kali9/iStockBy MARLENE LENTHANG and NICHOLAS CIRONE, ABC News
(BOWLING GREEN, Ohio) — A Bowling Green State University student is in critical condition after an alleged hazing incident involving alcohol.
The student has been identified as Stone Foltz, family attorney Sean Alto told ABC News.
Foltz was hospitalized after “alleged hazing activity involving alcohol consumption” at an off-campus Pi Kappa Alpha event in Bowling Green, Ohio, the university said in a statement.
He is currently in critical condition, according to the ProMedica Toledo Hospital. Doctors treating Foltz are going through the organ donation process, Alto said.
The Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity told ABC News in a statement they were “horrified and outraged” by the incident.
The fraternity erroneously said that Foltz had died in its initial statement.
“We extend our deepest and sincere sympathy to the student’s family and friends and all of those affected by this tragic loss,” the organization said. That statement was later updated to remove any reference to the student’s death.
In response to the initial statement, Alto told ABC News, “It’s insensitive and inappropriate to put out a statement that he has passed away when he hasn’t. The info is still coming out, just wait and gather the facts. It’s horrible to do this in advance of the family. They are solely focused on their son, their brother, their grandson.”
The Delta Beta Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha at BGSU has been placed on administrative suspension following the incident, per the international fraternity.
“As more details are confirmed, we will also pursue permanent suspension of Delta Beta Chapter as well as expulsion of all chapter members from the International Fraternity,” the organization said.
The international fraternity said it will cooperate fully with authorities in the matter.
The university said it is aware of the incident and the fraternity would be placed on interim suspension as they work with law enforcement to investigate. “We want to express our care and support of our students and community affected,” university spokesperson Alex Solis said.
ABC News’ Jamie Aranoff, Mona Kosar Abdi and Joshua Hoyos contributed to this report.
Courtesy of Thomas Built Buses BY: LEIGHTON SCHNEIDER, ABC NEWS
(NEW YORK) — Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools has announced a contract to replace its diesel buses with electric ones, starting with 326 electric buses over the next four years. It marks the single largest purchase of electric school buses in North America, according to the release announcing the deal.
The county school board, which is located northwest of Washington D.C and operates more than 200 schools, approved the deal with Highland Electric Transportation, a Massachusetts-based start-up that delivers electric school buses to school districts.
Although this contract only replaces about a quarter of the entire 1,400 bus fleet, the contract could be extended to replace the entire fleet, according to Todd Watkins, the Transportation Director for Montgomery County Public Schools.
“The reason we picked four years instead of the entire contract is that the whole school bus industry thinks that prices on electric vehicles are going to be going down significantly as we saw with Tesla…And everybody fully expects that to happen with school busses, too. And we didn’t think it was very responsible to try to contract out further than four years,” says Watkins.
Watkins says the district got several proposals, but ultimately went with Highland Electric because they provided everything they wanted.
“We asked for use of the vehicle, design, installation, and maintenance of the charging infrastructure, we asked for the electric the busses run on and we asked for maintenance of the busses. … We wanted every piece of it to be part of the contract so that we knew for sure what we were going to pay for those,” says Watkins.
Nat Kreamer, CEO of Advanced Energy Economy, a national clean energy business group, applauded the announcement in a statement.
“This leadership step taken by Montgomery County Public Schools shows that it’s possible today to electrify transportation at scale. Comprehensive solutions like Highland Electric’s can leverage private capital, meet the needs of fleet operators, and serve communities now without burdening ratepayers or taxpayers,” said Kreamer.
As part of the deal, Highland Electric will purchase the buses from Thomas Built Buses in North Carolina. It will be supplied and serviced by Annapolis, Maryland-based American Bus- a long-time provider for the school district. Thomas Built will use its all-electric Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley school bus and it will be powered by Proterra batteries. The buses are capable of up to 135 miles range on a single charge.
Highland Electric will also electrify all five of the MCPS bus depots and supply all the charging infrastructure, with the goal of purchasing 100% renewable energy to power them over time.
Duncan McIntyre, CEO of Highland Electric, says he believes the county chose the company because they were able to make the contract budget neutral.
“We’re looking at their capital that they’ve got available and their operating expenses that they expect to spend over the next 10 to 15 years to operate a diesel fleet. And we’re sort of shifting that around and making the bet with our money. We’re making the bet that electric busses are much cheaper to operate, and so there’s a shift, we’re willing to pay a lot more because we’re making a bet that savings will materialize,” says McIntyre.
One common concern for customers is what the price of electricity will be down the road. McIntyre says they are the ones taking the risk of the costs when they bundle future prices into the annual contract.
“For the district, it’s a win-win. They get to wash their hands of it. What they know is they get sixteen thousand miles per year per bus, because that’s how many miles they need to drive. And it’s our obligation to power up the busses every night, [or the] middle of the day, and create an optimized strategy that gives them charge readiness for their routes,” says McIntyre.
The company plans to deliver 25 buses this fall, before ramping up to 61 in 2020, then around 120 each of the next two years. Watkins says it will take 14 years to completely electrify the entire fleet.
The move to electric buses also gets rid of dangerous carbon emissions, says Watkins.
“We get to have a vehicle that we know doesn’t produce any tailpipe emissions at all. …we know that whatever impact there is of diesel exhaust on students riding our busses, or being in school driveways, while those are much, much less than they were 20 years ago … there’s still some greenhouse gases. There’s still some particulate matter and still burns fossil fuels,” says Watkins.
When the buses are not in use, especially during the summer when school is out, the batteries [can] provide energy to the electrical grid.
“We’ve been doing that for a few years and have a number of vehicle to grid projects that are primarily smaller. But we’re making a bet that we can earn some income,” says McIntyre.
(HOUSTON) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is opening up about his decision to end the state mask mandate, stressing that he still urges residents to take precautions, but Texans “no longer need government running our lives.”
On March 10, Texas’ mask order will end and businesses can reopen at full capacity, Abbott announced Tuesday.
In a Thursday interview with ABC Houston station KTRK, Abbott said the decision “was a product of the data that we have seen.”
Thursday marked the lowest positivity rate and number of hospitalizations since October, Abbott said. Over 50% of Texans ages 65 and older have received at least one vaccine shot, he added.
“All the metrics are moving in the right direction,” he told KTRK. “The numbers are adequate for people to be able to go back to work, open up and get back to a sense of normalcy, especially for our kids and schools, while at the same time making sure that people do follow the best practices.”
“We are still urging people to continue to wear the mask,” Abbott said.
In the face of backlash over his decision, including from President Joe Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Abbott conceded, “There’s never going to be a uniform agreement on this.”
The governor added, “If businesses don’t feel safe opening, they should not be required to.”
Abbott stressed, “We no longer need government running our lives. Instead, everybody must continue to assume their own individual responsibility to take the actions that they have already mastered to make sure that they will not be contracting COVID-19.”
Biden on Wednesday called Abbott’s ruling “Neanderthal thinking.”
“I hope everybody has realized by now these masks make a difference,” Biden told reporters in the Oval Office.
“The last thing we need is the Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, ‘Everything’s fine, take off your mask,'” Biden said.
Fauci said Abbott’s decision was “quite risky.”
“If you look at the amount of infection that is in the community right now, even though the slope is coming down sharply, if you look at the last seven day average, it’s plateaued,” Fauci said Wednesday in a livestream with United Food and Commercial Workers International Union President Marc Perrone.
“That’s a dangerous sign because when that has happened in the past, when you pull back on measures of public health, invariably you’ve seen a surge back up,” Fauci said.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves also said Tuesday that county mask mandates would be lifted and businesses could “operate at full capacity without any state-imposed rules.” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey took a more conservative approach, announcing Thursday that she was extending the state’s mask mandate until April 9.
Upstate New York and New England are seeing below zero-degree wind chills Friday morning, as the I-95 corridor is seeing wind chills in the teens and single digits.
Winds have been gusty Friday morning, blowing at more than 40 mph.
The chilly weather will linger through the weekend for the Northeast, but a nice warm-up is expected by the middle of next week.
Meanwhile in the West, a winter storm brought snow to parts of the Rockies Thursday.
About 8 inches of snow fell in Colorado, where roads were covered in snow and ice. Some accidents and spinouts were even reported in Colorado Springs.
The Rockies snowstorm is now moving into the South with rain and a few thunderstorms.
In the West Coast, from California to Washington, a new storm will move in Friday, bringing a threat of flooding, heavy mountain snow and gusty damaging winds.
A winter weather advisory has been issued for Northern California, where up to a foot of snow may fall.
A flood watch has been issued for western Washington, where heavy rain could cause rivers to rise quickly, producing flooding.
Also, high wind alerts have been issued for Oregon and California, where winds could gust at up to 70 mph.
The storm will reach the San Francisco Bay Area late Friday evening, and heavy rain is possible to the north of the city. Flooding is unlikely.
Over the next 48 hours, 2 to 3 inches of rain may fall from Northern California to Washington, and up to a foot of snow may fall in the Cascades.
Also, most rivers in the Mid-South, including hard-hit Kentucky and West Virginia, will begin to recede Friday night and continue into this weekend.
Even though rivers are receding, there is still moderate and major flooding happening Friday. Many homes, roads and neighborhoods are still under water.
ABC NewsBy ASHLEY RIGGLE, MARJORIE MCAFFEE, and ANTHONY RIVAS, ABC News
(LOS ANGELES) — As Los Angeles edges out of the most restrictive tier in its covid-19 reopening plan, small business owners who’ve struggled to stay afloat say that whatever hope it brings is mixed with feelings of frustration and anger.
For many of the small business owners, the past year has been defined by sacrifice and heartbreak, and the constant concern that their business could go under as they try to keep up with the latest requirements.
Jared “JP” Perelmutter, the owner and operator of Brick Fitness, hasn’t been able to open his gym for indoor workouts for the last year. Since last summer, the parking lot outside the gym and a loyal clientele have made it possible to hold outdoor in-person workouts — even if that means wearing masks, social distancing and keeping the noise levels low.
“So, this is the equivalent of a silent disco,” Perelmutter said during a recent visit from “Nightline.” “You can see some of them have their EarPods in so that they can listen to their own music, and then they just have to focus and listen intently because the coach can’t scream.”
“They’re just happy to be outside of their house and moving their bodies,” he added.
Under the state’s purple tier, L.A. restaurants and gyms have been allowed to operate solely outdoors and with modifications, while other businesses, like theaters and music venues, have remained closed.
Watch the full story on “Nightline” TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET on ABC.
Perelmutter says that for the limited programs he’s been able to offer at the 11-year-old gym, they’ve still only added up to 50% his normal volume. Moreover, while the cost of doing business has increased, half of the 28 staff members at the gym pre-pandemic had to be let go.
“On a monthly basis, our increased expenses to operate safely outdoors is between $10,000 and $12,000 a month,” he said. “Increased cleaning crew, increased cleaning materials, the tent rentals … our maintenance is five times what it was on equipment alone; [it’s] getting worn and broken being outside, and being weathered.”
And while he’s still prohibited from using the space for normal business, Perelmutter is still expected to pay the full rent for his 10,000-square-foot gym — a staggering $30,000 per month. He called it his “really expensive warehouse and storage facility.”
“It’s just completely empty. For just general upkeep, even a building, if they stay abandoned too long, they basically fall apart,” he said. “We still have to maintain it. Cleaning crew still comes in every night and does some basic touch-up work — make sure the place is clean. We change out all the HVAC HEPA filters because we do have staff and members that come in … to utilize the bathroom.”
Perelmutter said he “understands the severity” of the pandemic and that he has immunocompromised family members himself. But the handling of COVID-19 precautions, he says, has been frustrating.
“There’s a lot of negative energy because we all just feel like we’ve been kinda left out on the island to survive on our own,” he said.
Thirty minutes away, in historically Latino East LA, 58-year-old Senen Sanchez has relied on delivery apps to serve chili rellenos, enchiladas and taquitos out of Chico’s Mexican Restaurant.
“It still is hard for me to go through the tablet and try to program it and stuff. I have to call my daughters or I need to get assistance,” Sanchez told “Nightline.” “But yeah, I had to jump into the technology, otherwise I would be totally dead if I’m not on the website or using the media.”
With only a few tables set up for outdoor eating, however, Sanchez says his revenue stream has taken a “painful” hit. Delivery apps can charge commission fees as high as 30% per order, putting less money in the pockets of restaurant owners who were already operating under tight profit margins before the pandemic.
“What you take home is less,” Sanchez said. “That’s how it is now.”
Sanchez said he’s been “blessed” to have a “great” landlord who has kept his rent low since before the pandemic began.
“It makes a huge difference because the people that are in business — a small business like mine — when they raise the rent crazy, we’re not able to cover it,” Sanchez said. “It’s sad that so many people have such high rent, and then the bars are closed. The patios were closed for so long.”
Restaurants in the city of 10.4 million people only returned to outdoor dining a few weeks ago, after seeing a spike in cases that made January the state’s deadliest month of the pandemic so far. By September 2020, more than 15,000 businesses in L.A. had shut their doors — more than any other city in the U.S. — with half of the closures expected to be permanent, according to a Yelp analysis.
Yet, even with that reality casting a shadow over Sanchez’s head, a harsher reality lingers for the father of two: In Los Angeles, the Latino community has seen three times more death from COVID-19. Sanchez said he’s trying his best to keep his customers and employees safe and avoid exposing them to the virus.
“They’re working hard with the vaccine and trying to control this virus because nobody wants it,” Sanchez said. “I mean, we don’t want it. We just want it away. And I hope they can control that. I mean, I think that will be the answer. If everything goes back to normal, it’s because it’s under control.”
States have loosened their COVID-19 restrictions at different rates, and just this week, Texas and Mississippi announced they would lift their mask mandates and reopen businesses at full capacity. California, however, has fluctuated between shutdowns and partial reopenings, and angry business owners and employees have directed their frustrations toward Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“You wanna shut things down that aren’t deemed essential, but then you can’t cherry pick what’s essential and what’s not,” said Jason London, a bartender at the Pineapple Hill Grill and Saloon in Sherman Oaks for over a year. “It pays my bills. It pays my rent. I can’t call the Chevy dealership like, ‘Hey, I can’t pay my truck note this month. Sorry.’ They don’t care. Like, they feel bad for you, but they still want their $450 for their truck.”
London noted it’s not just those working inside the restaurants who are impacted by the restrictions — it’s everyone who helps to keep the restaurant running, too.
“My produce guy has not been working. My beer vendors have no been working,” he said. “The delivery drivers for my beer have not been working. So, it’s not just us. It trickles down, and it’s sad.”
Angela Marsden, the owner of Pineapple Hill, first spoke to ABC News in March 2020 after she’d received news of the mandatory shutdown. At the time, she wasn’t sure if her restaurant would still exist today.
Since then, she’s worked hard to comply with the state’s restrictions, first relying on takeout only, then building a patio for outdoor dining, and finally, doing indoor dining with some modifications before she was forced to close again.
“The summertime was the hardest,” Marsden said. “After they shut us down inside, they basically said, ‘Well, now you can go outside, but you can’t go inside. But here’s what you need to be outside.’ And again, it’s like this 48-hour warning.”
Marsden said she turned to Facebook to buy used furniture off other restaurant owners who could not set up outdoor dining. Pointing to one set of tables that she said were bought from an Italian restaurant owner, she explained, “The stress of everything. He was older, and the fear of COVID. He ended up in the hospital, and his manager is working with me on what to charge me for his used furniture that I’m buying.”
“So it was very heartbreaking,” she said. “But I had to do it because I have to survive.”
Marsden said that when they reopened during a heat wave last summer, her staff were not only wearing masks but they wanted to wear face shields and gloves as well. “I had one person out here almost have a heat stroke,” she said.
She said business started coming back in September and she saw her first profit of the entire year in October. As for the rest of the year, she said, “I have taken a loss every single month — anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000. Overall, I’ve lost over half a million [dollars] in revenue that would normally be coming in.”
Then, in November, the state implemented another full shutdown, prohibiting outdoor dining and gatherings with individuals outside of one’s own household, even if outdoors. Marsden said by this point she had already spent $80,000 on modifying the restaurant and that the Paycheck Protection Program loan funds she’d gotten had already run out.
“I told my staff to meet up with me the following week and I would give them their last paychecks and then bags of food,” Marsden said. “Remember, Thanksgiving is one of the biggest holidays for restaurants. I went out and bought $10,000 worth of food to sell that now can’t be sold.”
That same day, she said a film production crew set up a food truck and tented dining area in the parking lot where she’d built her outdoor dining patio. Film productions had been deemed essential by Newsom.
“I still get upset talking about it. I looked at my girlfriend. I was like, I have to start telling the truth whether people think it’s political [or not]. I don’t know what they’re gonna think … that I don’t believe in COVID? Because I do. But they’re killing us,” she said of the restrictions. “They’re just killing our community and I’ve watched too many businesses die.”
Marsden subsequently posted an emotional video on Facebook where she questioned the difference between the two dining operations and blasted the state for categorizing businesses like hers as nonessential. The video went viral and people from around the world helped her raise over $220,000 in a crowdfunding campaign.
“My real complaint was never with the movie company or the movie industry,” Marsden said. “I have a lot of people that work for the industry that support my pub, and they’ve been out of work. My problem was with [Mayor Eric] Garcetti and Newsom because they’re the people that are making the rules. They’re the people that are making the tiered programs and saying who can open and who can’t.”
Like Marsden, many people across California have expressed frustration with Newsom. Some have even called for his resignation.
Speaking to ABC News, Newsom said, “We just put $2.5 billion in small business grants. We just did an almost $10 billion stimulus in the state and $3.8 billion in direct grants, $600 grants to households — families that have been disproportionately impacted by this pandemic. An additional $2 billion on top of our $500 million for grants for small businesses.”
“We’re moving through tiers — now purple, red tiers,” he added. “And as we move through tiers as the case rates decline … as that stabilizes, you’re going to see businesses over the next weeks, not just months … begin to reopen with modifications at a much larger scale than they currently are.”
With their restrictions loosening, Perelmutter and Marsden are now concerned about how they’re going to settle all the debt they’ve accumulated this past year.
“We’re coming on 12 months. I have been forced to shut down my business as it was operating successfully for a decade, while still under the assumption that I’m supposed to maintain all of the normal expenses,” Perelmutter said. “How does that work in any storyline?”
Marsden said that even with the crowdfunding donations, she’s still close to $300,000 in debt after taking out both a PPP loan and a separate loan from the Small Business Association.
“I took that money and I paid my staff. I paid for the patio. I paid for all the COVID stuff,” she said.
Nevertheless, as they continue to face uncertainty moving forward, all of the business owners said they don’t plan on giving up.
“I actually am really loving the outside, but I really want to get back inside because my fellow business owners, there are a lot of them that can’t even be outside right now,” Marsden said. “So, I hope that I own this [restaurant] until the day I die. I can’t wait until we’re back inside and we can see each other in that setting again.”
kali9/iStockBy MARLENE LENTHANG and NICHOLAS CIRONE, ABC News
