August 25, 2020 • No Comments • National News

AntonioGuillem/iStockBy TERI WHITCRAFT, MATT GUTMAN and ALYSSA PONE, ABC News

(TUCSON, Ariz) — When the University of Arizona opened its doors Monday, more than 8,300 students, faculty and staff had been tested for COVID-19 and everyone on campus was wearing a mask. The school had even begun sampling its wastewater to quickly detect a potential hot spot.

But the centerpiece in the school’s preemptive battle against COVID-19 was the “Covid Watch” smartphone app, which uses Bluetooth technology to send an alert to someone’s phone if they are exposed to the virus.

“We’re not a contact tracing app because nobody’s actually being traced or tracked,” said Tina White, one of the app’s creators, who got her masters degree from the University of Arizona in 2009. “We’re an exposure notification app, which is fully anonymous.”

To the technological layperson, this may seem like a distinction without a difference, but to White and the other engineers who crowdbuilt the app, it was crucial to make privacy a part of the app’s most elemental code.

White was working on her dissertation in mechanical engineering at Stanford when she first heard about the COVID-19 outbreak in China. When she learned that authorities in China and other countries were using cellphone data to track the movements of those infected with the virus, she realized it could infringe on privacy and civil liberties.

So she and two international students began to collaborate on a smartphone app that would protect people’s privacy by generating random number sequences. Covid Watch uses local Bluetooth signals to exchange those random numbers between phones — sort of like a short-wave walkie-talkie.

If someone tests positive and reports that to the campus health office, the signal on their phone will anonymously alert people that they may have been exposed and should quarantine or get tested. The app will tell the people when they were exposed, how long to quarantine and when they should get tested.

“It is something that people can use and know that it’s anonymous and something that isn’t going to be an infringement on civil liberties,” White told ABC News. “The whole team got started in order to help save lives during the pandemic. And to preserve civil liberties. And with the belief that you don’t have to have a trade-off between the two.”

After spending months tweaking algorithms and working with Google and Apple, as well as state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Covid Watch was officially launched last week on the app store and every student at the University of Arizona was encouraged to download it. The app will be helpful even if just 10% of students download it, according to experts, but 56% of the students need to download and use the app for it to stop the virus on campus.

“This is one of the first in the U.S. to be released, that is fully anonymous and fully decentralized,” White said.

University of Arizona professor Joyce Schroeder and others helped customize the app to not only alert a user of exposure, but also to inform them if their level of risk from exposure is high or low.

“We can set the exposure alerts so that they’re only going to notify people who are in real great danger,” she said. “For example, if they’ve been around this person for a very long time at the height of their viral shedding.”

“Universities have always been the hotbed of innovation, and it’s fitting that this solution came not from big tech but from students who were concerned about privacy,” said Sameer Halai, one of the cofounders and head of product at Covid Watch. “This is a solution that can now scale to other states and even countries because we have designed it to be simple to use and adapt anywhere, regardless of the size and stage of the outbreak.”

As students prepared for their first day on campus, University of Arizona President Robert Robbins said he was cautiously optimistic that they had done all they could to keep the virus at bay.

“We were the demonstration project for the Google [and] Apple COVID app using Bluetooth technology,” Robbins said. “Nobody’s ever tried this before. It’s the first test case in the country on a university campus.”

But the danger, according to Robbins, is not limited to what happens on campus.

“What we can’t control is what happens off campus,” he said. “And that’s what’s got everyone so concerned and got me concerned … we are going to give it our best shot to get our campus through.”

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August 25, 2020 • No Comments • National News

wellesenterprises/iStockBy KYRA PHILLIPS, IVAN PEREIRA and JON HAWORTH, ABC News

(LYNCHBURG, Va.) — After a daylong back and forth, Jerry Falwell Jr. officially resigned from Liberty University Monday night, he told ABC News.

The embattled religious leader told ABC News he submitted his resignation letter to the school late Monday night.

The move came hours after the school said that he agreed to resign as its president, after which Falwell reversed his decision after media outlets announced it.

The conservative leader has come under scrutiny after he was mired in an alleged sex scandal involving his wife and a business partner.

“I was never called to be a pastor, my calling was to use my legal and business expertise to make Liberty University the evangelical version of Note Dame,” Falwell told ABC News. “Some of us are called to be preachers, that wasn’t mine. I was called to make Liberty University the greatest Christian university’s in the world and I couldn’t have done that as a preacher.”

Liberty University issued a statement on the matter late Monday night.

“The Executive Committee’s Board of Trustees asked Falwell to go on indefinite leave of absence on August 7, to which he agreed,” the statement read. “Since that time, additional matters came to light that made it clear that it would not be in the best interest of the University for him to return from leave and serve as President. The Executive Committee met this morning and a conference call gathering of the full Board was planned for tomorrow. Falwell responded by agreeing to resign immediately as President of Liberty University today but then instructed his attorneys to not tender the letter for immediate resignation. The Executive Committee will go forward with its meeting in the morning followed by the full Board.”

Said acting President Jerry Prevo: “I call upon the University community and supporters to be in prayer for the University and for all its leadership, past, present and future, as we walk with the Lord through this stormy time of transition.”

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August 24, 2020 • No Comments • National News

ABC NewsBY: KARMA ALLEN, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has dedicated the East River State Park in Brooklyn to Marsha P. Johnson, making it country’s first state park to honor an LGBTQ person, according to the state.

Cuomo made the announcement on Monday, on what would have been the transgender civil rights icon’s 75th birthday.

“I’m proud to announce the dedication of East River State Park in Brooklyn to #MarshaPJohnson. Today, Marsha P. Johnson State Park becomes the first State Park to honor an LGBTQ person,” Cuomo tweeted. “NY is indebted to her for her brave advocacy and relentless fight for LGBTQ equality.”

The state plans to improve the park’s facilities and install public art celebrating Johnson’s life and her role in the advancement of LGBTQ rights, according to a statement, which called the move the largest investment in the park’s history.

Johnson, an early and outspoken advocate for transgernder women of color, is widely credited with helping instigate the Stonewall uprising in 1969.

New York City police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, on June 28, 1969, to enforce a discriminatory law that made it illegal to serve alcohol to gay people. Johnson and others fought back, helping spawn the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement.

Johnson founded the Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries (STAR) — a group aimed at helping homeless transgender youth — before she died tragically at the age of 46 in 1992, when her body was found floating in the Hudson River. Her death was initially ruled a suicide, but police reopened the investigation in 2012 amid calls from her family, who claimed foul play.

Gov. Cuomo said the state wanted to honor Johnson’s work to make sure that her memory lives on forever.

“Too often, the marginalized voices that have pushed progress forward in New York and across the country go unrecognized, making up just a fraction of our public memorials and monuments,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Marsha P. Johnson was one of the early leaders of the LGBTQ movement, and is only now getting the acknowledgement she deserves. Dedicating this state park for her, and installing public art telling her story, will ensure her memory and her work fighting for equality lives on.”

New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul said that the current social climate made this the right time to honor Johnson, who she called an “LGBTQ hero.”

“With the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement, now more than ever we must continue the fight for LGBTQ equality and racial justice in our society,” Hochul said. “We have come a long way with the passage of GENDA [the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act] and legalizing gestational surrogacy, but we still have more work to do to combat division and hate and achieve true equality for all.”

The park’s dedication comes as protesters across the country call on institutions to confront long-standing systemic racism and discrimination.

Last year, New York Police Department Commissioner James O’Neill apologized for the violent Stonewall raid amid mounting pressure from local politicians and leaders.

“I’m certainly not going to be an expert of what happened at Stonewall. I do know what happened should not have happened,” O’Neill said at the department’s inaugural pride safety briefing last June. “The actions taken by the NYPD were wrong, plain and simple.”

ABC News’ Tony Morrison contributed to this report.

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August 24, 2020 • No Comments • National News

iStock/josemoraesBY: BILL HUTCHINSON, ABC News

(WASHINGTON) — Firefighters battling a barrage of ferocious wildfires across California say they got a break from the weather when a forecasted dry lightning storm in the northern part of the state failed to materialize overnight. That gave them a chance to make progress in containing the three biggest conflagrations.

“Mother Nature’s helped us quite a bit,” said Billy See, an incident commander for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, aka Cal Fire.

Firefighters were able to increase containment lines around the so-called CZU Lightning Complex fire — multiple blazes in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, south of San Francisco — from 5% to 13% overnight and into Monday. They are working Monday to keep flames from reaching nearby freeways. CZU fire has burned 78,000 acres and destroyed 163 structures.

North of San Francisco, firefighters battling the LNU Lightning Complex and the CSU Lightning Complex fires, now ranked No. 2 and No. 3 respectively on the list of all-time biggest wildfires in California, were also able to make progress in their efforts to bring the blazes under control.

“The predicted weather that we were expecting overnight did not produce the lightning that we were expecting. This is great news,” said Shana Jones, the Cal Fire unit chief assigned to the LNU fire, said at a news conference on Monday.

The LNU conflagration — comprised of multiple blazes, some of which have merged — has already burned more than 350,000 acres across Sonoma, Napa, Lake, Yolo and Solano counties and was 22% contained on Monday, up from 17% on Sunday, according to Cal Fire. The fire has destroyed 871 residential and commercial structures and damaged another 234, according to Cal Fire.

Farther south, near San Francisco, the SCU Lightning Complex fire, also made up of multiple blazes, has scorched nearly 347,000 acres in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties. The fire, which has destroyed or damaged 24 residential and commercial structures, was 10% contained as of Monday, the same as it was on Sunday, according to Cal Fire.

The promising news from the front lines of the conflagrations was tempered by the death toll from the fires throughout the state, rising to seven over the weekend.

Chief Sean Kavanaugh, the Cal Fire incident commander on the LNU blaze, said the latest victim to perish was a man whose body was found Sunday on a road in Solano County where the LNU fire swept through.

“Our condolences go out to the family and friends of that individual in Solano County,” said Kavanaugh, adding that five deaths have now been linked to the LNU fire.

A 70-year-old man was also found dead over the weekend in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the CZU fire is burning, according to Cal Fire.

Meanwhile, Cal Fire officials said on Monday that some of the more than 100,000 people evacuated during the fires are being allowed to return to their homes.

More than 1.4 million acres have burned in California since Aug. 15, according to Jones.

“That is a little more than the state of Delaware,” she said.

During a news conference on Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said that at this stage last year, the state had 42 wildfires that burned about 56,000 acres.

Newsom said there have been 7,000 wildfires already this year in California and there are still several months left in the fire season, which runs through October.

Cal Fire officials said there are at least two dozen fires simultaneously burning throughout the state. At least 14,000 firefighters, including crews from Washington and Oregon, were battling the flames from the ground and air, officials said.

Other fires include the River Fire, just east of Salinas in Monterey County, that has burned nearly 50,000 acres, injured four people, destroyed or damaged 30 commercial and residential structures. The fire was 23% contained on Monday, up from 15% on Sunday.

In Southern California, firefighters have nearly extinguished the Apple Fire in the Cherry Valley of Riverside County, according to Cal Fire. The blaze, which ignited July 31, was 95% contained on Monday after burning more than 33,400 acres and destroying four structures.

In the Santa Clarita Valley of Los Angeles County, the Lake Fire, which started on Aug. 17 in the Angeles National Forest near Lake Hughes, was 62% contained on Monday, up from 52% on Sunday, after burning nearly 32,000 acres, officials said.

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August 24, 2020 • No Comments • National News

ABC NewsBY: MIKE GUDGELL, JIM VOJTECK and MEREDITH DELISO, ABC News

(WASHINGTON) — The California Supreme Court overturned the death penalty sentence for Scott Peterson, who was found guilty of murdering his pregnant wife in a highly publicized case, based on judicial error.

Scott Peterson, 42, was convicted in 2004 of one count of first-degree murder for killing his wife, Laci Peterson, who was nearly 8 months pregnant at the time, and one count of second-degree murder for killing their unborn son.

Laci Peterson, 27, disappeared on Christmas Eve in 2002. The bodies of Laci and her unborn son were found in San Francisco Bay in April 2003.

In a written decision dated Monday, the court upheld Scott Peterson’s guilty judgment.

“Peterson contends his trial was flawed for multiple reasons, beginning with the unusual amount of pretrial publicity that surrounded the case,” the court said. “We reject Peterson’s claim that he received an unfair trial as to guilt and thus affirm his convictions for murder.”

But the court did note that “the trial court made a series of clear and significant errors in jury selection that, under long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent, undermined Peterson’s right to an impartial jury at the penalty phase.”

The court said it was required to reverse the death sentence after determining that the trial court “erroneously dismissed” prospective jurors who said they opposed the death penalty, “even though the jurors gave no indication that their views would prevent them from following the law.”

“We are grateful for the California Supreme Court’s unanimous recognition that if the state wishes to put someone to death, it must proceed to trial only with a fairly selected jury,” Cliff Gardner, Scott Peterson’s appellate attorney, said in a statement.

The Stanislaus County prosecutor, Birgit Fladager, can decide to retry the penalty phase, though a decision will not likely be made until the court decides on Scott Peterson’s pending habeas petition.

“[While] we are disappointed that such a biased jury selection process results in a reversal of only the death sentence, we look forward to the Court’s review of the new forensic and eyewitness evidence of innocence,” Gardner said in the statement.

The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the decision.

Sharon Rocha, Laci Peterson’s mother, also declined to comment.

Laci Peterson was last seen at home in Modesto, California. Scott Peterson reported his wife missing on Dec. 24, 2002. His mistress, Amber Frey, secretly worked with police to help convict him. A jury unanimously found him guilty of murdering his wife and unborn child, and a judge sentenced him to die by lethal injection. He has been on death row at the San Quentin State Prison.

In a 2017 A&E documentary series, “The Murder of Laci Peterson,” Scott Peterson described the moment he heard his guilty verdict.

“It was crazy, just this amazing, horrible, physical reaction I had,” he said. “I couldn’t feel my feet on the floor. I couldn’t feel the chair I was sitting in. My vision got a little blurry.”

California’s last execution was in 2006, under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Last year Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a moratorium on executions while he is in office.

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