(AMSTERDAM) — A stowaway was found alive in the nose wheel well of a cargo airplane that traveled from South Africa to the Netherlands on Sunday, according to Dutch police.
Authorities discovered the man hiding after the plane landed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Sunday morning. He was taken to a hospital in stable condition, a Dutch police spokesperson told ABC News.
The man’s name has not been released. His age and nationality were unknown.
The freight flight flew 11 hours from Johannesburg to Amsterdam, with a stop in Nairobi. It was unclear whether the stowaway climbed into the aircraft’s landing gear in South Africa or in Kenya, the Dutch police spokesperson said.
An investigation into the incident is ongoing.
It’s unusual for stowaways to survive long flights, due to the cold temperatures and low oxygen levels at high altitudes.
(WASHINGTON) — In November, Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Virginia, was one of 205 House Republicans to vote against the bipartisan, $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill, calling it irresponsible and the “Green New Deal in disguise.”
On Friday, he took to Twitter to tout funding from the bill he voted against — highlighting a $70 million expansion of the Port of Virginia in Norfolk — one of the busiest and deepest ports in the United States.
Wittman, who deleted the tweet Friday shortly after ABC News reached out to his office for comment, is the latest member of a growing group of Republicans celebrating new initiatives they originally opposed on the floor.
Shortly after voting against the measure last fall, Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Alabama, celebrated its hundreds of millions in funding for a stalled highway project in Birmingham.
Last week, Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, touted new funding for a flood control project from the package, which she opposed last year, decrying it at the time as a “so-called infrastructure bill.”
Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, a freshman lawmaker who also voted against the infrastructure bill, celebrating new “game-changing” funding to upgrade locks along the Upper Mississippi River.
Thirteen House Republicans and 19 Senate Republicans — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky — voted with Democrats to approve the package, with many working with Democrats and the Biden White House on the details and legislative language.
“When I voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, I was voting for exactly this type of federal support for critical infrastructure that Iowans depend on,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement about the new lock and dam funding that Hinson also recognized.
Democrats have been quick to call out Republicans who voted against the infrastructure deal and recent COVID-19 relief package while praising elements of the legislation, criticizing them for “voting no and taking the dough.”
“When these Republicans had the chance to actually do something good for their constituents, they refused,” Nebeyatt Betre, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement. “We’re not going to let them get away with this blatant attempt to rewrite history.”
Republicans have pushed back on the characterizations of their votes, arguing that they had issues with Democrats’ larger agenda that included the bipartisan package, called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
“Congresswoman Hinson opposed the infrastructure package because it was tied to trillions of other spending in the House. Since the bill was signed into law, this money was going to be spent regardless. If there’s federal money on the table she is, of course, going to do everything she can to make sure it is reinvested in Iowa,” a spokesperson for Hinson told ABC News.
A spokesperson for Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican who touted a $1 billion investment in flood protection and hurricane repairs in his home state funded by the package he opposed, told ABC News that the GOP whip has “consistently supported these flood protection projects” and approved earlier legislation to pave the way for them.
“What he did not support is tying necessary infrastructure needs to unrelated, Green New Deal policies Democrats put in their $1.2 trillion dollar bill — very little of which was dedicated to traditional infrastructure — that would cripple Louisiana’s energy economy and hurt workers and families in his state,” the spokesperson said.
“You can see why the Obama administration insisted on signage” for projects funded by the American Recovery Act, Jeff Davis, a senior fellow with the Eno Center for Transportation, told ABC News.
“People will be claiming these things for years, and it’s going to be hard to tell five years from now which projects were funded mostly or entirely with IIJA money or money out of the annual budget, he said.
Andre Chung for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(BALTIMORE) — A man who worked on the front lines of preventing gun violence in Baltimore, Maryland, was shot and killed on Wednesday night in a quadruple shooting on E. Monument Street, in the McElderry Park neighborhood.
Baltimore native DaShawn McGrier, 29, worked as a violence interrupter for Safe Streets and is the third member of the organization to be shot and killed in the last year.
“[DaShawn] was passionate about his community, and was working hard to make that community safer for his family, friends and neighbors,” said Meg Ward, Vice President of Strategic Growth and Community Partnerships at Living Classrooms — a nonprofit that operates two of the 10 Safe Streets sites in the city, including McElderry Park. “He was a son, he was a father, he was a partner. He was a brother, he was a devoted and present father to his child.”
According to Ward, McGrier was having a conversation with the other two victims while working at his post on Monument Street when the shooting occurred.
“Apparently, a tow truck came around the corner and they just shot up the block,” Ward said.
BPD identified the other victims as 28-year-old Tyrone Allen and 24-year-old Hassan Smith. A spokesperson told ABC News Friday that “no arrests have been made at this time.”
“We are dedicating every available resource to finding and apprehending the cowardly perpetrators of this act,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said in a statement Wednesday.
When asked if this was a targeted shooting, police said the investigation is ongoing.
There have been more than 300 homicides in Baltimore each year for the past five years, with 338 in 2021 and 335 in 2020, BPD data shows.
Community members and Safe Streets workers gathered on E. Monument Street Saturday afternoon to honor McGrier and other victims of gun violence.
“What choices are we going to make? This is our community,” said Safe Streets violence interrupter Alex Long in a passionate speech at the event. “These shootings gotta stop.”
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott also attended the event and said that the city is “determined to honor DaShawn’s legacy in the best way we can — by expanding community violence interventions across the city.”
“[Safe Streets Baltimore] is not just an organization, but a calling. DaShawn believed that we could build a better Baltimore. Let’s show him that we can,” Scott tweeted, along with photos of the event.
Ward said Safe Streets organizes shooting response events to “denormalize” gun violence — especially in neighborhoods where shootings are common — by creating an opportunity for the community to come together to honor the victims and send the message that, “This is not OK.” And on Saturday, they honored one of their own.
Violence interrupters also connect individuals with resources such as job placement opportunities and financial support.
Ward said that McGrier had been working as a violence interrupter for a little over a month, but had been a part of the Safe Streets community for a long time. He was a “hard worker,” she said, who was a welding student at the North American Trade School during the day and worked at the Safe Streets McElderry Park site at night to help mediate conflicts that could lead to shootings.
“The work that is being done to stop this from happening is really, really important. And it makes it that much more important when you lose one of your own,” she said.
McGrier’s killing came as the Safe Streets community continues to mourn the deaths of two beloved longtime members who were killed over the past year and who had dedicated their lives to reducing gun violence.
Dante Barksdale, a Safe Streets outreach coordinator, and Kenyell “Benny” Wilson, a Safe Streets violence interrupter, were shot and killed in separate incidents in January and July. Two days before McGrier was killed, the community gathered to honor Barklesdale on the anniversary of his death.
“We were devastated, it was very traumatizing. It’s very difficult to say their names or to think of them, and to not feel that consistent void in our hearts, because they were definitely individuals who impacted the community in such an incredible way,” Rashad Singletary, the associate director of gun violence prevention at MONSE told ABC News last year. “And for them to lose their lives to the same thing that we tried to save thousands of lives from, it was very, very disheartening and tragic.”
How violence interrupter programs work
Safe Streets was launched in Baltimore in 2007 in the McElderry Park neighborhood. It is one of several violence prevention programs in the country that is based on a model that started in Chicago in the mid 1990s.
Violence interrupters also connect high risk individuals with resources that the organization offers, including job placement and financial support that could help alleviate some of the suffering — conditions that lead some to resort to violence.
What the data shows
Recent studies have shown that Safe Streets programs have been effective at reducing gun violence in various neighborhoods.
A 2012 study published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that Safe Streets workers were successful at reducing gun violence in three of four neighborhoods where the initial sites were established, Director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University Daniel Webster previously told ABC News.
Safe Streets workers mediated more than 2,300 conflicts in 2020, according to MONSE, and after gaining more funding from the city, the organization opened its tenth site in 2021.
“Safe Streets workers mediate the very types of conflicts we saw tonight,” Harrison said in a statement Wednesday. “All the Safe Streets workers are to be applauded for their work in reducing gun violence and promoting a message of redemption and peace to the many young people of our city.”
MONSE Director Shantay Jackson said that the mayor’s office will be providing support to the family of the victims and the staff, including grief counseling.
“This is a reminder of the courageous, yet dangerous job our frontline staff does each day when working with those at the highest risk of being a shooter or the victim of a shooting,” she said in a statement.
Ward said that the “tremendous loss” highlights the need for violence-prevention work in Baltimore.
“People are heartbroken,” she said, “and at the same time, [the] feeling or sense is this is the reason to double down.”
ABC News’ Abby Cruz and Kendall Ross contributed to this report.
(HOUSTON) — Battle against omicron variant pushes hospitals, health care workers to the brink
COVID-19 cases have soared to new records with nearly 800,000 new infections per day.
A 55-year-old Minnesota man, who was transferred to a Texas hospital earlier this month, after a judge blocked a local hospital from taking him off a ventilator, died on Saturday, at a hospital in Houston, a family attorney has confirmed to ABC News.
“On behalf of the family of Scott Quiner, I would like to thank the public for the outpouring of love and support during this difficult time. The family now requests privacy as they grieve the loss of their beloved husband and father,” Marjorie J. Holsten, the Quiner’s family attorney, told ABC News on Sunday.
Eleven days ago, Scott Quiner’s wife, Anne, was granted a temporary restraining order against Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, preventing the hospital from taking her husband off a ventilator, after healthcare providers advised her that they “intend[ed] to take actions on Thursday, January 13, 2022, that [would] end [her] husband’s life.”
Representatives from Allina Health, which operates Mercy Hospital, told ABC News on Sunday that they are saddened to hear about Quiner’s death.
“We are saddened to hear about the passing of Scott Quiner and our deepest condolences go out to family, friends and loved ones. His passing marks yet another very sad moment as collectively we continue to face the devastating effects of the pandemic,” a representative said.
Previously, an Allina Health representative told ABC News that they had “great confidence” in their team’s work.
The family attorney told ABC News last week that legal action against the hospital had “not been ruled out.”
Oliver Tree’s new album Cowboy Tears drops February 18, and he just released the first single, “Cowboys Don’t Cry.” However, people are still focused on his previous single, “Life Goes On,” which came out in May of 2021. So, while he’s grateful for the song’s success, Oliver admits that, timing-wise, it’s not ideal.
“I think it’s a good problem to have, first and foremost,” he tells ABC Audio. “That anyone cares at all, y’know? I’ve been doing this for 10 years professionally and I’ve been waiting for a moment like that for 10 years. So I have to say I’m thankful anything’s connecting at all.”
“But yeah, in the same breath, it is a little bit annoying,” he adds. “I was hoping to roll out my album around the time that this started taking off.”
As for why “Life Goes On,” from the deluxe version of his album Ugly Is Beautiful, has become his breakthrough hit, Oliver says, “I think it’s probably the simplest chorus by a long shot….I think people that don’t speak English at all can sing along with the chorus, [which] is essentially no words at all.”
He laughs, “A lot of people don’t even know what it says. They think it says ‘onion’ or “nahnee nahnee nah.’ It’s like, is that my greatest lyricism? No. But is it great that finally, there’s something that can be a connection with what’s happening right now? Yes.”
Especially since, as Oliver notes, he wrote the song seven years ago.
“I think a song like that, it was ahead of its time when I made it, and if I had released it then, I don’t think anyone would have cared,” he muses. “So it’s just a timing thing. And luckily, the timing was right with that.”
Adele disappointed thousands of fans when she postponed her Las Vegas residency, Weekends with Adele, the day before it was set to begin at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace due to COVID-related production difficulties. But one extremely unlucky fan who’d tried and failed multiple times to see Adele got a special consolation prize: a FaceTime call from the super singer.
Billboard reports that the fan, Eleni Sabracos, shared her sad story to TikTok, explaining that she was a three time loser when it came to Adele. First, she bought tickets off Craigslist that turned out to be fake. Then, she flew to London, only to have Adele cancel the show. And then she arrived in Las Vegas and got the bad news.
But there’s a happy ending to the story: Some fans who went to the Weekends with Adele merchandise store at Caesars Palace were selected by members of the singer’s team to receive video calls with Adele herself — and Eleni was one of them.
She posted the moment to TikTok with the caption, “Update: I talked to Adele,” and she’s seen chatting with the star. “I love you! I’m sorry,” she says, to which Adele responds, “Why are you sorry?” “Because I feel for you,” Eleni explains. “I know you’re doing everything you can.” Eleni also told Adele she wanted to get drunk with her.
Adele promised that when Eleni finally does make it to the show, she’d pose for a photo with her.
USA Today reports that any fan who showed up at the merch store and showed their ticket was given a free tote bag filled with Adele merch. And on Friday night, fans gathered at the Colosseum and started a singalong of “Rolling in the Deep.”
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for God’s Love we Deliver
Last year, Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson told ABC Audio that both she and her sister and band mate Ann were interested in touring together again, possibly in 2022, but Nancy now says a conflict with her sibling has put those plans on hold.
On Friday, Nancy took part in a livestream chat at the social-networking site TalkShop.Live, during which fans could buy signed copies of her 2021 solo album, You and Me.
During the interview, Nancy revealed that discussions about a new Heart tour between her and Ann’s camp broke down over a disagreement regarding the musicians that would back her and Ann.
“[T]hey were trying to bring their new lineup of players that Ann wanted to put on stage as Heart with me and I wasn’t really willing to do that,” Nancy explained, referring to Ann’s current solo group, which is called The Amazing Dawgs.
“I don’t know those guys, you know, and I didn’t want to feel like a sideman,” Nancy continued. “So, [the tour]…kind of went away. They didn’t really respond to any of our responses in response to…what they [wanted]…They wanted this and I didn’t want that and nobody responded to anything, so…”
She added, “[M]y thing was that everybody that’s played on the last big Heart tour [in 2019] would be back, you know, in the same band,” then noted, “I think Ann might be a little bored with Heart. I don’t know.”
It’s worth pointing out that most of Heart’s backing band for their 2019 tour are part of Nancy’s current solo group.
Also during the interview, Nancy revealed that she also has plans for a solo acoustic album and a Christmas album.
You can buy signed CD and blue-vinyl copies of You and Me at TalkShop.Live.
It’s Downton Abbey, American style. The Gilded Age is the new show from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, premiering tonight on HBO.
The Gilded Age, set in 1880s New York, dramatizes issues of class and race in the post-Civil War era. Fellowes tells ABC Audio he was fascinated by the new money titans of the time like J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie.
Notes Fellowes, “The whole culture that they developed with their wives and brought to New York and made a way of being rich that was America. It wasn’t a pale copy of a European tradition. It was American.”
That period in history, he calls “an extraordinary sort of training camp for when America dominated the coming century.”
“I mean, thirty-five years later, President Wilson was saying what went at the peace treaty at the end of the First World War,” he continues. “America…got to have the last word on practically everything. And by then, America’s dominance of the world had established itself.”
While the upstairs/downstairs nature of the storyline may feel similar to Fellowes’ 2011 hit series Downton Abbey, Fellowes insists The Gilded Age is its own thing, pointing out that “the Downton curve was a downward one…It was about an aristocracy having to come to terms with the loss of power, the loss of control, worrying about the roof, you know.”
“This is the opposite…a brand new civilization with all the money in the world and all the power and everything else landing on New York,” he adds.
Fellowes’ says there is one constant in everything he writes: “I always seem to have a sort of waspish older woman telling people what to do.”
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Sunday’s sports events:
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
New York 110, L.A. Clippers 102
Boston 116, Washington 87
Portland 114, Toronto 105
Orlando 114, Chicago 95
Miami 113, LA Lakers 107
Philadelphia 115, San Antonio 109
Atlanta 113, Charlotte 91
Dallas 104, Memphis 91
Minnesota 136, Brooklyn 125
Denver 117, Detroit 111
Golden State 94, Utah 92
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Pittsburgh 3, Winnipeg 2 (SO)
Ottawa 2, Columbus 1
Los Angeles 3, New Jersey 2
Seattle 5, Florida 3
St. Louis 3, Vancouver 1
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE PLAYOFFS
LA Rams 30, Tampa Bay 27
Kansas City 42, Buffalo 36 (OT)
TOP-25 COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Arizona 96, California 71
Purdue 80, Northwestern 60
Marquette 75, Xavier 64
Providence 69, Butler 62
Regina King is grieving the death of her only child.
The Oscar-winning actress’ son Ian Alexander Jr., who had celebrated his 26th birthday on Wednesday, has died by suicide.
“Our family is devastated at the deepest level by the loss of Ian,” King said in a statement obtained by ABC News over the weekend. “He is such a bright light who cared so deeply about the happiness of others. Our family asks for respectful consideration during this private time. Thank you.”
King shared Alexander Jr. with her ex-husband, record producer Ian Alexander.
King’s son frequently attended red carpet events with his mom, telling E! News on the 2019 Golden Globes red carpet, “She’s just a super mom. She doesn’t really let bad workdays or anything come back and ruin the time that we have. It’s really awesome to have a mother who I can enjoy spending time with.”
If you are in crisis or know someone in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. You can reach Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860 (U.S.) or 877-330-6366 (Canada) and The Trevor Project at 866-488-7386.
