(CHICAGO) — A Dunkin’ Donuts employee has been arrested after a police officer found a “large, thick piece of mucus which was later confirmed to be saliva” in his coffee.
The incident occurred at approximately 10:20 p.m. on July 30 when an Illinois State Police (ISP) District Chicago Trooper bought a large black coffee from a Dunkin’ Donuts establishment located on Archer Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.
“Due to the coffee being extremely hot, the Trooper removed the lid from the top of the cup to cool it down,” the Illinois State Police said in a statement.
It was then that the officer noticed the mucus and saliva floating inside his coffee cup.
The ISP immediately began an investigation into the incident which culminated just a couple of hours later with the arrest of 25-year-old Dunkin’ Donuts employee Vincent J. Sessler.
Sessler was taken into custody without incident by the ISP District Chicago Troopers and has been charged with Disorderly Conduct and Battery to a Peace Officer.
ISP Director Brendan F. Kelly issued a stern statement about the incident.
“This is outrageous and disgusting,” said Kelly. “The men and women of the Illinois State Police put their heart and soul into protecting the lives and rights of all people in this state every day. They deserve better than this insulting and dangerous treatment.”
Kelly also said that ISP officers and employees will now be prohibited from patronizing that Dunkin’ Donuts location for their own safety.
Sessler currently remains in custody at the Chicago Police Department’s 8th District while the investigation continues.
iStock/ilbuscaBy: EMILY SHAPIRO, GINA SUNSERI and CATHERINE THORBECKE, ABC News
(PENSACOLA, Fla.) — The first NASA-SpaceX astronauts are en route back to Earth, with the Crew Dragon capsule expected to splashdown near Pensacola, Florida, at 2:48 p.m. ET.
The weather conditions appear “great” for the splashdown, tweeted NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
Crew Dragon Endeavour’s deorbit burn began at 1:56 p.m. and was completed at about 2:13 p.m. ET. As the capsule nears Earth, there will be a communications blackout lasting about six minutes.
Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, who left Earth on May 30, undocked from the International Space Station at about 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday.
Stakes are high as the astronauts only have 48 hours of oxygen in their capsule after undocking.
A recovery boat with several dozen crew members, including NASA flight surgeons, is waiting in the Gulf of Mexico.
Once the astronauts reach the port in Pensacola, they will board the NASA Gulfstream and head to Houston for a ceremony at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base.
Behnken said Friday he was most excited to see his family and his 6-year-old son, saying, “He’s changed a lot in the couple of months that we’ve been up here.”
On Sunday morning Hurley and Behnken woke up to a message from their children who were all excited for their return.
(NEW YORK) — For years, Roy Den Hollander railed against what he saw as an infringement of men’s rights by feminists. A self-proclaimed anti-feminist lawyer, he took on cases against feminist causes, such as “ladies’ night” and women’s studies college classes. His websites host hundreds of pages of openly misogynistic writings.
In those screeds, the court seemed to be the target of much of his ire, saying the justice system “stepped on my rights” and was biased against men.
In a document on his website, Den Hollander wrote disparagingly of several female judges, including Esther Salas, the first Latina to serve on the federal bench in New Jersey, who had presided over one of his cases.
Salas appears to have been the target, investigators said, when, on July 20, Den Hollander opened fire at her New Jersey home, killing her 20-year-old son and critically injuring her husband. Salas was in the basement at the time and was unharmed.
The next day, Den Hollander, 72, the only suspect named in the case so far, was found dead by police in an apparent suicide, according to investigators.
The tragedy highlights a surge in threats to federal judges and their families, and experts say that being a woman and being a minority only make matters worse.
While judges — male and female — face threats for a variety of reasons, the courts have in recent decades become a venue where advocates of so-called men’s rights activism have taken root. The movement, which primarily argues that men are discriminated against in areas such as the government and justice system, has been criticized for the hateful messaging or violence of extreme adherents, like Den Hollander.
And experts say that not only women, but the men connected to them, face danger from this misogyny.
According to the U.S. Marshals Service, there were 4,449 threats and inappropriate communications against federal judges, prosecutors and court officials in 2019. In 2015, that number was 926. Over that same period, the number of threats investigated rose from 305 to 373, peaking at 531 in 2018. The U.S. Marshals Service does not break down this data by gender.
Deadly attacks on federal judges are relatively rare and have primarily involved men, who, according to the Center for American Progress, make up the majority of the seats. Among the handful or so who have been killed was Arizona federal judge John Roll, one of six people who died in the 2011 shooting massacre targeting U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
In 2005, Illinois federal judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow lost her husband and mother in a targeted attack at her Chicago home.
Julie Kocurek, the first female criminal district judge in Travis County, survived an attempted assassination outside her home in Austin in 2015, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
According to the New York Times, investigators found a list in Den Hollander’s rental car with the names of three other female judges on it, one of them — like Salas — is also a federal judge. Another was New York Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, her spokesman had previously confirmed to ABC News. The third was a state judge who had presided over one of Den Hollander’s cases, the Times reported.
“Being a federal judge in general is a role that can make enemies. People can be pretty upset about your decisions,” Emily Martin, vice president of education and workplace justice for the National Women’s Law Center, told ABC News. “When you layer that with the fact that if you are a woman, if you are a person of color, there’s a deeper vein of hostility and hatred that those reactions can tap into.”
The attack on Salas’ family “reminds us that there are people who want to kill us solely because of our gender, the color of our skin, our ethnic background — or just because we are different,” Hispanic National Bar Association National President Irene Oria said in a statement last week when the suspected gunman’s racist, misogynistic writings came to light.
That the July 20 attack targeted someone in the legal sector was “not a surprise” to Lecia Brooks, chief of staff for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups and other extremists, including male supremacists.
The suspect “had an ill-conceived belief that women controlled the legal system,” Brooks told ABC News. “He felt like women who controlled the legal system were able to grant greater leniency and rights upon women. He had this whole warped belief about what was true.”
Den Hollander had “adopted” victimization language common among so-called men’s rights activists, Martin said, “to try to position men as somehow being harmed and victimized by women’s equality.”
The court is one area where men’s rights activism has played out, particularly in child custody cases, Brooks said.
“Around the 1980s it began gaining traction with men who were disgruntled by the results of their experiences with family court,” Brooks said. “It was at that time that no-fault divorce laws began to crop up, and they felt like child custody rulings were discriminating against them.”
Over the years, domestic violence charges have been another area of pushback, Brooks said.
Of late, higher education has been a focus of men’s rights activists, particularly regarding students’ due process rights in disciplining cases of sexual harassment and sexual assault on college campuses, Martin said.
The National Women’s Law Center is behind one of four lawsuits against the Department of Education’s controversial new Title IX sexual harassment regulations, which address due process. One of the changes will allow those accused of sexual harassment or assault to cross-examine their accusers. In its claim, the National Women’s Law Center argues that the regulations, scheduled to take effect on Aug. 14, favor those accused of sexual misconduct and make the process “more intimidating and traumatizing for victims.”
Brooks, another critic of the guidelines, finds that they play “into the hand of this male victimhood narrative.”
In acts of violence where suspects have demonstrated extreme misogyny, women aren’t necessarily the only victims. In addition to Salas’ son, Daniel Anderl, the FBI has tied Den Hollander to the murder in California earlier this month of men’s rights attorney Marc Angelucci.
That aspect of this case reminded Kate Manne, an associate philosophy professor at Cornell University and author of the forthcoming book “Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women,” of another shooting. In 2014, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured more than a dozen others near the University of California, Santa Barbara. Rodger left behind misogynistic rants that included a video where he vowed “retribution” for women rejecting him. Those murdered included four men.
The cases, Manne told ABC News, showed how “misogyny can really distort someone’s worldview so that they’re a danger to pretty much anyone.”
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
iStock/imagedepotproBy: DANIEL MANZO, EMILY SHAPIRO and DAN PECK, ABC News
(JACKSONVILLE, Fla.) — Tropical storm conditions are nearing the East Coast of Florida Sunday morning as Tropical Storm Isaias brings heavy rain and strong winds to parts of the Bahamas.
Isaias, which had been a hurricane, weakened late Saturday.
Tropical Storm Isaias now has winds of 65 mph and is about 55 miles southeast of Fort Pierce, Florida.
Tropical storm watches and warnings now stretch from Florida to North Carolina and may move further north.
Isaias will pick up forward speed and accelerate into the Northeast U.S., likely tracking very close to I-95 from Washington, D.C. to Philadelphia to New York City and then moving into New England.
The current forecast track shows the center of Isaias moving near or over the East Coast of Florida into Sunday night.
Tropical storm-force wind gusts are already hitting Juno Beach to Port St. Lucie.
Isaias is expected to bring six inches of rain to parts of eastern Florida and a storm surge of 1 to 4 feet.
In St. Lucie County, officials on Sunday urged residents to avoid the beaches for several days due to rough surf and rip currents.
St. Lucie County officials said they’re also concerned about power outages.
Isaias may be near Jacksonville or Daytona Beach by Monday morning. Isaias will then move back over the ocean, passing by Georgia, before moving into the Carolinas.
Some areas of coastal North Carolina are under mandatory evacuation orders.
States of emergency have been declared in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.
Isaias is expected to pick up speed and accelerate into the Northeast, likely tracking very close to Interstate 95 from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia to New York City and then moving into New England.
In the Carolinas and the Mid-Atlantic, the main threat will be very heavy rain and coastal flooding.
By Tuesday evening, the storm will likely pass very close to New York City with torrential rain and some coastal flooding.
iStock/koto_fejaBy: JON HAWORTH and EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 685,000 people worldwide.
Over 17.8 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some national governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their outbreaks.
Since the first cases were detected in China in December, the United States has become the worst-affected country, with more than 4.6 million diagnosed cases and at least 154,449 deaths. Latest headlines: – FBI says COVID-19 tests at Texas facility ‘should not have been used’ – Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriquez out for 2020 season due to COVID-19 related heart issue
Here’s how the news is developing today. All times Eastern.
4:32 a.m.: Red Sox player out for season due to COVID-19 related heart issue
The Boston Red Sox have ruled out the return of their top starting pitcher for the 2020 season.
Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom said that left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez will not play this year, after developing a heart issue following his bout with COVID-19.
The 27-year-old left-hander tested positive for the coronavirus before the start of summer camp but was cleared and returned to workouts on July 18.
He hasn’t had another positive coronavirus test, but said an MRI revealed a condition called myocarditis, that the team’s medical staff felt was serious enough to shut him down for at least a week.
Rodriguez has been restricted from baseball activities since July 23. 3:37 a.m.: FBI says COVID-19 tests at Texas facility ‘should not have been used’
FBI San Antonio is seeking to warn members of the public who were tested for COVID-19 at Living Health Holistic Healthcare in New Braunfels, Texas, in the last several weeks.
Authorities have reason to suspect the COVID-19 tests administered at the facility should not have been used to diagnose or rule out an active COVID-19 infection.
Individuals who were tested at this facility are asked to contact the FBI and those individuals are also encouraged to contact their primary care physician, local health department, free-standing ER, or nearby urgent care facility for re-testing. 1:14 a.m.: Cardinals games postponed following more positive COVID-19 tests
The weekend series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers has been postponed after one player and multiple members of the Cardinals staff tested positive for COVID-19.
According to ESPN and multiple reports, three staff members tested positive for COVID-19 on the rapid tests. The team expects the complete results of saliva testing later Saturday, MLB said.
In addition to Saturday’s game, both games of Sunday’s doubleheader between the teams have also been postponed.
“Due to additional testing and monitoring of the St. Louis Cardinals’ players and staff members, the Sunday doubleheader between the host Milwaukee Brewers and the Cardinals at Miller Park has been postponed,” said Major League Baseball in a statement. The Cardinals will play four games against the Tigers in Detroit from Tuesday-Thursday, including a Wednesday doubleheader. The Cardinals and Tigers will serve as the home Club for two games each at Comerica Park. The Brewers will play this week’s home-and-home series vs. the Chicago White Sox as scheduled. Major League Baseball will continue to provide updates regarding its schedule.”
Just last week multiple members of the Miami Marlins tested positive for the coronavirus causing games to be postponed.as coronavirus testing is underway, the league confirmed in a statement.’
The Miami Marlins canceled their home opener against the Baltimore Orioles scheduled for Monday night after multiple members of the team tested positive for the coronavirus,
Since the Philadelphia Phillies played Miami last Sunday at Citizens Bank Park, the Marlins have now had 20 positive tests, 18 by players.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark on Friday that if the sport doesn’t do a better job of managing the coronavirus, it could shut down for the season, sources familiar with the conversation told ESPN.
The two positive tests by the St. Louis Cardinals players on Friday have only exacerbated concerns inside the sport about the presence of the coronavirus and whether players are following MLB’s protocols are being followed properly to prevent outbreaks similar to Miami’s.
Should another outbreak materialize, Manfred, who has the power to shut the season down, could move in that direction. Multiple players briefed on the call fear that season could be shut down as soon as Monday if positive tests jump or if players continue not to strictly abide by the league’s protocols.
ABC News’ Russ Reed, Matt Foster, Ahmad Hemingway and Alexandra Faul contributed to this report.
Illinois State PoliceBy JON HAWORTH, ABC News 
