Breonna Taylor FamilyBy KARMA ALLEN, EMILY SHAPIRO and SABINA GHEBREMEDHIN, ABC News
(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — Audio recordings from the three-day grand jury hearings in the Breonna Taylor case were filed with the court on Friday following orders from a Kentucky judge.
The recordings were filed just before the judge’s noon deadline. This comes after a judge, during former police officer Brett Hankison’s hearing, ordered the recordings be filed as part of the discovery.
The attorney general’s office also filed an un-redacted copy of the grand jury recordings under seal with the court so that the Judge could compare the redacted and un-redacted copies of the recordings, the Kentucky attorney general’s Office said in a statement Friday. The redactions comprise about three minutes and fifty seconds of the entire proceedings, the office said, noting that personal witness information, addresses and the names of minors had been removed for privacy reasons, according to the office.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said he was “confident” that the recordings would show that his office presented a through case.
“I’m confident that once the public listens to the recordings, they will see that our team presented a thorough case to the Jefferson County Grand Jury,” Cameron said in a statement. “Our presentation followed the facts and the evidence, and the Grand Jury was given a complete picture of the events surrounding Ms. Taylor’s death on March 13th.”
He added: “While it is unusual for a court to require the release of the recordings from Grand Jury proceedings, we complied with the order, rather than challenging it, so that the full truth can be heard.”
Taylor’s family, her boyfriend and activists have also called for transparency and demanded the grand jury transcript be released. Taylor’s boyfriend’s attorney filed a successful motion over the weekend to have the evidence collected by the police department’s Professional Integrity Unit released to the public.
An anonymous member of the grand jury also filed a motion asking that the transcripts and 20 hours of recordings be released. The grand juror requested the judge allow members of the panel to speak publicly about the evidence presented and the decision reached.
Cameron filed a motion to delay the release of the audio recordings to redact the names and personal information of witnesses and private citizens.
Cameron argued Monday that prosecutors presented “all of the evidence” to the grand jury, even though the evidence supported that the two Louisville police officers who were not indicted “were justified in their use of force” after having been fired upon by Taylor’s boyfriend.
Citing the secrecy of the hearing, Cameron declined to say if the grand jury was presented, beyond the recommended wanton endangerment counts, with options to consider homicide charges, including manslaughter and reckless homicide.
The high-profile case began on March 13, when 26-year-old Taylor was shot dead by police in her Louisville home.
Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were asleep when three Louisville officers, including Brett Hankison, tried to execute a “no-knock” search warrant. The officers were investigating a suspected drug operation linked to Taylor’s ex-boyfriend; no drugs were found in the apartment.
Walker contends he asked the officers to identify themselves as they tried to break open the door, but got no response, which prompted him to open fire with his licensed gun. One officer was shot in the leg.
The grand jury last week indicted Hankison on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment for firing into the apartment directly behind Taylor’s. The neighboring apartment had three people inside, thus the three charges against Hankison, said Cameron. Hankison pleaded not guilty this week.
The other officers involved in Taylor’s death were not charged and have been placed on administrative duty.
(NEW YORK) — Google has announced a $1 billion investment over three years to start paying news publishers for content and to support the launch of a new product dubbed the “Google News Showcase.”
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet Inc., announced the move Thursday in a blog post, opening up about “enduring” memories of his father reading the newspaper each morning.
“I have always valued quality journalism and believed that a vibrant news industry is critical to a functioning democratic society,” Pichai wrote.
The chief executive said the $1 billion investment in news publishers is their biggest financial commitment to journalism to date. He said the company is aiming to create a “different kind of online news experience” through the Google News Showcase.
The showcase, which will initially appear in Google News on Android devices, will feature curated news stories on the platform. Pichai said he hopes the service will “give readers more insight on the stories that matter” as well as help publishers “develop deeper relationships with their audiences.”
It will soon launch on the Google News app on Apple iOS devices and be available through Google’s search function in the future.
“This approach is distinct from our other news products because it leans on the editorial choices individual publishers make about which stories to show readers and how to present them,” Pichai said.
The service is rolling out in Germany and Brazil on Thursday and other countries around the world soon after. Publications that will be featured in Thursday’s launch include Germany’s Der Spiegel and Bazil’s Folha de S.Paulo.
Google and other tech giants have faced international scrutiny in recent years for their siphoning of news content. The matter is embroiled in a legal battle in Australia, where lawmakers are trying to force digital giants to compensate commercial news organizations more fairly for their original content, the Associated Press reported.
In the ever-evolving digital news landscape, tech giants have also courted controversy over their online ad revenue models that experts say have had a devastating impact on a beleaguered journalism industry, a topic that came up during a recent Congressional hearing featuring Pichai and other big tech CEOs.
The announcement of the Google News Showcase was met with cautious optimism by U.S. news organization leaders, including Robert Thomson, the CEO of News Corp, whose publications include The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
“We applaud Google’s recognition of a premium for premium journalism and the understanding that the editorial eco-system has been dysfunctional, verging on dystopian,” Thomson said in a statement. “There are complex negotiations ahead but the principle and the precedent are now established.”
(NEW YORK) — Gusty, dry winds are expected on Thursday and Friday for parts of northern California where the Glass and Dolan Fires are burning as winds could gust up to 30 mph.
Currently, 24 major fires are burning in California, forcing about 98,000 people to flee their homes.
The Glass Fire in Napa County has burned through more than 56,000 acres and is 5% contained. The Zogg Fire, which has killed four people, has scorched more than 55,000 acres in Shasta County and is 26% contained.
More record heat is expected from San Diego and Los Angles up to Northern California. A red flag warning is in effect beginning on Thursday afternoon through much of Friday for the North Bay, Central Mendocino County, Western Monterey County, and most of the Los Padres National Forest for gusty winds and low humidity.
Here is closer look at the San Francisco Bay area advisories and warnings as the city is under a heat advisory where it could be in the 90s Thursday.
On Wednesday, record highs were broken in Long Beach which reached 105 degrees, LAX hit 92 and Sacramento peaked at 102.
There is some good news going into the weekend as some slight cooling is possible by Sunday for most of California with temperatures coming down into the 80s for some areas.
Two of the largest wildfires in California’s history, the LNU and SCU Lightning Complexes, are now 100% contained after they burned for more than two months. The August Complex Fire, the largest in the state’s history, is nearing 1 million acres burned and is 47% contained.
More than 8,100 wildfires have burned over 3.9 million acres across California this year, killing 30 people and destroying more than 7,500 structures.
CAL Fire has arrested 68 people on arson charges this year — 46 of whom started wildland fires, the agency announced Thursday.
kali9/iStockBy BILL HUTCHINSON, ALEX STONE, and MATT GUTMAN, ABC News
(LOS ANGELES) — A suspect has been arrested in the brazen ambush shooting that left two Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies severely wounded earlier this month, authorities said on Wednesday.
Authorities identified the suspect as 36-year-old Deonte Murray.
Murray has been in custody since Sept. 15, when he was arrested following an alleged carjacking and a 10-hour standoff with police in the Lynwood section of Los Angeles, sheriff’s officials said. But when he was arrested, sheriff’s officials told reporters that Murray was not the suspect in the shooting of the deputies and that the search for that gunman, which prompted a reward that soared to $675,000 with private donations, was ongoing.
During a news conference on Wednesday, sheriff’s officials faced numerous questions about why they initially ruled out Murray as the ambush suspect. Officials claimed that at the time of Murray’s arrest they didn’t know for sure he was the alleged gunman.
Murray is scheduled to be arraigned later on Wednesday. Prosecutors are recommending bail be set at $6.15 million.
The ambush unfolded on Sept. 12 as the two deputies, whose names have not been released by the sheriff’s department, sat in a marked patrol vehicle near the Martin Luther King Jr. Transit Center in Compton, authorities said. Surveillance video released by the sheriff’s department showed an individual dressed in black shorts, a dark jacket and wielding a pistol walk up to the vehicle and shoot through the passenger-side window without warning.
The shooter ran to a black four-door sedan and sped away, authorities said. As the gunman fled, surveillance video showed the patrol vehicle’s passenger-side door open and one of the wounded deputies, described as a 31-year-old mother of a 6-year-old, stumble out.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva told ABC News earlier this month that despite being shot four or five times, including once in the jaw, the female deputy walked around the patrol vehicle to help her 24-year-old partner, who suffered gunshot wounds to his forehead, arms and one hand.
Both deputies initially were in critical condition and taken to St. Francis Medical Center, where they underwent surgery. They’ve since been released but are facing long rehabilitation periods, officials said.
Officials have not commented on Murray’s motive for the alleged ambush “beyond the fact that he hates policemen and wants them dead,” said Kent Wegener, captain of the LA Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau.
At the time of Murray’s arrest, reports circulated online implying that the armed carjacking suspect caught in Lynwood could be the gunman wanted in the surprise attack on the two deputies. However, the sheriff’s department issued a statement describing the online reports as “ERRONEOUS information” and said “there are no named or wanted suspects at this time.”
When Murray was arrested, reporters asked Villanueva why Murray was being held on $2 million bail and asked the sheriff directly if he was connected to the ambush, according to ABC Los Angeles station KABC.
“[He] was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and carjacking,” Villanueva said then. “And he actually shot the victim with an AR-15, and stole the vehicle. So that, itself, is going to necessitate the higher bail. And he is an extremely dangerous person, and thankfully he was arrested without incident — without, at least, anybody being injured.”
narvikk/iStockBy JON HAWORTH and EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 1 million people worldwide.
Over 33.7 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 criteria for diagnosis — through clinical means or a lab test — has varied from country-to-country. Still, 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 virus has rapidly spread to every continent except Antarctica.
The United States is the worst-affected country, with more than 7.1 million diagnosed cases and at least 206,351 deaths.
California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 816,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 767,000 cases and over 704,000 cases, respectively.
Nearly 190 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are being tracked by the World Health Organization, at least nine of which are in crucial phase three trials.
Here is how the news is developing Wednesday. All times Eastern:
Sep 30, 11:48 am Steelers-Titans game rescheduled to allow time for more COVID-19 tests
The Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans game, originally set for Sunday, will be rescheduled to allow more time for daily COVID-19 testing, the NFL said Wednesday.
ESPN reported that four Titans players and five team personnel members tested positive for COVID-19 this week.
The game will be played on Monday or Tuesday, the NFL said in a statement.
The Minnesota Vikings, who played the Titans over the weekend, have not reported any COVID-19 cases, an NFL spokesperson told ESPN.
Sep 30, 11:42 am Indoor dining begins in New York City as some neighborhoods see uptick in cases
Indoor dining begins in New York City on Wednesday, and Mayor Bill de Blasio said the nine zip codes in Brooklyn and Queens seeing upticks in cases will be the focus of city health inspectors.
“We will be looking carefully to make sure every restaurant is following the rules,” the mayor said. “If we see the kinds of violations that create problems — like employees not wearing a mask or a violation of the 25% limit, or alcohol being consumed at a bar — those are the kind of things that will lead to immediate summonses.”
“We certainly don’t want to see restaurants shut down, but we need to be very rigorous everywhere in the city, particularly in those zip codes,” de Blasio said.
On Wednesday 354 new daily COVID-19 cases were reported in the city and 87 people were admitted to hospitals.
New York City’s daily positive test rate in the last 24 hours stands at .94%. The seven-day rolling average positivity rate is at 1.46%.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
Sep 30, 11:14 am Fauci sets record straight on masks after presidential debate
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says President Donald Trump’s claims on Fauci’s stance on masks were “taken out of context” at Tuesday’s presidential debate.
During the debate Trump claimed Fauci initially said “masks are not good. Then he changed his mind.”
When Democratic nominee Joe Biden said if all Americans wore masks, and social-distanced between now and January, 100,000 lives could be saved, Trump responded, “Dr. Fauci said the opposite.”
Setting the record straight, Fauci told ABC News’ “Start Here” podcast, “Very early on in the pandemic … there was a shortage of PPE and masks for health care providers who needed them desperately since they were putting their lives and their safety on the line every day. So the feeling was that people who were wanting to have masks in the community, namely just people out in the street, might be hoarding masks and making the shortage of masks even greater. In that context, we said that we did not recommend masks.”
In the weeks that followed, Fauci said, “it became clear that they worked. Number two: it became clear that cloth coverings worked as well as surgical masks, so the idea of a shortage of masks that would take it away from those who really need it was no longer there because anybody could get a mask.”
Then, as scientists learned more from the data available, Fauci said they learned: “One: that about 40-45% of all the infections were among individuals who had no symptoms, namely asymptomatic infection. No. 2: it became clear that transmissions, a substantial proportion of them, are transmitted by people without symptoms. So then all of a sudden, it became clear that you would not know if you were infected or if the person that you were dealing with was infected. And at that point, it became clear that A: no shortage of masks, B: data now prove that masks work and 3: there clearly is asymptomatic transmission.”
“At that point, which is now months and months ago, I have been on the airways, on the radio, on TV, begging people to wear masks. And I keep talking in the context of wear a mask, keep physical distance, avoid crowds, wash your hands and do things more outdoors versus indoors,” Fauci said. “The other thing that became clear is, in fact, that there was likely a degree of aerosol transmission which make it even more compelling to wear a mask. So anybody who has been listening to me over the last several months know that a conversation does not go by where I do not strongly recommend that people wear masks.” ABC News’ Brad Mielke and David Rind contributed to this report.
Sep 30, 10:28 am Canada reports sharp rise in cases
Canada’s daily COVID-19 case count has reached a level not seen since the peak of daily cases in April, Canada’s chief public-health official Dr. Theresa Tam said on Wednesday.
“This increases the latest 7-day average to 1,471 cases reported daily across Canada,” Tam tweeted.
Most of the cases now are among younger people, she said.
Hospitalizations have been rising over the last few weeks in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia, she said.
2/4 🇨🇦’s daily #COVID19 case count has reached a level not seen since the peak of daily cases in April. This increases the latest 7-day average to 1,471 cases reported daily across Canada. Things are the same, only different…
“Things have escalated quickly and will escalate further unless we work together to #SlowtheSpread,” Tam warned.
Canada has over 159,000 people diagnosed with COVID-19. At least 9,340 people in the country have died, according to Johns Hopkins University data. ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.
Sep 30, 6:32 am Wisconsin reports highest number of deaths in a single day since late May
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported 17 deaths due to the novel coronavirus, which brought the total number of deaths in the state to 1,300 people.
The 17 deaths recorded Tuesday was the highest reported number in a single day since late May.
“We are in a crisis right now,” said Ryan Westergaard, DHS chief medical officer. “The likelihood that this is going to get much worse before it gets better is a real one.”
The number of people hospitalized due to the virus in Wisconsin was also higher than ever on Tuesday with 646 coronavirus patients occupying beds and 205 patients being treated in the ICU.
Additionally, the average new daily case count over the last seven days for the state was 2,255, the highest number yet.
Wisconsin also reported 2,367 new cases and 8,379 negative tests, for a positivity rate of 22%. The average positivity rate over the last seven days was 19.5%.
Sep 30, 4:59 am Kentucky on pace for record week of coronavirus cases
On Tuesday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear reported 1,018 new cases — the state’s second highest single-day increase since March 6.
“It ought to be a wake-up call,” Beshear said. “What that means is we are on pace to have even more cases than last week where we set a record number of cases.”
Kentucky is one of 22 states currently considered in the “red zone” for cases according to the latest White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing obtained by ABC News.
The official rate of positive tests, a seven-day average, remains below 5 percent, at 4.24 percent. In addition to the second-highest number of daily cases, Kentucky reported 72,808 new tests on Tuesday, the second-highest amount announced in a single day since the start of the pandemic. A total of 1,446,385 tests have been administered since early March.
Breonna Taylor FamilyBy KARMA ALLEN, EMILY SHAPIRO and SABINA GHEBREMEDHIN, ABC News
