1 dead, several injured after vehicle drives into crowd
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(LONDON) — At least one person was killed and several injured when a car drove into a crowd of people in Mannheim, southwestern Germany, on Monday, police said.
“According to current findings, a car drove into a group of people in Mannheim city center,” the force said in a statement. “According to the current status of the investigation, one person was killed and several people were injured.”
“No information can be given yet on the number and severity of the injuries,” the police added. “As part of the search measures that were immediately initiated, a suspect was identified and arrested. No further, reliable information can currently be released beyond the information published so far.”
Police said that all bridges and main roads were under their control. Police also appealed to the public to stay away from the city center.
Video footage from Paradeplatz in the center of Mannheim showed shoppers standing outside a police cordon with objects strewn across the road, including a shoe. First responders could be seen tending to at least one apparently injured person.
Mannheim has a population 326,000 and lies about 52 miles south of Frankfurt.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti and Zoe Magee contributed to this report.
(ROME and LONDON) — Pope Francis’ condition remained stable on Tuesday, and his prognosis remains reserved, according to the Vatican.
The pope had needed medical intervention amid two episodes of “acute respiratory failure” on Monday, Vatican sources told ABC News.
The pope did not have any episodes of respiratory failure or bronchospasm on Tuesday, according to the Vatican.
Pope Francis has remained “alert, cooperating with therapy and oriented,” the Vatican’s press office, the Holy See, said. He underwent “high-flow oxygen therapy and respiratory physiotherapy” on Tuesday, the Vatican said.
He will resume noninvasive mechanical ventilation overnight and into Wednesday morning, “as planned,” according to the Vatican.
The pope, 88, was taken off noninvasive mechanical ventilation and resumed receiving supplemental oxygen through a nasal tube, Vatican sources said Tuesday. He was no longer wearing a mechanical ventilation mask, a device that pumped oxygen into his lungs, the sources said.
The Holy See had earlier on Tuesday said the pontiff “slept all night” and that “now he continues his rest.”
The episodes on Monday were caused by a “significant accumulation of endobronchial mucus and consequent bronchospasm,” the Vatican said.
According to doctors, acute respiratory failure indicates the pope was not responding to oxygen therapy. Endobronchial mucus means there is mucus and fluid in the deep parts of the lung or lungs, causing a bronchospasm, also known as a coughing attack, doctors said.
The pope’s prognosis “remains reserved,” the Vatican said in its Monday evening update.
Francis, who has led the Catholic Church since 2013, was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on Feb. 14 and was diagnosed with bilateral pneumonia. The pontiff had a bronchospasm attack on Friday, church officials said.
ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(TEL AVIV, Israel) — Three weeks ago, Hamdan Ballal stood on the stage at the Oscars, golden statue in hand, winner of the award for best documentary as the co-director of “No Other Land.” It was an inspiring moment of unity and coexistence.
On Tuesday, bloodied and bruised, he spoke to ABC News on the phone from a hospital bed in Hebron in the West Bank.
“I’m afraid,” Ballal said. “Really, I’m afraid. I feel, when they attack me, I will lose my life.”
Ballal said he was severely beaten at the hands of Jewish settlers at his home on Monday, just outside the village of Susiya.
Settlers had come into the village throwing stones and harassing residents, including his neighbor, something Ballal says had been happening with increasing frequency since his Oscar win earlier this month.
He started filming before rushing home to his family, trying to block settlers from coming into his house. That’s when the attack began, he said, with several men attacking his head and body, including hitting him with guns.
“It was a hard, hard attack,” Ballal said. “You know, I feel I will die, because this attack was so hard, I bleed from everywhere. I’m crying from deeply in my heart. I feel pain everywhere in my body. So, they continue attacking me like 15-20 minutes.”
He said that, in addition to a plainclothes settler, there were two men present he described as “soldiers with guns,” although he could not say for sure who they were or which Israeli authority they might have represented.
The Israel Defense Forces and Israel Police have denied being involved in any beating.
Israeli authorities said that Ballal was detained along with several others on suspicion of throwing stones, damaging property and compromising the security of the area. A Jewish settler was arrested, as well.
The Palestinians — including Ballal — were questioned, held overnight and ultimately released “on conditions that include not contacting other people involved and self-bail,” according to a police statement.
Police say the investigation is continuing, but Ballal strongly denies he did anything wrong.
“I didn’t throw stones, I didn’t do any problems with the settlers,” Ballal said. “The settlers came attacking me and beating me. That’s it.”
Ballal’s Oscar-winning documentary focused on a community’s attempts to resist forced expulsion of Palestinians from a southern area of the West Bank by the Israeli government.
The number of Israeli settlers has dramatically increased in the West Bank in recent decades.
Palestinians, human rights groups and the United Nations have accused them of playing an unofficial role in the attempted displacement of Palestinians through the West Bank, with extremists carrying out violent attacks designed to intimidate, instill fear and ultimately force people out of a place they have called home for generations.
“The settler violence has worsened considerably since the war,” said Sari Bashi, a program director at Human Rights Watch. “The people whom the army doesn’t directly displace are left to fend for themselves among violent settlers who scare them off their land.”
Critics say the right-wing coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, at best, turned a blind eye to the violence and, at worst, outright encouraged it, with the ultimate goal, according to prominent settler activists and some far-right members of the government, of annexing the West Bank entirely.
The government has denied responsibility for settler violence and has primarily blamed Palestinians for the continued unrest, though sometimes it blames settlers as well. Netanyahu’s government, which refers to the West Bank by its biblical names of Judea and Samaria, argues that the area is replete with terrorist activity that targets Israelis both in West Bank settlements and inside Israel. The government argues its actions in the West Bank are necessary to keep Israelis safe.
Activists often say that the Israeli Police and the IDF, who have security control over most of the West Bank, fail to protect them from settler attacks or adequately prosecute cases of settler violence. The IDF intervenes when scuffles between settlers and activists escalate, but prosecuting settler violence is rare. From 2005 to 2024, only 3% of more than 1,000 investigations ended in convictions, according to the nongovernmental organization Yesh Din.
The settlers often cite a deep religious imperative for their actions. Others view attacks as vengeance for deadly Palestinian terror attacks. Many routinely deny responsibility for the West Bank acts of violence that have risen in recent years but have gone on for decades.
Ballal was released from the hospital on Tuesday. ABC News asked why he chose to speak publicly if he is afraid for his life.
“I’ve been afraid like this since I was born, until now,” Ballal said. “So, I have to speak. Yes, I’m afraid, but I live this situation all my life. So I hope, I hope, because I speak with [ABC News], it can change something.”
ABC News’ Guy Davies, Mike Pappano and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
(APPLETON, WI) — A young Wisconsin man died from an asthma attack after the price of his inhaler skyrocketed nearly $500, according to a lawsuit filed by his family.
Cole Schmidtknecht, 22, suffered from asthma, a chronic disease, that he treated with an Advair Diskus inhaler that allegedly cost him no more than $66.
That cost changed last year when OptumRx, a subsidiary of United Health Group, stopped coverage for the inhaler Schidtknecht used for a decade, the lawsuit alleges.
On Jan. 10, 2024, Schmidtknecht went to his local Optum Rx-Walgreens pharmacy in Appleton, Wisconsin, expecting to fill his usual prescription when he was advised by Walgreens that his medication was no longer covered by his insurance and would cost him $539.19 out of pocket, according to the lawsuit.
He was given no notice and, the lawsuit said, Walgreens did not offer him a generic alternative “and further told Cole that there were no cheaper alternatives or generic medications available.”
Unable to afford the inhaler, the lawsuit alleges he left the store without it. “Over the next five days, Cole repeatedly struggled to breathe, relying solely on his old ‘rescue’ (emergency) inhaler to limit his symptoms, because he did not have a preventative inhaler designed for daily use,” his family claims in the lawsuit.
On Jan. 15, 2024, Schmidtknecht was driven to an emergency room by his roommate for a severe asthma attack, but “became unresponsive and pulseless in the car,” before reaching the ER according to the lawsuit.
After receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the ER, Schmidtknecht spent days in an intensive care unit and never woke up. He was pronounced dead on Jan. 21 after life-supporting care was stopped, the lawsuit states.
His parents are now suing Walgreens, its parent company Boots Alliance and Optum Rx, the pharmacy benefits manager, for negligence.
“Defendant Optum Rx had a duty to not artificially inflate prescription drug prices for medications such as Advair Diskus for insured patients, including Cole Schmidtknecht, making them so unaffordable that patients could not obtain the medications their physicians prescribed,” the lawsuit said.
In a statement to ABC News, Optum Rx said that Schmidtknecht filled a generic Albuterol prescription, an inhaler used to stop asthma attacks, on Jan. 10, 2024, with a $5 copay, adding that the same drug was previously filled in October 2023 by him.
The prescription service said that it “also has available clinically appropriate options and formulary information” for when medication is not covered by a provider.
In the lawsuit, Schmidtknecht’s family claims “Walgreens Defendants failed to exercise reasonable care in that they knew, or should have known, of the unreasonable risk of harm to asthmatic patients, including Cole Schmidtknecht, that would result from their failing to provide him with Advair Diskus or a medically equivalent alternative medication at an affordable price at the point of service.”
Walgreens declined to comment on the litigation when ABC News reached out for a comment.
Just a few months after Schmidtknecht’s death, the makers of Advair, GSK, announced in March 2024 that starting January 2025 the most people will pay out of pocket for their inhaler is $35 a month.
GSK joined other manufacturers of inhalers in capping the out-of-pocket cost for inhalers, something Sen.Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who chairs the HELP Committee commented on at the time.
“The three largest manufacturers of inhalers in the world have all committed to cap the cost of inhalers in the United States at no more than $35 at the pharmacy counter,” he said.
Dr. Jade Cobern, MD, MPH, who is board-certified in pediatrics and general preventive medicine, recommended individuals who suddenly see an increase in medication cost or can no longer afford it speak to their provider about alternatives, check for current discounts to lower out-of-pocket costs by using an app like GoodRx or reach out to the manufacturer for assistance or possible rebates.
“If you are struggling to breathe it is imperative that you seek medical help immediately through your doctor, by going to the emergency room or by calling 911,” Cobern said.
