Birthday, Pop. I love and miss you more than you could ever know.”
Eddie died of lung cancer at age 65 on October 6, 2020.
Wolfgang, who is now 30, played bass with his dad in Van Halen from 2006 until Eddie death. He also fronts his own solo group, Mammoth WVH, which released its self-titled debut last June. The band is teaming up with Dirty Honey for a trek dubbed the Young Guns Tour, whose kickoff date recently was moved from January 18 to February 20.
People is reporting that Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song are now engaged. Reps for the pair have yet to confirm the news.
The 41-year-old Culkin and 33-year-old Dollface star Song were spotted out together in Beverly Hills on Monday, where the actress was reportedly photographed wearing a sparkler on her left ring finger.
The pair first met back in 2017, on the Thailand set of the 2019 movie Changeland, and last April welcomed their first child, a son named Dakota.
As previously reported at the time, the child was named in honor of Culkin’s late 29-year-old sister, who was fatally struck by a car in Los Angeles back in 2008.
Netflix dropped the trailer Wednesday for the 11th film in the Madea franchise, Tyler Perry’s A Madea Homecoming, which debuts February 25.
Writer-director-producer Tyler Perry is back as Madea, who is excited about her great-grandson’s college graduation. Franchise veterans return as Tamela Mann once again portrays Cora, her real-life husband David Mann is Mr. Brown, and once again, Cassi Davis Patton plays Aunt Bam. It’s been six years since the previous film in the franchise, Boo! A Madea Hallloween, was released in 2016.
In other news, Serena and Venus Williams are being honored by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. They are among the seven 2022 Portrait of a Nation honorees. The award recognizes extraordinary individuals who have made transformative contributions to the United States and its people across numerous fields of endeavor, ranging from the arts and sciences to sports and humanitarianism.
Clive Davis, chief creative officer of Sony Music Entertainment, who discovered the late Whitney Houston, and director Ava DuVernay, are also being featured in the new portrait gallery. The awards will be presented at the Portrait of a Nation Gala on November 12. Each honoree’s portrait will be displayed as part of the museum’s “Recent Acquisitions” exhibition from November 10 through October 22, 2023.
Finally, Bobby Brown will be the subject of two new biographical television projects on A&E. Biography: Bobby Brown, a two-night event, airs Monday, May 30, and Tuesday, May 31, at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The 12-episode Bobby Brown: Every Little Step premieres Tuesday, May 31 at 10 p.m. ET/PT with new episodes airing Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
The “My Prerogative” singer is performing with New Edition on The Culture Tour kicking off February 16 in Columbus, GA and continuing through April 10.
(NEW YORK) — British-born Benjamin Alexander had never put on a pair of skis until the age of 32. Only six years later, and he’s now going for gold next month in Beijing as Jamaica’s first Olympic alpine skier.
It didn’t come easily, he said.
“I hit the ground like 20 plus times on my first time skiing. I absolutely was not a natural,” Alexander told ABC News Live Prime on Tuesday. “But I was tenacious, and I had grit and determination. I really wanted to get good enough to ski with my friends. And so I just kept trying, and little by little, one step at a time, I got better and better.”
Alexander said he was inspired by the legendary 1988 Jamaican bobsled team, which marked the first time the Caribbean nation had ever competed in the Winter Olympics. He said former Olympian Dudley Stokes, who was the pilot of the 1988 team, became a personal mentor of his.
“It’s just incredible to have someone who basically wrote the book ‘I’m Doing Outlandish Things for a Caribbean Nation in the Winter Games’ … just giving me advice along the way,” he said.
For the past two and a half years, Alexander said he’s been training as a full-time athlete in thanks to sport sponsorships. He said that despite some setbacks, such as mountain closures due to the pandemic, he’s ready to compete.
“I’ve been planning meticulously to get to this point, and sometimes when you actually get to the place you’ve been looking at for so long, it feels weird to have arrived, so surreal is the one word I’ve been using,” he said.
Alexander said his identity as a mixed-race skier is what motivated him to represent Jamaica instead of the U.K.
“You always represent the minority of any group you’re in, at any given time. That can change, second by second, room by room. So if I’m with my white friends, I’m the Black guy, and with my Black friends, I’m the white guy,” Alexander said. “As a skier, in the predominantly white sport of skiing, I was always the Black representative.”
Along with representation, Alexander said he also wants his story to prove that it’s never too late to start something new.
“You think something has passed you by, that you should have started it when you were younger … I call you on that,” he said. “You can do that thing that you thought was impossible. At least give it a try.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday declined to expand on reports Justice Stephen Breyer would be retiring from the Supreme Court at the end of the current term, saying he would wait to speak further until the justice personally announces his plans.
“Every justice has the right and opportunity to decide what he or she is going to do, announce it on their own. There’s been no announcement from Justice Breyer. Let him make whatever statement he’s going to make, and I’ll be happy to talk about it later,” Biden said.
Breyer, the most senior member of the U.S. Supreme Court’s liberal wing and staunch defender of a nonpartisan judiciary, stepping down from the bench fulfills the wish of Democrats who lobbied for his exit and for Biden’s first high court appointment.
The vacancy now paves the way for Biden to nominate a Black woman to the court — a historic first and something he promised during the 2020 campaign.
Biden’s first public appearance since the news was at an afternoon White House event with American business executives to discuss his stalled Build Back Better agenda.
Several progressive House lawmakers have already amped up the pressure on Biden with Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., all reminding Biden on Twitter of his promise to elevate a Black woman to the position.
When reporters followed up with the president on Wednesday, Biden added, “I’ll be happy to talk about this later. I’m gonna get into this issue.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki shared the president’s sentiment in an earlier tweet.
“It has always been the decision of any Supreme Court Justice if and when they decide to retire, and how they want to announce it, and that remains the case today,” she said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a statement, said the Senate is prepared to move to confirm Biden’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy with “all deliberate speed.”
“President Biden’s nominee will receive a prompt hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and will be considered and confirmed by the full United States Senate with all deliberate speed,” he wrote in a statement.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, which holds hearings for court nominees, said in a statement that the vacancy presents Biden “the opportunity to nominate someone who will bring diversity, experience, and an evenhanded approach to the administration of justice” and that he looks forward to moving the nominee “expeditiously through the Committee.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina reacted to the news with a reminder that Democrats — having the slimmest of majorities in the Senate — still have the ability to pass Biden’s nominee without Republican support. Sen. Mitch McConnell, as majority leader in 2017, lowered the threshold to break the Senate filibuster from 60 votes to 51 votes for Supreme Court nominees in order to pass former President Donald Trump’s first pick.
“If all Democrats hang together – which I expect they will – they have the power to replace Justice Breyer in 2022 without one Republican vote in support. Elections have consequences, and that is most evident when it comes to fulfilling vacancies on the Supreme Court,” Graham said in a statement, in a nod to the 2020 Senate elections in Georgia which Democrats won.
Progressive activists had put unprecedented public pressure on Breyer, who was nominated in 1994 by President Bill Clinton, to retire. McConnell said in June that the GOP may try to block a Democratic nominee to the court if the party wins control of the Senate in November and a vacancy occurs in 2023 or 2024.
ABC News’ Devin Dwyer, Allison Pecorin and Eric Fayeulle contributed to this report.
