September 29, 2020 • No Comments • National News

DNY59/iStockBy BILL HUTCHINSON, ABC News

(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — A Kentucky judge has ordered the release of audio recordings from the grand jury hearing in the Breonna Taylor case despite warnings from state Attorney General Daniel Cameron that the move could jeopardize a federal investigation and an admission that no homicide charges were recommended to the panel.

The decision by a Jefferson County Circuit Court judge came after an anonymous member of the grand jury who heard evidence in the high-profile case filed a motion asking that the transcripts and recordings of the three-day hearing be released. The grand juror also requested the judge allow members of the panel to speak publicly about the evidence they heard and the decision they reached.

“My client is ‘aggrieved,’ to use that term, that what was presented is not being publicly disclosed,” the grand juror’s attorney, Keven Glogower, said at a news conference on Tuesday morning.

“I think they (the grand jurors) were aware … there were certain questions that were left unanswered,” Glogower said. “It’s the accountability and the sense of public trust to make sure that everything that can get out there does and there was some concern that maybe it wasn’t.”

In a statement released Monday night, Cameron claimed that prosecutors presented “all of the evidence,” even though the evidence supported that two of the Louisville Metro police officers involved in the shooting, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove, “were justified in their use of force” after having been fired upon by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, when they busted open Taylor’s door.

The officers, who were serving a search warrant on Taylor’s apartment in the early morning hours of March 13, claimed they feared for their lives when Walker fired on them causing them to unleash a barrage of 32 shots, striking Taylor six times and killing her, according to statements made by Cameron.

“For that reason, the only charge recommended was wanton endangerment” against a third officer involved in the shooting, Brett Hankison, Cameron said.

Cameron did say last week that the prosecuting team walked the grand jury “through the homicide offense, and also presented all of the information that was available to the grand jury.”

“And then the grand jury was ultimately the one that made the decision about indicting Detective Hankison for wanton endangerment,” Cameron said.

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 citizens of the Commonwealth have demonstrated their lack of faith in the process and proceedings in this matter and the justice system itself,” reads the motion filed by the grand juror. “Using grand jurors as a shield to deflect accountability for these decisions only sows more seeds of doubt in the process while leaving a cold chill down the spine of future grand jurors.”

During his news conference on Tuesday, Glogower added, “I think the dangerous precedent to set more of a chilling effect of not letting the public in on what’s happening and trying to distort that level of secrecy to the extent that you’re, at least by appearance, not putting all of the truth out there.”

Attorneys for the Taylor family released a statement Tuesday, saying, “Daniel Cameron clearly failed to present a comprehensive case that supported justice for Breonna.”

“That conclusion is supported by the grand juror who came forward to say that the attorney general misrepresented the grand jury’s deliberations,” reads the joint statement from attorneys Benjamin Crump, Sam Aguiar and Lonita Baker. “We fully support the call to release the entire proceeding transcript as the only way to know what evidence was presented and how the grand jury instructions led to this outcome.”

Hankison, who was fired in June for violating police department policy in the shooting, was the only officer indicted in the case but not for Tayor’s death. The grand jury announced three felony counts of wanton endangerment against Hankison for firing shots into Taylor’s apartment that penetrated a wall of the residence of a white family next door to Taylor’s apartment.

Hankison pleaded not guilty to the charges during his arraignment on Monday.

Cameron said that none of the 10 shots fired by Hankison struck Taylor, while the bullets that did hit her were fired by Cosgrove and Mattingly. Citing an FBI ballistics analysis, he said Mattingly fired six shots and Cosgrove fired 16 bullets, including the fatal shot that hit Taylor.

Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Ann Bailey Smith ordered that recordings from the grand jury hearing be placed into the court record by noon on Wednesday despite objections from Cameron, who said he will comply with the judge’s order.

The judge’s decision was not based on the grand juror’s motion, since it was only filed Monday night and there hasn’t been a hearing. Judge Smith ordered the recording released as part of the normal trial rules of discovery.

“The Grand Jury is meant to be a secretive body. It’s apparent that the public interest in this case isn’t going to allow that to happen,” Cameron said in the statement he released Monday night. “As the special prosecutor, our team has an ethical obligation not to release the recording from the Grand Jury proceedings, and we stand by our belief that such a release could compromise the ongoing federal investigation and could have unintended consequences such as poisoning the jury pool. Despite these concerns, we will comply with the Judge’s order to release the recording on Wednesday.”

He said the release of the recording will also address part of the legal motion filed by an anonymous grand juror.

“We have no concerns with grand jurors sharing their thoughts on our presentation because we are confident in the case we presented,” Cameron said. Once the public listens to the recording, they will see that over the course of two-and-a-half days, our team presented a thorough and complete case to the Grand Jury.”

Attorneys for Taylor’s family have called the grand jury proceedings a “sham” and demanded last week that Cameron release the transcript of the entire hearing to see what evidence prosecutors from Cameron’s office presented to the panel.

The attorneys allege that prosecutors presented scant evidence, if any, that pertained to Taylor’s death, and cited at least eleven witnesses who dispute Cameron’s claim that the investigation showed the officers knocked on Taylor’s door and announced themselves before using a battering ram to force the door open.

He said one witness corroborated the police officers’ statements that they knocked and announced themselves before entering the apartment.

But Walker’s attorneys say the witness changed his story. They told ABC News that a week after the shooting, the individual claimed the officers did not identify themselves as police, yet two months later he said they did. Vice News published an alleged recording of the witness telling an investigator on March 21 that “nobody identified themselves.” ABC has not independently verified the audio.

During a news conference following the grand jury’s announcement on Wednesday, Cameron was emphatic in his statement that the bullet fired by Walker, who was armed with a licensed 9mm handgun, struck Mattingly in the thigh.

He went on to say that because Walker fired the first shot, Cosgrove and Mattingly were justified in returning fire to protect themselves.

“This justification bars us from pursuing charges in Ms. Breonna Taylor’s death,” Cameron said.

However, a ballistics report from the Kentucky State Police could not determine that Walker shot Mattingly, contradicting Cameron’s statements, according to records obtained by ABC News.

In an interview with ABC News, Steve Romines, one of Walker’s attorneys, said “the Kentucky State Police’s own ballistics report could not determine that Kenny’s shot is who hit Officer [Jonathan] Mattingly.”

A portion of the Kentucky State Police ballistic report obtained by ABC News indicates that the one shot fired by Walker “was neither identified nor eliminated as having been fired” from his weapon “due to the limited markings of comparative value.”

MORE: Breonna Taylor shooting case: Hankison indicted on wanton endangerment of neighbors
Walker, 27, a licensed gun owner, was initially charged with attempted murder and assault following the March incident, but those charges were dropped. He has since filed a civil lawsuit against the Louisville police department, claiming they never knocked or announced themselves before they forced open Taylor’s door.

Walker claimed he fired a warning shot because he initially thought the police officers, who were in plainclothes, were intruders. His civil suit also raises the possibility that Mattingly was wounded by friendly fire from one of the other officers, a scenario refuted by Cameron.

“Kenneth Walker fired the shot that hit Sgt. Mattingly and there’s no evidence to support that Sgt. Mattingly was hit by friendly fire from other officers,” Cameron said.

Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman and a certified emergency medical technician, was shot when the officers executed what a judge approved as a “no-knock” warrant based on a sworn affidavit from a detective that an ex-boyfriend of Taylor’s was sending packages of drugs to her apartment through the U.S. Postal Service.

Although a judge approved a “no-knock” warrant, Cameron said the officers were instructed beforehand to knock and announce their presence.

No drugs were found in Taylor’s apartment and lawyers for Taylor’s family allege the warrant was secured with an affidavit that contained lies.

The warrant required the police to verify with postal inspectors that the ex-boyfriend was receiving packages at Taylor’s address. But lawyers for Taylor’s family say the Louisville Postal Inspector denied that his office inspected packages sent to Taylor’s home as part of a drug-trafficking investigation.

Cameron, who was appointed special prosecutor in the case by Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, said the investigation his office conducted did not include looking into how the warrant was obtained. He said federal authorities are investigating that aspect.

It remains unclear if any evidence was presented to the grand jury about how the warrant was obtained.

In addition to investigating the warrant, federal authorities are also probing whether any civil rights violations occurred during the shooting. Federal officials have not commented on the progress of those investigations.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

September 29, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Ovidiu Dugulan/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 1 million people worldwide.

Over 33.3 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 205,085 deaths.

California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 812,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 761,000 cases and over 701,000 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’s how the news is developing Tuesday. All times Eastern:

Sep 29, 12:33 pm
New York City’s daily positivity rate tops 3% for 1st time in months

New York City’s daily rate of positive COVID-19 tests is above 3% “for the first time in months,” Mayor Bill de Blasio warned Tuesday.

The mayor has threatened to close schools if the seven-day rolling average is 3% or higher citywide. While the daily positivity rate now stands at 3.25%, the seven-day average remains below the mark for school closures at 1.38%.

“Obviously, everyone is concerned about that,” de Blasio told reporters. “We have to be on high alert to make sure we fight back this challenge.”

De Blasio said nine neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens are to blame for the uptick in cases. He also announced unspecified fines for anyone who refuses to wear a face covering, starting Tuesday.

“This is an inflection point,” he told reporters. “We have to take more action at this point and more serious action and we will be escalating with each day depending on what we see happening on the ground and the test results we are getting.”

The surge comes as hundreds of thousands of public elementary school students returned to classrooms across New York City on Tuesday for the first time in six months. Middle and high schools open later this week. About half of all families with children in New York City’s public school system opted for in-person classes, while the other half chose to keep kids home for remote learning.

ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.

Sep 29, 11:41 am
Analysis shows cases increasing in 32 US states

An ABC News analysis of COVID-19 trends across all 50 U.S. states as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico found there were increases in newly confirmed cases over the past two weeks in 32 states plus Puerto Rico.

The analysis also found increases in the daily positivity rate of COVID-19 tests in 20 states, increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations in 21 states and increases in daily COVID-19 death tolls in nine states.

The trends were all analyzed from data collected and published by the COVID Tracking Project over the past two weeks, using the linear regression trend line of the seven-day moving average.

One state — Kansas — saw a record rise in the daily number of new cases, while two states — Missouri and North Dakota — hit a record number of current COVID-19 hospitalizations.

The White House coronavirus task force’s latest weekly briefing for governors, obtained ABC News on Monday night, identified 22 states as currently in the “red zone” for COVID-19 cases, indicating more than 100 new cases per 100,000 population last week. There were 18 states in the “red zone” in last week’s briefing and 15 states in the one prior.

ABC News’ Benjamin Bell, Brian Hartman, Soorin Kim, Josh Margolin and Arielle Mitropolous contributed to this report.

Sep 29, 11:03 am
Tennessee Titans players, personnel test positive

The National Football League announced Tuesday that three players for the Tennessee Titans have tested positive for COVID-19 along with five of the team’s non-player personnel.

As a result, the Titans will suspend in-person club activities starting Tuesday. The Minnesota Vikings, who played the Titans on Sunday, will also suspend in-person club activities.

“Both clubs are working closely with the NFL and the NFLPA, including our infectious disease experts, to evaluate close contacts, perform additional testing and monitor developments,” the NFL said in a statement Tuesday. “All decisions will be made with health and safety as our primary consideration. We will continue to share updates as more information becomes available.”

Sep 29, 10:48 am
Cruise ship crew test negative in ‘possible false alarm’

A dozen crew members on a cruise ship docked off the coast of Greece have now tested negative for COVID-19 twice after initially testing positive, according to the ship’s operator TUI cruises.

The 12 crew members aboard the Mein Shiff 6 cruise liner tested positive for the virus on Monday and were immediately isolated, along with 24 other crew members who had come into contact with them. But those “unclear positive” results were later identified as negative by two further tests — PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests performed on the ship by TUI Cruises and rapid antigen tests conducted by Greek authorities in the port city of Piraeus, according to a press release from TUI Cruises.

“A further PCR test, carried out by Greek authorities, should confirm this again. The results are expected later today,” the company said in the statement Tuesday, calling the incident a “possible false alarm.”

None of the 12 crew members have shown any symptoms, and rapid antigen tests for the 24 close contacts also came back negative.

The ship departed Sunday night from the port city of Heraklion, the capital of the Greek island of Crete, with all 922 guests testing negative for COVID-19 prior to boarding. Crew members are tested for the virus every two weeks, according to a TUI spokesperson.

The company resumed cruise operations in late July in Germany and started sailing in Greece on Sept. 13, according to the spokesperson.

ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.

Sep 29, 8:50 am
University of Oxford currently not recruiting children for vaccine trial

A spokesperson for the University of Oxford told ABC News Tuesday that volunteers under the age of 18 are currently not being recruited into the clinical trail of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine.

“We have prioritized adults as there is strong evidence that children are much less likely than adults to become unwell with COVID-19,” the spokesperson said. “Whilst we do plan to run a trial in this age group, we first hope to generate evidence of the vaccine efficacy in adults, and as such cannot set a date for when the under 18 element of the trial may begin.”

The studies to assess the safety and efficacy of the so-called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine began in the United Kingdom in April. In addition to the U.K.-based trial, phase III studies have now begun in Brazil, South Africa and the United States to assess the vaccine in other populations, along with a related trial in India.

Sep 29, 7:58 am
Israel’s COVID-19 death rate per million overtakes US

Israel now has the world’s highest daily COVID-19 death rate per million people, surpassing that of the United States, according to a report published Tuesday morning by an Israeli military task force.

The report shows that the daily COVID-19 death rate over the past week has been 3.5 per million people in Israel and 2.2 per million people in the United Staes.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to have the world’s highest weekly COVID-19 infection rate per million people, followed by France and the United States, according to the report from the task force, which was formed by the Israel Defense Force’s Military Intelligence Directorate and advises the country’s health ministry.

The report also shows that the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in critical condition has increased by 70% over the last month and is 10 times higher than three months ago.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Israel has reported more than 233,000 confirmed cases with over 1,500 deaths, according to data from the country’s health ministry.

Israel entered its second nationwide coronavirus lockdown on Sept. 18, as the Jewish High Holidays began. The country’s health minister, Yuli Edelstein, said Tuesday that there was “no way” the lockdown would be lifted after three weeks as originally planned.

Sep 29, 6:40 am
Moscow extends school vacation due to rising cases

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin announced Tuesday that fall break for all schools will be extended from one week to two, due to rising COVID-19 cases in Russia’s capital.

“On the recommendation of sanitary doctors, taking into account the autumn increase in colds and the growth of the number of identified cases of COVID, I decided to prolong the duration of the autumn holidays to two weeks and to hold them at the same time in all schools — from October 5 to 18,” Sobyanin said in a message to parents and students, which was posted on his official website.

There will be no remote learning during the break. Moscow’s kindergartens and preschool groups will continue working as usual, according to Sobyanin.

The mayor urged families to use this time as “an opportunity” to reduce the spread of COVID-19. He advised children against visiting shopping malls or riding public transportation “for fun.”

“I very much ask parents to explain to their children that it is best to spend holiday time at home or in the countryside,” he said. “Today, a significant part of those infected, often asymptomatic, are children. When they come home, they very easily transmit the virus to adults and elderly family members, who suffer much more severely from the illness.”

The move comes as Moscow confirmed some 2,300 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, the city’s highest daily tally since May 31. The daily growth of cases in the capital stands at 0.8%, according to Russia’s coronavirus response headquarters.

Sep 29, 5:21 am
US reports more than 33,000 new cases

There were 33,037 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Sunday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Sunday’s tally is far below the country’s record set on July 16, when there were 77,255 new cases in a 24-hour-reporting period.

An additional 316 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded Sunday, down from a peak of 2,666 new fatalities reported on April 17.

A total of 7,149,072 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 205,085 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country’s cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up and crossing 70,000 for the first time in mid-July. The daily tally of new cases has gradually come down since then but has hovered around 40,000 in recent weeks.

An internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency obtained by ABC News on Monday night shows that the number of new cases recorded in the United States is continuing to increase significantly while the number of new deaths decreased slightly in week-over-week comparisons.

Sep 29, 4:52 am
Researchers find rapid rise in pediatric COVID-19 cases across US

The amount of children infected by the novel coronavirus in the United States has increased dramatically in recent months, according to new research by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

Researchers found that the number of pediatric COVID-19 cases rose between April and September from 2.2% to 10% of all cumulative reported cases nationwide. As of Sept. 10, there was a cumulative total of 549,432 pediatric COVID-19 cases in the United States, a rate of 729 cases per 100,000 children, according to the study, which was published online Tuesday and will appear in the December issue of Pediatrics, the official flagship journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“These rising numbers concern us greatly, as the children’s cases reflect the increasing virus spread in our communities,” Dr. Sally Goza, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement. “While children generally don’t get as sick with the coronavirus as adults, they are not immune and there is much to learn about how easily they can transmit it to others. We must keep our children — and each other — healthy by following the recommended safety measures like washing hands, wearing cloth face coverings and staying 6 feet apart from others.”

The researchers analyzed trends in reported cases over the five-month period using data from U.S. public health department websites. The study notes that the data is limited because states differ in how they report the information. It’s unclear how much of the increase in pediatric cases was due to increased testing capacity. However, data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the share of all COVID-19 tests administered to children under 18 has remained stable at 5-7% since late April, according to the study.

Researchers found substantial variation in case growth by region. In April, a preponderance of pediatric cases was in the Northeast. In June, cases surged in the South and West, followed by increases in the Midwest in mid-July, according to the study.

Researchers also found that the portion of newly reported COVID-19 cases among children has increased substantially over time. Less than 3% of cases reported the week ending April 23 were pediatric. In the last eight weeks, children represented 12-15.9% of newly reported cases each week, according to the study.

As of Sept. 10, children represented 1.7% of total hospitalizations and 0.07% of total deaths, while 0.01% of pediatric cases resulted in death, according to the study.

“We will continue to closely monitor children’s cases, with hopes of seeing the upward trend turn around,” Goza said. “We encourage parents to call their pediatricians and get their children into the office for well visits and vaccinations, especially now that some schools are reopening and flu season has arrived.”

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

September 28, 2020 • No Comments • National News

eyfoto /iStockBY: ERIN SCHUMAKER, ABC NEWS

(MIAMI) — Florida residents will no longer be fined for not wearing face masks and COVID-19 restrictions on all businesses in the state, including restaurants and bars, have been lifted in an effort to help the state’s economy, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Every business has the right to operate,” DeSantis said at news conference Friday. “Some of the locals can do reasonable regulations. But you can’t just say no.”

Local governments can put their own restrictions in place as long as they don’t limit restaurant seating to less than 50% occupancy. Local officials will be required to justify restrictions that limit a restaurant’s occupancy to less than 100% capacity.

Florida logged nearly 2,000 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday and the state’s total number of cases tops 700,000.

In addition to infections, at least 14,037 residents have died of the virus, according to the state health department.

A report released by the state health department Monday found that the state’s positivity rate ranged from 5.33% to 7.54% over the past two weeks, which is higher than the threshold recommended by health experts.

A high positivity rate can be a sign that a state is only testing its sickest patients and failing to cast a net wide enough to accurately capture community transmission, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The World Health Organization recommends that governments get their positivity testing threshold below 5%.

Despite the state’s fluctuating positivity rate, DeSantis has said Florida plans to move forward with hosting “a full Super Bowl” in Tampa in February.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

September 28, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Myriam Borzee/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 998,000 people worldwide.

Over 33.1 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 204,778 deaths.

California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 809,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 758,000 cases and over 700,000 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’s how the news is developing Monday. All times Eastern:

Sep 28, 10:41 am
Russia reports over 8,000 new cases for 1st time since mid-July

Russia confirmed 8,135 new cases of COVID-19 over the last 24 hours, the country’s highest single-day increase since mid-July.

An additional 61 coronavirus-related deaths were also recorded in the past day, according to Russia’s coronavirus response headquarters.

Russia’s cumulative total now stands at 1,159,573 confirmed cases and 20,385 deaths.

Almost 27% of the newly confirmed cases — 2,217 — were registered in the capital, Moscow.

The daily number of new infections has been on the rise in Russia this month, suggesting the country is entering the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic that is hitting Europe. Unlike other European nations, however, Russia has effectively returned to near-normal life in recent months with few restrictions observed.

Bars, cinemas, nightclubs and restaurants have reopened while social distancing rules exist more or less only on paper. Although face masks are mandatory on public transportation in Moscow and other major cities, few people seem to oblige and police are not enforcing it for now. Still, some shops have been shut down in the capital for failing to observe quarantine rules.

Last week, amid the surge of new cases, Moscow’s mayor issued new advice recommending people older than 65 as well as at-risk groups to stay at home. Employers have also been requested to allow as many people as possible to work from home. Meanwhile, Russia’s public health watchdog has called on people to congregate less in public places.

Over the weekend, Russia’s top medical adviser said the growth in cases was expected as it’s primarily the result of colder weather and the start of the traditional flu season.

However, the health system in Saint Petersburg is already showing signs of strain. A long queue of ambulances has appeared outside a COVID-19 hospital in the city, as it did during the height of the country’s epidemic in April. Officials said last week that just 6% of the city’s hospital beds remain free.

Last month, Russia became the first country in the world to officially register a COVID-19 vaccine and declare it ready for use. The Russian government approved the vaccine before completing its final Phase III trial, eliciting criticism from experts around the globe.

ABC News Alina Lobzina and Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.

Sep 28, 8:19 am
‘We’re not in a good place,’ Fauci warns

The United States is “not in a good place” as some areas report upticks in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious diseases expert.

“As we get into the fall and the winter, you really want the level of community spread to be as low as you possibility get it,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, told ABC News in an interview Monday on Good Morning America.

“There’s certainly parts of the country that are doing well,” he added. “But … there are states that are starting to show uptick in cases and even some increases in hospitalizations in some states. And, I hope not but, we very well might start seeing increases in deaths.”

“You don’t want to be in a position like that as the weather starts getting cold,” he warned. “So we really need to intensify the public health measures that we talk about all the time.”

When asked about Florida’s recent decision to ease restrictions by reopening bars and restaurants, Fauci called it “very concerning.”

“That is something that we really need to be careful about, because when you’re dealing with community spread and you have the kind of congregate setting where people get together particularly without masks, you’re really asking for trouble,” he said. “Now’s the time actually to double down a bit.”

That doesn’t mean another shutdown, he noted.

“We’re not talking about shutting anything down. We’re talking about common sense type of public health measures that we’ve been talking about all along,” he said. “Obviously, if things really explode you’d have to consider that. But we want to do everything we possibly can to avoid an absolute shutdown.”

As the global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic edges closer to one million, Fauci warned that the situation is “very serious.”

“You got to take it very seriously,” he said.

Sep 28, 6:43 am
Bars, restaurants close in Marseille area amid rising infections

Bars and restaurants in the French port city of Marseille and nearby Aix-en-Provence were forced to shut their doors on Sunday night for a week, as part of local measures to stem rising COVID-19 infections.

The situation will be reassessed after seven days, and the closures could be extended another week. The affected businesses are allowed to operate delivery and take-out services in the meantime.

“The virus is still circulating, and our battle continues,” French Health Minister Olivier Veran wrote on Twitter Sunday. “I understand the anger at the closure of bars [and] restaurants in Marseille, Aix, and the time limits in other cities. But this decision is neither final nor arbitrary: it limits the spread of the virus [and] avoids the saturation of hospitals.”

Bars and restaurant owners in Marseille took to the streets Monday to protest the closures. One protester held a sign that read, “Veran killed me.”

France is not the only country seeing a resurgence in COVID-19 cases. Other European nations including Spain and the United Kingdom are also grappling with growing outbreaks.

Sep 28, 7:53 am
Missouri again reports record-high COVID-19 hospitalizations

There were 1,125 patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 across Missouri on Sunday, the highest number the U.S. state has reported since the start of the pandemic.

It was the third straight day that Missouri had logged a record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations. There were 1,068 patients on Friday and 1,101 on Saturday, according to data from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

Overall, Missouri has confirmed 123,406 COVID-19 cases with 2,063 deaths. The state’s seven-day positivity rate for COVID-19 tests stands at 11.8%, according to the health department.

Sep 28, 5:55 am
US reports nearly 37,000 new cases

There were 36,919 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Sunday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Sunday’s tally is well below the country’s record set on July 16, when there were 77,255 new cases in a 24-hour-reporting period.

An additional 266 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded Sunday, down from a peak of 2,666 new fatalities reported on April 17.

A total of 7,115,338 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 204,758 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country’s cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up and crossing 70,000 for the first time in mid-July. The daily tally of new cases has gradually come down since then but has hovered around 40,000 in recent weeks.

An internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency obtained by ABC News on Friday night shows that the number of new cases recorded in the United States is continuing to increase significantly while the number of new deaths is decreasing substantially in week-over-week comparisons.

Sep 28, 4:55 am
India’s case count tops six million

India confirmed another 82,170 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, pushing its tally soaring past six million.

An additional 1,039 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded. The country’s cumulative total now stands at 6,074,703 confirmed cases and 95,542 deaths, according to the latest data from the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

India is only the second country in the world to surpass six million total cases. The vast county of 1.3 billion people has the highest COVID-19 infection rate of anywhere in the world. It’s expected to become the pandemic’s worst-hit nation within the coming weeks, overtaking the United States, where more than 7.1 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19.

India also has the highest number of recovered COVID-19 patients in the world, with more than five million people who have survived the disease. The country’s recovery rate stands at 82%, according to the health ministry.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

September 27, 2020 • No Comments • National News

MattGush/iStockBY: BILL HUTCHINSON, ABC NEWS

(NEW YORK) — At least 28 people were arrested overnight as civil unrest continued in Louisville over a grand jury’s controversial decision in the Breonna Taylor case.

Tensions have boiled over in the streets of Kentucky’s largest city in the days since a grand jury declined to indict three white police officers in the death of Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman shot in her own apartment in March.

Police began arresting people as soon as a 9 p.m. curfew imposed by Mayor Greg Fischer went into effect Saturday, authorities said.

Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officials said in a Twitter post that just before the curfew started, orders were given over loudspeakers for protesters to clear out of Jefferson Square Park in the downtown area. Officials said the orders to disperse were made when police officers saw people “gathering plywood shields and other items that could be used as weapons” and gleaned from media reports that demonstrators were intending to engage in a standoff with police.

While many protesters left the area, police said a large group sought sanctuary at the First Unitarian Church, several blocks from the park.

Just before midnight, according to police, a small group of people left the church and set pieces of wood police described as “plywood shields” on fire in the street outside the church and began causing destruction in the area.

Many windows at Spalding University, a private Catholic school, and at nearby Presentation Academy, a women’s college-preparatory high school, were smashed, police said.

LMPD officials released police helicopter surveillance footage of several people apparently throwing objects through the windows of a car parked on the Spalding University campus, and two people lighting an incendiary device and throwing it inside the car, causing a small explosion and fire.

The FBI field office in Louisville tweeted that it is working with Louisville police to identify the individuals who set the car on fire.

Around 2 a.m., police tweeted that 28 people had been arrested on Saturday night and into Sunday morning.

During protests Wednesday night, two Louisville police officers were wounded in shootings and a suspect was arrested. The suspected gunman, Larynzo Johnson, 26, who is jailed on $1 million bond, was charged with two counts of assault on a police officer and 14 counts of wanton endangerment of a police officer. He has yet to enter a plea.

The protests in Louisville, which have been ongoing for more than 120 days, were refueled on Wednesday when a Jefferson County grand jury announced that none of the police officers involved in the shooting that left Taylor dead in her apartment were indicted for her death.

Only one officer involved in the shooting that killed Taylor was indicted by the grand jury. Brett Hankison, who was fired in June for violating police department policy during the Taylor shooting, was charged with three counts of felony wanton endangerment for firing errant shots into Taylor’s apartment that penetrated a wall and went in the residence of a white family.

State Attorney General Daniel Cameron said at a news conference following the grand jury’s announcement that Hankison, Officer Myles Cosgrove and Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly fired a total of 32 shots into Taylor’s apartment while serving a search warrant on March 13.

Cameron claimed the officers opened fire when Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired at them first with a licensed gun hitting Mattingly in the leg when the officers forced open the front door in the early morning hours.

Taylor, dressed in her nightclothes, was shot six times by bullets fired by Cosgrove and Mattingly, Cameron said, adding that an FBI ballistics analysis determined that the one fatal shot came from Cosgrove’s 40-caliber weapon. He said that none of the shots fired by Hankison struck Taylor.

Cameron said the investigation showed Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in their use of force because Walker shot at the officers first and they returned fire to protect themselves.

“This justification bars us from pursuing charges in Ms. Breonna Taylor’s death,” Cameron said.

Cameron also said the investigation determined that the officers, who had a “no-knock” warrant, knocked first on Taylor’s door and announced themselves before ramming the door open. He cited an independent witness who corroborated that scenario.

On Friday, Taylor’s family and their attorneys called on Cameron to release the transcripts of the three-day grand jury proceedings, alleging Cameron’s office presented scant evidence, if any at all, specific to Taylor’s shooting, thereby assuring no charges would be filed in the death of the emergency medical technician. The lawyers also disputed Cameron’s claim that the officers knocked and announced themselves before forcing their way into Taylor’s apartment, saying a dozen other people at the apartment complex, including Walker, say they did not hear the plainclothes police officers make their presence known before the barrage of gunfire rang out.

The grand jury’s announcement followed a $12 million settlement Taylor’s family reached earlier this month with the city of Louisville in a wrongful-death lawsuit Tayor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, filed in April. The settlement, which lawyers for the Taylor family say is the largest ever paid out for a Black woman killed in an alleged police misconduct case, also includes an agreement from the city to implement major reforms in the police department in hopes of preventing a similar tragedy from occurring.

The FBI is still investigating how the warrant for Taylor’s apartment was obtained. Lawyers for Taylor’s family alleged the affidavit for the warrant in a drug trafficking investigation targeting Taylor’s ex-boyfriend contained lies.

Cameron conceded that his office did not look into the warrant as part of its investigation.

The Department of Justice is also investigating to determine if any civil rights violations occurred in Taylor’s shooting, and an LMPD internal probe has been launched to determine if six officers involved in the drug trafficking case that led to Taylor’s death violated department policies.

During the news conference in Louisville with Taylor’s relatives on Friday, activist Tamika Mallory, who has been leading the protests in Louisville, slammed Cameron, Kentucky’s first African American attorney general, as an advocate for the police and traitor of the Black community.

“We are not going home,” said Mallory of New York. “We will make sure that this city is as uncomfortable as it can be and we intend to travel across the state of Kentucky and make sure that in every corner of this state they know who you are Daniel Cameron and who is upholding the system of white supremacy that continues to oppress our people.”

Mallory added that until the officers involved in Taylor’s shooting and the investigation that led to the tragedy are fired from the police department, “I promise you, we will make these streets hot.”

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.