(NEW YORK) — At least 94 wildfires are burning in the U.S., as record heat scorches the West.
Several new wildfires exploded in southern California Thursday, including the Ranch Fire in Azusa, east of Los Angeles. The Ranch Fire is currently burning 3,000 acres, with no containment. Mandatory evacuations are still in place. There is no imminent threat to structures, according to officials.
The Skyline Fire in Corona, California, is currently 51 acres and 40% contained, but all evacuations have been lifted.
There are now at least 11,000 acres burning due to the Lake Fire, which is 5% contained. Three structures have been lost, and another 5,420 remain at risk due to the Lake Fire.
In Oregon, the Mosier Creek Fire has burnt 791 acres and is 10% contained. At least 900 people were forced to evacuate.
In addition to the fires, record heat is scorching parts of the West. Tucson, Arizona, hit 111 degrees Thursday, which is the second hottest day in August ever recorded for the city.
A record high was tied in Phoenix at 115 degrees and in Palm Springs at 116 degrees. Phoenix has now seven days of at least 115 degrees this year, which is the most on record.
There are heat warnings, watches and advisories from Louisiana all the way to Washington state Friday.
The heat is now spreading north into the Pacific Northwest, where Portland, Oregon, will get to 100 degrees. Even usually cool Seattle will get into the upper 90s this weekend.
Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a new storm system will be moving through some areas that are still without power and could bring more damaging winds and even tornadoes.
The biggest threat for tornadoes will be in Minnesota, while damaging winds are possible from North Dakota to Iowa and Nebraska.
(NEW YORK) — With at least three major collegiate athletic conferences — the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Big East — forgoing fall athletics, including football, those choosing to play games during the COVID-19 pandemic may find the path quite difficult.
“We’re moving into very troubled waters,” Dr. Brian Hainline, senior vice president and chief medical officer for the NCAA, said on Thursday. “It’s a very narrow path to get fall sports right.”
Hainline explained that expectations from earlier this year of containing the novel coronavirus in the U.S., allowing for sports through the end of 2020, simply have not been met.
“In April, we were envisioning that there would be a continued downward trajectory of COVID-19 new infections and deaths, that there would be a national surveillance system national testing and national contact tracing that would allow us to really navigate this pandemic into re-socializing both in sport and then the rest of society,” Hainline said. “That hasn’t happened, and it’s made it very challenging to make decisions as we approach fall sports.”
Two infectious disease experts from the Emory University School of Medicine, who also are members of the NCAA’s COVID-19 advisory panel, warned that restarting sports could lead to negative outcomes both for the athletes involved and their communities.
“My advice to organizations that I’ve talked to is: If you cannot do it safely, you shouldn’t do it,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine and global health at Emory University.
As of Thursday afternoon, at least 5.2 million people in the U.S. had contracted COVID-19, and nearly 167,000 had died. Globally, those figures have surpassed 20.7 million and 752,000, respectively.
The U.S. has “a quarter of the world’s total number of cases. We have a serious problem,” del Rio said. “I feel like the Titanic, and we have hit the iceberg, and we’re trying to make decisions of what time we should have the band play.”
Time spent discussing whether to bring back sports, del Rio continued, would be better spent “focused on getting control of the pandemic. If we control the pandemic, we would be able to do all the things we’re talking about: opening schools and having sports.”
Professional sports leagues have seen mixed results. Major League Baseball has had interruptions of play as some teams recorded significant outbreaks — 13 St. Louis Cardinals players and staffers tested positive in early August, while the Miami Marlins had 18 players and two coaches become ill — while the NBA, confining players to a “bubble” in Orlando, Florida, hasn’t seen a major outbreak.
Among the college ranks, whether or not to host games may have been an even tougher decision.
“The decision to not hold fall sports competition was not made lightly,” said Peter M. Donohue, chair of the Big East board of directors and president of Villanova University. “Athletics play an integral role in the student, alumni and fan experience at each of our institutions, and we were all hoping to allow the fall seasons to move forward. However, this decision, while disappointing, was made with the health and safety of our student-athletes and staff in mind. The well-being of our community members are, and will continue to be, our priority and focus.”
Although much is still unknown about COVID-19, and while the majority of those killed by it have been older or had underlying health conditions, younger people haven’t been immune. And some of those so far infected may develop longterm health issues.
“When we think about types of side effects and long-term consequences from viral illnesses specifically from COVID-19, we think about myocarditis, we think about neurologic complications. I’m very concerned about myocarditis,” said Dr. Colleen Kraft, an associate professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and director of the Clinical Virology Research Laboratory at Emory University.
Myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, is a rare heart condition that could be linked with the novel coronavirus. According to Hainline, the NCAA is aware of 12 cases of myocarditis in athletes, and between 1% and 2% of athletes are currently testing positive for COVID-19.
“I think we’re playing with fire — one case of myocarditis in an athlete is too many,” added Kraft.
For athletes to return to their respective sports safely, del Rio advised that within a community there should be fewer than 10 new cases per 100,000 in population, with a positivity rate of less than 10% — ideally closer to 5%.
Additionally, hospital resources already stretched thin may not be able to handle additional large-scale community outbreaks.
“If you were to have an outbreak bigger than what we have — if you have some sports event or college events — you would be in a very serious situation,” according to del Rio. “And I don’t want to be there, so my advice is that we hold off and we control this virus.”
The NCAA left it up to schools and conferences to decide whether to move forward with fall athletic competitions as “they determine how to safely begin the academic year and the return to sports,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement. However, on Thursday, Emmert announced that there would be no fall NCAA championships because there are not enough schools participating in competition.
There are no clear paths for schools that choose to go forward with sports, even those best adhering to NCAA recommendations.
“All of us are just learning about this disease, in the last seven months, and there is no black-and-white answer,” Hainline said.
Students who do play need to understand the risks and how to best prevent contracting the virus, both on and off the field, del Rio added.
“There’s so much transmission in the community,” del Rio said. “Using that social distancing, you know, avoiding those parties — that’s where we need to really focus our education on the students.”
The Big 12, unlike several peers, announced on Wednesday it intended to continue with fall sports, with revised conference schedules.
“In the end, I think we all have to do what is best for our individual conferences,” said Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, adding that should an outbreak occur “we’re very well prepared to deal with those things.”
Bowlsby acknowledged that things could change later in the fall.
“If we get to the place where our doctors and scientists say, ‘You guys got two wheels off the tracks, and you’re headed for a train wreck,’ we will pivot that day,” he added. “If it’s during camp, it’s during camp. If it’s during October, it’s during October. If it’s the week before our championship game, that’s when it is.”
Count the president among those rooting for fall sports to be played.
“The student-athletes have been working too hard for their season to be cancelled,” President Donald Trump tweeted.
However excited for college football many may be, doctors and experts agree that games cannot come at the expense of the athletes’ health and safety.
“The NCAA is not only about sports,” Kraft said. “It’s really about the safety of athletes.”
(NEW YORK) — The United States’ attempt to return children to the classroom this fall has turned into a slow-motion train wreck, with at least 2,400 students and staff either infected with COVID-19 or self-isolating because of exposure, and the vast majority of large school districts opting to go online this summer amid rising cases of the virus.
President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy Devos have demanded that schools stay open full-time and threatened to pull federal funding if the institutions fail to do so.
DeVos has “consistently said the decision to reopen should be made at the local level, and some schools may need to temporarily remain virtual based on local public health situation,” Angela Morabito, a spokesperson for the Education Department, told ABC News late Thursday in an emailed response to questions about the recent school closures.
“She’s also, for the last 30 years maintained that parents and families need options when it comes to the child’s education and that has never been more evident than now,” Morabito wrote. “Parents need to have access to safe, in-person options as well as distant or remote learning options if that is what is best for their family. The key word here is safe.”
But what is “safe” is not at all clear to most school officials and at the heart of a bitter debate unfolding just months ahead of the presidential election.
There is universal agreement that in-person instruction is superior to online classes and particularly vital for at-risk students. But local officials warn of complicating factors: Crowded hallways, opposition to masks, dilapidated buildings with windows sealed shut and reluctant staff.
“There was no way for us to socially distance our children and follow other guidelines” with in-person instruction five days a week, said Helena Miller, chair of the Rock Hill school board in the red state of South Carolina.
Schools in neighboring states this week seemed to make the same point as they struggled to stay open within days or weeks of reopening — many students without masks and walking in crowded hallways. Georgia’s Cherokee County — which was hit the hardest — reported that nearly 1,200 students and staff were self-isolating after known exposures.
There were other schools too. A community college in Mississippi told 300 of its students to quarantine after nine positive cases were confirmed, along with students in Gulfport and Corinth districts. Indiana schools were also hit with an estimated 500 students in quarantine across several districts, as administrators expressed concern that there would not be enough staff available to continue instruction.
There’s no federal standard on when it’s considered safe to reopen schools, although the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have released various documents suggesting “phased” reopenings and advising that kids and staff wear masks and keep students six feet apart.
As a result, most schools have become hyper-focused on their own local virus data, with some looking to the World Health Organization’s recommendation that fewer than 5% of an area’s daily tests must turn out positive for 14 days before schools in the area can reopen. Currently, only 16 states meet that criteria.
“We pay absolutely no attention to what the White House has to say on this and neither do most big city school districts,” said Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Council of Great City Schools, a coalition of the nation’s largest urban public school systems.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, suggested communities look at the number of new COVID-19 cases in a given week for every 100,000 people. If the rise in new cases is higher than 10%, it should be cause for serious concern.
If “you’re in a red zone, I think you really better be careful,” he said Thursday in a livestreamed discussion sponsored by Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Miller, in South Carolina, said her board anguished for months before finally deciding on offering parents a “hybrid” option, starting Sept. 8. The option allows parents to choose in-person instruction for their kids two days a week — a move that cuts down the number of kids in a school at one time to allow for social distancing.
The hybrid model has been sharply criticized by DeVos when it was initially adopted earlier this summer by a Virginia school district. At the same time, DeVos has argued that a national plan for schools isn’t needed because schools are run by local officials.
“There’s not a national superintendent, nor should there be, therefore there’s not a national plan for reopening,” she said last month.
Many parents agree with DeVos and want to at least try to move ahead with in-person classes as much as possible.
“I definitely still say, ‘Give this a shot.’ I think there is a way to do this in person,” Carlo Wheaton, the parent of a junior at Woodstock High School in Georgia, told WSB-TV in Atlanta after the school announced it had to close temporarily after 14 people tested positive for the virus and 15 more were waiting for their test results.
Dan Domenech, executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, said one solution is money. His group estimates that schools need $490 per student — an estimated $200 billion nationwide for the 54 million students attending school in the U.S. — to allow for schools to reopen safely.
The money could be used to improve ventilation and expand classrooms to allow instructors to teach their students while socially distanced.
Trump announced Wednesday that he plans to provide 125 million masks for students. Domenech said he’d take it but it’s a drop in the bucket for schools.
“We see what’s happening in Washington: nothing,” Domench said.
Miller said at her local school board presidential politics and White House events aren’t part of the equation, and that she’s leaning on her local health department and governor’s office to figure out what to do when there is no playbook.
(NEW YORK) — Several top prosecutors have faced pushback in recent weeks for what critics say has been too lenient a response to unrest, including looting.
The Cook County State’s attorney, Kim Foxx, was among the latest to face criticism after looting and violence overtook the streets of Downtown Chicago early Monday.
Several Chicago officials this week charged that Foxx’s progressive reforms, such as raising the bar for felony charges in retail theft, have led to repeat offenses in recent months.
“These looters acted as if there are no consequences to their behavior, and they based that on what happened previously, that we made a lot of arrests during May and June, and not many of those cases were prosecuted to the fullest extent,” Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said at a press briefing Monday.
“These criminals were emboldened by no consequences in the criminal system,” he added.
Chicago Alderman Brendan Reilly, whose ward includes areas where Monday’s unrest occurred, said in a letter to his constituents on Monday that he agreed with Brown.
“[It] is clear that there is no accountability or consequences for the widespread lawlessness in the City of Chicago,” he said.
The president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police also called for looters to be fully prosecuted this week.
Following Monday’s arrests, Foxx said those who broke the law would be held accountable. On Thursday, her office announced it had approved 42 out of 43 felony charges sought by the Chicago Police Department stemming from over 100 arrests in the looting. Felony charges included 28 for burglary/looting, six for gun possession, five for aggravated battery/resisting a police officer and one for attempted murder.
“I am committed to keeping our communities safe and continuing to collaborate with our law enforcement partners to demand accountability and seek justice for the people of Cook County,” Foxx, who is up for reelection for a second term this fall, said in a statement announcing the charges.
Cases are still being reviewed and investigated by law enforcement, and her office will file more felony charges if appropriate, the statement said.
In Portland, Oregon, which has seen more than 70 days of nightly protests following George Floyd’s death while in police custody, the city’s top prosecutor has recently faced demands to “hold the rioters accountable.” In an Aug. 7 letter to Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt and Mayor Ted Wheeler, the head of the Portland Police Association, called on Schmidt to “do your job.”
“The people committing arson and assault are not peaceful protestors; they are criminals,” Daryl Turner, president of the association, said. “Step up and do your job; hold the rioters accountable. If there is no consequence for crimes from the District Attorney’s office, there is no reason for criminals to stop the chaos.”
Days after the letter, Schmidt announced his office would only prosecute cases of demonstrators if the crime involved “deliberate property damage, theft or the use or threat of use of force against another person.” Offenses such as disorderly conduct, criminal trespass and interference with a police officer would otherwise be dismissed.
“This policy acknowledges that the factors that lead to the commission of criminal activity during a protest are incredibly complex,” Schmidt said at a press briefing announcing the new policy on Tuesday.
Schmidt said the new policy is part of an effort to build trust in the community and better allocate resources. He stressed that “this is not a free pass.”
“I will not tolerate deliberate acts of violence against police or anyone else,” he said. “Engage in that type of conduct and you should expect to be prosecuted.”
The new policy is retroactive for those who have been arrested during protests in the wake of Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in May. The district attorney’s office said Tuesday it has received about 400 misdemeanor cases related to the protests, a majority of which will likely be subject to the new policy.
Portland’s policy is akin to one rolled out in New York during the early days of the city’s protests against police brutality. In early June, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced he would decline to prosecute protesters arrested for unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct. The policy, his office said, was designed to preserve resources for more serious crimes and “reduce racial disparities and collateral consequences in low-level offense prosecutions.”
Around that time, Vance’s office also faced pushback for not charging alleged looters with higher burglary offenses, allowing them to be released amid new bail reform measures. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called on prosecutors to charge the looters with second-degree burglary and said that “they should be held and set bail.” In response, the district attorney’s office said there often wasn’t enough evidence for a more serious charge.
By ABC News(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Thursday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE Baltimore 11, Philadelphia 4 St. Louis at Detroit (Postponed) St. Louis at Detroit (Postponed)
AMERICAN LEAGUE Tampa Bay 17, Boston 8
NATIONAL LEAGUE N.Y. Mets 8, Washington 2 Pittsburgh 9, Cincinnati 6 Chicago Cubs 4, Milwaukee 2 L.A. Dodgers 11, San Diego 2 NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION Washington 96, Boston 90 Sacramento 136, L.A. Lakers 122 Phoenix 128, Dallas 102 Memphis 119, Milwaukee 106 Utah 118, San Antonio 112 Portland 134, Brooklyn 133 Orlando 133, New Orleans 127
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE PLAYOFFS Columbus 3, Tampa Bay 1 Vegas 4, Chicago 3 (OT) Carolina 3, Boston 2 Dallas 5, Calgary 4 WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION Indiana 86, New York 79 Los Angeles 81, Washington 64 Las Vegas 87, Minnesota 77
ABC NewsBy MAX GOLEMBO, ABC News
