Hurricane Dorian ravaged the Bahamas, killing at least 50 people. As the clean-up operation continues, the death toll is expected to rise. About 1,300 people are missing after Dorian, while at least 15,000 are in need of shelter, food and medical care. Compounding the Bahamas’ misery is a massive oil spill that’s begun to spread into the ocean off the southern coast of Grand Bahama island after Hurricane Dorian blew the lids off six giant crude oil tanks.
Dorian was packing Category 5 winds with speeds of 185mph when it made landfall at Elbow Cay on the Abacos on September 1st. It is the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the Atlantic basin since 1935. Rescue efforts were hampered as Dorian stalled, grinding in place for hours instead of moving back over open ocean. It equaled the highest winds ever recorded for a hurricane at landfall when it struck the Abaco Islands.
On the Abaco island chain, which is less developed than the tourist areas of the country and populated by fishermen and Haitian migrants — thousands of homes are expected to have been damaged or destroyed. A Redcross spokesman said it is believed that 13,000 houses — nearly half of all the homes on Grand Bahama and Abaco — suffered severe damage or were entirely destroyed. During the storm, images showed profound levels of flooding and rainfall, with as much as 30 inches falling in some areas. The Grand Bahama International Airport in Freeport, the archipelago’s second-largest city, was five feet underwater.
United Nations officials say that over 60,000 people on the two islands need emergency food access, and that around 62,000 need access to clean water. The main hospital on Grand Bahama is reportedly unusable, while the hospital on Abaco desperately requires food, water, and medical supplies. The U.N. estimated that at least 70,000 people are homeless on Abaco and Grand Bahama. More than 5,000 people have been evacuated from those islands to New Providence, where the country’s capital Nassau is located. The Minister of Health, Dr. Duane Sands, said 80 people with injuries were evacuated from the island of Abaco and five or six from Grand Bahama island. He said injuries ranged from broken bones to head injuries to “maternity-based issues.” Sands said some among the dead succumbed to their injuries after being evacuated. The Prime Minister encouraged parents to send their kids to school when they are evacuated to Nassau, and said the government would continue to provide food and healthcare.
The devastation wrought by Dorian after its day-and-a-half mauling of the Bahamas, left ravaged infrastructure that has impeded search and recovery efforts. The islands remain a mess of splintered buildings, torn-off roofs, snapped power poles and scattered vehicles. The hurricane destroyed the island’s power grid and severed most communications, although occasional text messages were getting through in Marsh Harbor, the biggest town. Risk modeler Karen Clark & Co. estimates that devastation from the storm could cost the country $7 billion in insured and uninsured losses. The preliminary estimate combines damage to commercial, residential and industrial properties as well as business-interruption expenses, the company said in a report. The figure doesn’t include vehicle losses or damage to infrastructure.
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A patient in Illinois is believed to be the first death linked to vaping. Health officials said the patient died after contracting a severe respiratory illness, but did not give details about what the patient was vaping or which device was used. They did not provide details about the patient’s identity, saying only that the person was an adult who had vaped recently and then succumbed to a severe respiratory illness.
This comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified nearly 200 possible cases of lung disease linked to vaping in at least 22 states, including 22 cases in Illinois. The Illinois patients range in age from 17 to 38. Illinois state officials are working with local health departments to investigate another 12 individuals. Officials said earlier this week that many patients, most of whom were adolescents or young adults, had described difficulty breathing, chest pain, vomiting and fatigue. The most seriously ill patients have had extensive lung damage that required treatment with oxygen and days on a ventilator. Some are expected to have permanent lung damage.
Many patients have acknowledged vaping of tetrahydrocannabinol, or (T.H.C.), the high-inducing chemical in marijuana, according to statements from federal and state health agencies. Officials still don’t know whether the ailments have been caused by marijuana-type products, e-cigarettes, or some type of street concoction that was vaped, or whether a contaminant or defective device may have been involved.
The F.D.A. does not regulate what ingredients are used in vaping devices. The e-cigarette market has broadened to counterfeiters and a range of devices that can be packed with different substances, including marijuana, but also various flavors and concoctions that may be mixed inexpertly. Some speculate that people are emptying out commercial nicotine pods and filling them up with a combination of T.H.C. oil and other chemicals. Cannabis liquids and oils have become more widely available online and in many stores. The ingredients may not be disclosed at all so unsuspecting consumers may be exposed to a cocktail of hazardous chemicals.
State health departments are handling most investigations into the respiratory illnesses. So far, public health officials have declined to say if they are seeing a pattern that would make clear whether the problematic products are made by mass-market companies or counterfeiters, or whether the inhalants involved are standard to many vaping products or made or mixed by consumers themselves. Even though cases appear similar, it is not clear whether all these cases have a common cause or whether they are different diseases with similar symptoms.
Dozens of young people with an unidentified lung illness have been hospitalized around the country in recent weeks. It’s unclear if the condition is linked to the vaping devices or what the patients were smoking before they became sick. A recent study says that e-cigarettes impact people’s blood vessels after a single use. Officials said they don’t know why a surge of illnesses is surfacing now since various forms of the battery-powered e-cigarette devices have existed for more than a decade. E-cigarettes have grown in popularity over the past decade despite little research on their long-term effects. Millions of Americans use e-cigarettes, with the greatest use among young adults. Lat year, more than 3.6 million U.S. middle and high school students said they had used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days, according to the CDC.
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Thirteen Hours after El Paso’s horrific attack, in the early hours of Sunday morning, a gunman opened fire with a high-caliber rifle outside a bar in a popular downtown entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio, killing nine people and wounding 27 others. The attack took less than a minute and police killed the suspect at the scene. The shooter was identified as 24-year-old Connor Betts. The victims were mostly in their twenties and thirties, and one of the victims, Megan Betts, was the gunman’s sister.
According to the timeline of the shooting released by police, Betts, his sister, Megan Betts, and a friend arrived together to the Oregon District of Dayton at 11:04 p.m. Saturday and went to a bar named Blind Bob’s. Betts split off from the two and went to another bar called Ned Peppers at 12:14 a.m., and after 30 minutes he went back to the vehicle in a parking lot to gather the weapon and change clothes, Biehl said. With a weapon in his backpack, Betts walked toward an alley and began firing into Blind Bob’s at 1:04 a.m., authorities said. Based on a timeline pieced together from security cameras, police engaged with him after less than 20 seconds and Betts was killed 32 seconds after his first shot.
Police say Betts knew that his sister and friend were still in the area when he opened fire because they had been texting and talked in a phone call. Investigators are still divided on whether he intentionally sought out and killed his sister and injured the friend. Authorities said they do not know his immediate motivation — why this location at this time and these victims but they have uncovered a violent mindset. Police say Bates has a history of threatening women, and former classmates say he had a “kill list” and a “rape list” in high school. Investigators have gathered evidence showing he had an obsession with violence and had expressed a desire to commit a mass shooting.
Comments from police, memories from former classmates and posts on his apparent Twitter account show he had a deep interest in violence — as well as the easy access to high-powered guns that is the common thread of all American mass shooters. Two former high-school classmates stated that the gunman was suspended from Bellbrook High School after he made lists of other students he wanted to kill and rape. The “hit list” was discovered in early 2012 and resulted in a police investigation. The suspect’s high-school girlfriend stated that at the time they dated, he had complained of visual and auditory hallucinations, and psychosis, and was afraid of developing schizophrenia.
Authorities say the rifle used in the shooting was ordered online from Texas and transferred to the suspect at a local firearms dealer. Police also found a shotgun, acquired from a separate local firearms dealer, in the shooter’s nearby vehicle. During a search of the gunmen’s home, police found writings that showed interest in killing people and a preliminary assessment did not indicate he had a racial or political motive.
The gunman’s friend, Ethan Kollie, was arrested on federal firearms charges for allegedly possessing a firearm while using or addicted to a controlled substance and falsely filling out a firearms application form. Authorities also accused Kollie of providing Betts with the body armor and a 100-round double-drum magazine used in the Dayton attack. In an interview with federal agents, Kollie said he had done hard drugs, marijuana and LSD with Betts several times a week between 2014 and 2015, the affidavit says. Prosecutors emphasized that Kollie did not intentionally help plan the shootings.
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A Northern California gunman, 19-year-old Santino William Legan, killed three people and wounded at least 19 others at the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival. Legan died at the scene of a self-inflicted gunshot wound while exchanging fire with police. Authorities say they are still determining a motive for the attack, but the gunman’s social media activity shows him promoting a manifesto on white supremacy just moments before the rampage. He also wrote in a post Sunday, “Why overcrowd towns and pave more open space to make room for hordes of mestizos and Silicon Valley white twats?”
Authorities say the gunman used an assault rifle that was purchased legally in Nevada. The AK-47-style weapon could not have been legally purchased in his home state of California because of stricter gun regulations. Six-year-old Stephen Romero was the youngest victim of the shooting. Another child, 13-year-old Keyla Salazar, and 25-year-old student Trevor Irby also lost their lives in the massacre. At least 19 victims were treated at area hospitals, including some who were treated but not admitted. The patients ranged in age from 12 to 69; 11 had gunshot injuries and eight had other injuries.
Police say Legan entered the festival by cutting through a wire fence along Uvas Creek, thus evading security screening. He began shooting at random with an assault-style rifle he bought in Nevada weeks earlier, authorities said. Police believe he acted alone. Officers at the scene reportedly engaged the shooter within a minute of the start of the shooting. The police chief credited the fast response to a heavy police presence with “many, many officers in the park”. The three officers who fired their handguns have been hailed heroes for engaging the shooter so quickly. All three have been placed on administrative leave.
Legan appeared to post a photograph from the festival on his Instagram account soon before the shooting, with captions expressing his disdain for the event. “Ayyy garlic festival time,” he wrote beneath a picture of people walking through the festival grounds. “Come get wasted on overpriced s***.” Another photograph posted on Sunday showed a sign warning of a high danger of forest fires. Its caption urged people to read “Might is Right,” a racist and sexist treatise written in the 19th century.
“Why overcrowd towns and pave more open space to make room for hordes of mestizos and Silicon Valley white twats?” the caption said, referring to people of mixed race. The account was only a few days old, and was deactivated a day after the shooting.
The city’s Police Chief Scot Smithee identified the officers as Eric Cryar, a 23-year law enforcement veteran; Hugo Del Moral, a 17-year veteran and Robert Basuino, a 13-year veteran of the Gilroy department. Smithee described his officers as incredibly humble. “I think they’re heroes. I don’t think they view themselves that way,” Smithee said. “I think they view themselves that they were just doing their job. And I don’t think they’re particularly excited about being in the limelight, but I certainly think that they deserve recognition for what they did.”
Police and FBI agents were trying to determine a motive for the shooting. “As we look at the injuries and the victims that are out there, it doesn’t seem clear that he was targeting any particular group,” said John Bennett, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco office.
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Two British Columbia teenagers previously considered to be missing are now suspects in the murder of a young couple and the death of an unidentified man in northern B.C. Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, were last spotted in northern Saskatchewan and police believe they are the run. McLeod is described as 6’4”, approximately 169 pounds, with dark brown hair and facial hair and brown eyes. Schmegelsky is described as 6’4”, approximately 169 pounds, with sandy brown hair. The police issued a warning to the public not to approach McLeod and Schmegelsky, saying they are considered dangerous.
Police initially investigated the disappearance of McLeod and Schmegelsky as missing cases. But they say there’s now evidence to consider them suspects in the three murders. Australian Lucas Fowler, 23, and his American girlfriend Chynna Deese, 24, a young couple on a 3 week road trip through Canada to Alaska were found shot dead on the side of a road in a remote section of the Alaska Highway. Police believe they were killed sometime between July 14 and July 15.
Deese’s brother said that the couple met while his sister was working at a hostel in Croatia. He called their relationship “the most perfect love story.” He said Deese and Fowler were both experienced travelers and took precautions while visiting other countries. “For something like that to happen, it must have really been something because these are two people that have traveled around the world and were not, were not people to get caught off guard.”
Just days later, the burned-out truck belonging to the two teens was found on Highway 37 near Dease Lake in northern B.C. The body of an unknown man was found nearby. Police released a sketch of the unidentified deceased man in the hopes the public would be able to help identify him. He’s been described as between the age of 50 and 60 with a heavy build, grey hair, and a beard. The man would have been between 5’8” and 5’10” tall.
Another burned-out vehicle was found abandoned near Bird. It was not clear if this vehicle was linked to McLeod and Schmegelsky in any way but police believe the two may be switching out vehicles. Port Alberni’s Mayor says the small town where the teens’ are from has been greatly impacted by the developing situation. “We are a small community, and whether you know the boys or the community, everyone is connected in one way or another,” Mayor Sharie Minions. “It’s definitely challenging, it has far reaching impacts for sure.”
McLeod and Schmegelsky are described as lifelong friends who were former employees at a local Walmart. They were believed to be traveling while looking for work but had dropped out of contact for several days before the first bodies were found. The police named them as suspects in the murders during a press conference but did not release any additional information about McLeod or Schmegelsky, citing the ongoing nature of the investigations.
Former RCMP Deputy Commissioner Peter German said McLeod and Schmegelsky’s fast progression from missing persons to suspects shows the impressive speed of the ongoing investigation. “I don’t think anyone would have expected this turn of events but I think that says something that the police are ahead of the game on this one.” The former commissioner said investigators would have reasonable suspicion and enough evidence to publically name the teens as suspects. “They’ve obviously got forensics or witness identification of some sort that point to these two individuals. That’s not to assume guilt at all,” he said.
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Federal prosecutors charged financier Jeffrey Epstein with one count of sex trafficking of a minor and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking on July 8 2019. Epstein was first arrested at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on July 6, after arriving back in the United States from France. Federal prosecutors also searched his New York City home over the weekend and news outlets report that during the search of his townhouse, investigators seized photographs of nude underage girls, federal prosecutors said. Epstein has pleaded not guilty on both charges. If convicted of the charges, Epstein faces a maximum of 45 years.
A federal judge in New York has denied bail to Jeffrey Epstein, declaring him a danger to the community and a significant flight risk. U.S. District Judge Richard Berman pointed to a raid by investigators on Epstein’s mansion earlier this month that found “piles of cash,” stashes of diamonds and an expired passport with Epstein’s photo next to someone else’s name listed under a Saudi address. Prosecutors accused the serial child sex abuser of possible witness tampering, saying he made payments totaling $350,000 to two people he feared could testify against him in court.
Court documents say “over the course of many years, Jeffrey Epstein, the defendant, sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations.” It also notes that “in order to maintain and increase his supply of victims, Epstein also paid some of his victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused.” The prosecution alleges that he sexually assaulted girls as young as 14 years old.
Epstein started his career in New York City as a math teacher at the Dalton School, but went to work at the investment bank Bear Stearns in the 1970s before founding his own firm, J. Epstein and Co., in 1982. According to Vox, he specifically marketed his services to “those with assets worth more than $1 billion,” and operates his company out of the U.S. Virgin Islands for tax reasons. Throughout the years, Epstein belonged to a high society social circle that included politicians and elitists.
Epstein’s bust comes months after a federal judge ruled his 2007 non-prosecution agreement —violated federal law by keeping Epstein’s victims in the dark. Under the sweetheart deal, Epstein dodged federal charges that might have sent him to prison for life. He instead pleaded guilty in 2008 to felony state charge of solicitation of prostitution involving a minor and sentenced to 18 months in jail. He served 13 months in a private wing of a county jail, mostly on work release, which allowed him to commute to an office outside the jail six days a week. He also registered as a sex offender. Many say it was a slap on the wrist for someone accused of abusing dozens of underage Florida girls.
“It’s been a long time coming—it’s been too long coming,” said attorney David Boies, who represents Epstein accusers Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Sarah Ransome. “It is an important step towards getting justice for the many victims of Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking enterprise. “We hope that prosecutors will not stop with Mr. Epstein because there were many other people who participated with him and made the sex trafficking possible.”
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A seven-member military jury panel has acquitted Navy SEAL Chief Edward Gallagher, 40, on charges of murder, witness intimidation, and assault. The charges stemmed from a 2017 deployment in Iraq during which fellow SEALs said Gallagher stabbed a captive teenage ISIS fighter in the neck. The ISIS fighter, whom Gallagher was treating for air-strike injuries, later died. Three SEALs also said they saw Gallagher shoot two civilians. The jurors found Gallagher guilty of one count related to pictures he took next to the corpse of the Iraqi fighter.
After the verdict was read, Gallagher, his wife and his defense team stood up and began hugging. Gallagher told reporters after the verdict was read: “I’m happy and I’m thankful. I thank God, and my legal team and my wife.” He still faces the impending sentencing for wrongful posing for photos with a human casualty but his according to his defense attorney Tim Parlatore “We have a sentencing to do, but the maximum sentence on what they’re about to sentence him on is much less than the time that they’ve already had him in the brig, so he is going home.” The same jury that tried Gallagher sentenced him on July 3, 2019, for posing with the corpse. The jury gave Gallagher, who served the maximum prison time for this charge, a demotion from Chief Petty Officer (E-7) to Petty Officer First Class (E-6); a lighter sentence than other potential punishments, such as an other than honorable discharge (OTH).
The jury of five Marines and two sailors — one of whom is a SEAL — had to decide if the boy was stabbed to death, or died from wounds sustained during an airstrike with Gallagher being falsely accused by disgruntled subordinates. Seven SEALs testified that Gallagher abruptly stabbed the teen prisoner on May 3, 2017, just after he and other medics treated the boy. Two of them said they witnessed Gallagher, a 19-year-veteran, stab the teen. But one of them, in an admission that stunned the courtroom, Special Operator Corey Scott, who is also a medic, said he was the person who killed the boy when he plugged his breathing tube with his thumb in an act of mercy.
An Iraqi general testified that Gallagher did not stab the boy, and Marine Staff Sgt. Giorgio Kirylo said that he didn’t see any stab wounds on the young ISIS fighter when he moved the corpse to take a “cool guy trophy” photo with it. Navy Cmdr. Jeff Pietrzyk told the jury that while the detained Islamic fighter was not a sympathetic figure, he was under the control of the U.S. military, which meant he was no longer a lawful target. Pietrzyk also said that text messages sent by Gallagher prove his guilt. One message said: “I’ve got a cool story for you when I get back. I’ve got my knife skills on.” Another text stated: “Good story behind this. Got him with my hunting knife.” Pietrzyk then showed a photo of Gallagher holding up the dead prisoner’s head by the hair. Gallagher’s lawyers said the text was just an example of dark combat humor.
SEAL sniper Dalton Tolbert testified that he does not remember who started a group chat called “The Sewing Circle,” but the purpose of it was to connect with others who were disturbed by what they saw while deployed with Gallagher, and decide how to handle it. “I shot more warning shots to save civilians from Eddie than I ever did at ISIS. I see an issue with that,” Tolbert wrote in one of the texts. One of the members of Gallagher’s unit — Alpha Platoon, SEAL Team 7 testified that Gallagher confessed that he killed four women and two other SEAL petty officers told investigators Gallagher bragged about slaying “10-20 people a day or 150-200 people on deployment,” court documents state.
Court records state that one of the SEALS saw Gallagher fire into a crowd of what appeared to be noncombatants multiple times and another states that Gallagher claimed “he averaged three kills a day over 80 days.” Many of the SEALs that testified said that Gallagher attempted to cover up these alleged crimes by threatening to murder witnesses and embarking on a campaign to identify other whistleblowers, get them blacklisted in the special warfare community and ruin their careers. But with no body or autopsy evidence, the panel only had testimony of witnesses to review before deciding the fate of a man with a 19 year military career. Gallagher’s lawyers ultimately tried to prove that some SEALs wanted to derail Gallagher’s advancement to senior chief. Others were angry that he had been recommended for a post-tour combat valor award — the Silver Star — an honor they thought he didn’t deserve.
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Former New York City police detective, and outspoken advocate for 9/11 responders, Luis Alvarez died Saturday at the age of 53, after a three-year battle with cancer. Alvarez, woked at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks and fought for the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. His death came weeks after he testified before Congress to urge lawmakers to extend the victim compensation fund that many first responders depend on to pay their medical bills.
Alvarez spoke before Congress, alongside other 9/11 responders and former “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, urging lawmakers to extend healthcare protections for rescue workers like himself, who became sick after responding to the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in downtown Manhattan. Alvarez told Congress “ I did not want to be anywhere but Ground Zero. This fund is not a ticket to paradise. It is there to provide for our families when we can’t. Nothing more. You all said you would never forget. Well, I’m here to make sure that you don’t.”
Alvarez emphasized that future families stand not only to experience the stress of fighting these terrible illnesses but that their struggles would be compounded by the unconscionable financial burden of trying to fund their healthcare.” The House is expected to vote this month to permanently extend the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told a group of first responders last week the Senate would work to pass its authorization by August.
Alvarez was a toddler when his family moved to New York. He signed up for the Marines Corps when he was 18. He went on to join New York’s police department in 1990 and became a highly decorated officer, working undercover and on the bomb squad. After the 9/11 attacks, Alvarez spent 3 months at ground zero pulling people from the rubble and clearing away debris. He was diagnosed with cancer several years ago and underwent dozens of rounds of chemotherapy.
Alvarez, 53, a husband and father of three sons, died in hospice care surrounded by his family. He was remembered for his “tenacity and resilience” at a solemn and emotional funeral on Wednesday. After his cancer diagnoses, he showed “tenacity and resilience that even surprised his oncology team,” said his sister, Ida Lugo. “Nevertheless, chemo became his prison, his jail. Often isolating him from the world, too sick to engage. He wanted to urge our government to do the right thing,” Lugo said. “It became my brother’s dying wish, the legacy he wanted to leave that the bill protecting the Victim Compensation Fund be passed.”
Thousands came to honor the hero including family members, friends and uniformed officers, some of them in tears,. They stood at attention as two fire engines hoisted a huge American flag outside the Long Island funeral home where 53-year-old Luis Alvarez was remembered at a wake a day earlier. A hearse carrying the remains of the retired detective rolled slowly underneath it as the somber procession to the memorial service at Immaculate Conception Church in Astoria got underway.
As of Wednesday, 222 NYPD officers, including Luis Alvareaz, have died from 9/11 related illnesses. The bill to extend the Victim Compensation Fund passed a House committee in June and is awaiting a full House vote before it is taken up by the Senate.
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The New Zealand man accused of massacring Muslim worshipers in the city of Christchurch in March pleaded not guilty to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and engaging in a terrorist act. The 28-year-old Australian-born Brenton Tarrant, is an avowed white supremacist who emailed out a racist manifesto minutes before he opened fire with an assault rifle at two mosques, live-streaming his massacre on Facebook.
He live streamed 17 minutes of video which included footage of himself inside the first mosque, going room-to-room, victim to victim, shooting the wounded from close range as they struggled to crawl away and indiscriminately firing into piles of bodies. In the 6 minutes Tarrant was inside, forty-one people were killed at the Al Noor Mosque. The live streamed footage also showed the gunman casually talking and laughing as he walked out of the mosque where he shot at people near the area before driving away at high speed, heading for the Linwood Islamic Centre, about 3 miles away. Another 7 people were killed at the Linwood Mosque, an eighth victim later died in the hospital. Tarrant was apprehended as he fled the Linwood Mosque when two police officers ran his car off the road.
According to his manifesto, he started planning a revenge attack about two years prior to the attack and chose his targets three months in advance. His manifesto expressed several anti-immigrant sentiments including hate speech against migrants, white supremacist rhetoric, and calls for non-European immigrants such as Roma, Indians, Turkish people, Semitic people and others allegedly “invading his land” to be removed. He described himself as an ethno-nationalist and referred to revenge for European civilians who were casualties in Islamic terrorist attacks within Europe as motivation for his attack. He repeatedly mentioned revenge for Ebba Åkerlund, a victim in the 2017 Stockholm truck attack.
Tarrant was judged fit to stand trial after an assessment of his mental state. His pleas of not guilty raise the prospect of a lengthy trial that could give him a platform to air the white supremacist views that allegedly motivated the attack. Tarrant’s trial has been set for May of 2020. He was not in court in person in Christchurch; instead he appeared via a video link from a maximum-security prison where he’s being held in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. New Zealand abolished the death penalty in 1989 and has not executed anyone since 1957. If found guilty, Tarrant faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Eighty survivors and family members of victims watched the proceedings. After the hearing, Abdul Aziz, a survivor of the attack said “He’s a coward and he will lose.” Aziz was at Linwood Mosque during the shootings and has been hailed a hero after confronting the gunmen-ultimately stopping him from claiming as many lives at the second mosque as he did at the first. After hearing shots outside, Aziz ran outside and grabbed the first thing he could find, a credit card machine, which he threw at the gunmen. The gunmen shot at him but they played cat and mouse between cars. Then Aziz grabbed a gun that had been discarded by the attacker tried to fire at Tarrant but the gun was empty. As Tarrant ran back to his car Aziz threw the gun at his car, shattering his windshield. Tarrant yelled that he was going to kill them all but instead drove off and was apprehended by police minutes later.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that there have been 971 known cases of measles in in 26 state in the US so far this year, surpassing the number of cases during the last outbreak in 1994. Public health officials blame lower vaccination rates based on misinformation for the current surge in infected people. Public health officials blame lower vaccination rates based on misinformation for the current surge in infected people.
As many as four million people got measles each year in the United States before the vaccine became widely used, according to the C.D.C., with an estimated 400 to 500 deaths and 48,000 hospitalizations annually. Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, major outbreaks were a common global occurrence, with two to three outbreaks occurring annually. These outbreaks led to approximately 2.6 million deaths each year.
After decades of work by public health officials to educate the public about the importance of vaccination, measles was eliminated as an endemic disease in the United States in 2000. While the elimination status didn’t mean the disease was completely eradicated, it meant that the country had gone more than 12 months without “continuous disease transmission.”
The C.D.C. pointed to a continuing outbreak in New York City and Rockland County, N.Y., as posing a particular public health threat. There have been 550 confirmed cases of measles in New York City since September 2018. Rockland County officials said another 254 cases of measles had been reported there as of May 28. Measles is a highly contagious virus that can cause serious respiratory symptoms, fever and rash, as well as permanent deafness or encephalitis in severe cases, according to the C.D.C.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia require vaccinations for children entering kindergarten, however all states also provide medical exemptions to these requirements and some states also offer exemptions for religious and philosophical reasons. Some states are taking precautionary measures to stop the outbreak. Maine became the fourth state, along with California, Mississippi and West Virginia, to end most nonmedical exemptions for childhood vaccines. Earlier this year, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency in heavily Hasidic portions of Brooklyn, mandating that people who have not been vaccinated receive fines. Health workers have been offering free vaccines in the affected Brooklyn neighborhoods.
Measles is highly contagious and if one person has it, 90% of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected. The measles virus can live for up to two hours in a space where the infected person coughed or sneezed. If other people breathe the contaminated air or touch the infected surface, then touch their eyes, noses, or mouths, they can become infected. Infected people can spread measles to others from four days before through four days after the rash appears- meaning infected people are spreading the disease before they even know they have it.
The best protection against measles is measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, which provides long-lasting protection against all strains of measles. Your child needs two doses of MMR vaccine for best protection – the first dose at 12 through 15 months of age, the second dose 4 through 6 years of age.
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